How your kid(s) can make you a better project manager?

Don't get surprise by this statement, but it is true to the fact. I have two young kids one at the age of 6 years and another about 9 months at the time of writing this blog, phenomenal what you can learn from them. I am sure lots of other parents have similar experiences

Here are the comparative analysis as how kids can make you a better project manager

#1

I am always struck by a statement 'Kids do what you do, but kids don't do what you say', this is like mirror reflection of your habits/character. You should led by example to your team(s) at all the times.

#2

Kids have very short span of attention, the only way to get your message across to them by communicating effectively and talking to them regularly. Many studies says that, you need to spend at least few hours of time in a day with your kids to build strong relationship.

It is the same principle apply to your team, your positive relationship with your team(s), effective communication at every stage of project life cycle leads to a project success.

#3

How to handle kids acts, sometimes you may not like it! the best way to deal with it by explaining the consequences of continuing the negative acts. Similarly, you may come across negative behavior(s) of your team member(s), how to deal with it? Same formula applies as above,explain the impact to the project and the consequences of continuing or repetition in the future

#4

Reward for good work, for example, in my son's school the teacher sends a day report with a star each for good work and behavior. A student can earn two stars in a day and 10 stars in week for their good performance. I have told my son if he gets 10 stars in a week, he would earn an ice-cream of his choice at a local ice-cream shop, these days I could rarely find any thing less than 10 stars.

Similarly, project managers need to set the performance bench mark to the team members and or teams, the team (or individual team member) meeting or exceeding the benchmark must be rewarded appropriately.

#5

When I used to take my son to a shop when he was at 4+ years of age, he would ask me everything to buy from the first isle(row) to the last isle(row). So, I have started setting some basic expectations by telling 'importance of saving money', 'keeping limited choices', 'how to compromise' etc., now he understands better and matured

Similarly, setting clear goals and expectations of a team helps the project to succeed. We (PMs) should always keep two levels of expectations for a team, first should be a 'common set of expectations' that applies to any project or task in the organization and second to be a 'Project specific expectations'.

more to come in this article....

Sameer Penakalapati