As the end of my training period draws closer, I want to reflect on the topic of leadership – specifically being project lead – and the challenges, the methods and the experience. I will try to provide a concise compilation of all the tips that I have gathered from my experience as project lead as well as witnessing my cohort in that role.
To those of you that take on the role of project lead in the first week, hats off to you! Why? Because as first project lead you’re diving into unchartered waters but so is the rest of your cohort. Which means that your job is harder to navigate as you must not only find your way but also steer your team on to the correct path. Therefore, I believe this advice is most useful to the first project lead as I hope it will unburden you and shed some light on the experience of taking on this responsibility.
The first and most obvious advice I have is to be prepared. Be prepared for obstacles. Be prepared for running out of time. Be prepared for technology letting you down. Our cohort has been fortunate enough to consist of team members that are supportive, conscientious, and all over thoughtful. This may not be the case in every cohort but I’m glad to have been a part of such an amazing team of people. My advice, though, for if you are not as fortunate, is that you yourself need to uphold these qualities and be patient with your team. Of course, that is easier said than done.
As project lead, stress is inevitable but ensure your stress is not bearing down on your team members. Maintain a positive attitude; because, as project lead you need to be that solid pillar that your team can rely on. For I assure you, they are feeling just as overwhelmed as you are – if not more so. That is exactly why you need to understand your team-mates, which leads me to the next point.
Communication. Communication. Communication. I can’t emphasise that enough. It’s vital to team driven projects. It’s the absolute most essential requirement to any team. Not everyone is equally skilled at it, but as a team, you must overcome the barriers that impede communication within your group. You must find effective ways to both receive information and share it – from you to your team, and from them to each other.
In addition, when your team is working on individual tasks, they can easily get caught up in their own work and, often, they experience ‘tunnel vision’ which can lead them away from seeing that someone else might be working on the same thing as them. In which case they should discuss it, ensure that they have the same calculations and the same formatting (because the final formatting of your dashboard is important to remain consistent).
This is where you come in. As the project lead, you must see the bigger picture and recognise all the connections. This responsibility falls on you: to help your team break out of tunnel vision and understand how everything fits together. You have to guide them to where they can get help and who they should talk to because someone else might already have the solution they’re breaking their heads over.
Lend your ear. Sometimes all they need is someone to hear them out and to put their doubts and challenges into words. Ensure that no one is shouldering more workload than others. It’s a team effort and not one member should have to produce more results than the rest.
Understand the different tasks and responsibilities that are involved. Sometimes data preparation is a task of its own – separate from visualisation. It may seem like a job with little glory or excitement compared to building dashboards or reports, but it plays a crucial role in enabling and enhancing meaningful analysis. So, keep in mind that this role might need to be assigned – perhaps not in every project, but certainly in some.
There are many project leadership styles that can be adopted but not all are applicable to every project. So don’t get stuck in thinking about “I need to create a Scrum board” or something like that; you need to be flexible. You can hold stand-ups, where everyone stops what they’re doing and they stand-up and take turns to talk about their progress and challenges. This is an effective strategy to get your team to think out loud and to step away from the screen, simultaneously allowing you to understand their progress. This must be used effectively, preferably once a day in the morning before you continue.
Another option is to have a “share screen meeting”, where everyone gets to show what they’ve been working on and receive feedback – be aware that this does take up a lot of time. Nonetheless, it can be extremely useful to see actual progress and get feedback on the numbers, formatting and visualisations being utilised.
Make use of project management tools like Asana, Monday.com or Teams planner to schedule in meetings, stand-ups, deadlines and anything else important to your project – with enough notice. These tools are useful in the beginning of a project week. This is especially true for the first few client project weeks. It helps everyone keep track and keep accountable for what they’re doing what their progress is. On the flip side, you will notice that it starts to spiral out of control by Thursday and that’s perfectly normal as it’s extremely rare for all to go as planned (I would be suspicious if it did go as planned). So don’t panic and don’t expect the schedule to be concrete.
Ensure you plan time for a mock presentation (presentation run through). This allows everyone in your team to get final feedback and to ensure their nerves don’t get the best of them. Particularly for those that are more anxious with public speaking and need that extra practice.
In summary, my advice to the next set of project leaders can be surmised as:
- Ensure there’s an open communication channel,
- guide your team members, when possible,
- manage tasks fairly,
- hold meetings (stand-ups or share screen),
- use project management tools or calendars to create a schedule,
- plan for practice presentations,
Finally, be patient, be positive, be project lead.
