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7 Habits of Effective Project Managers (Joe Curran)

Monday, 22 August 2011 | Van Rooyen, Karin

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Knowledge, skills, tools and techniques can be acquired from a number of areas, and these areas are not limited strictly to the domain of Project Management.

Here we consider the relevance of the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey, and how these habits can be applied to the realm of Project Management, to make you a more effective Project Manager.

A habit is defined as: "the intersection of knowledge, skill and desire." To make habits, we need to develop all three of these components. As Covey reminds us, "You cannot talk your way out of something you behaved yourself into."

The 7 Habits are:

1. Be Proactive The Habit of having Personal Vision. This habit is characterized by Proactive instead of Reactive language. For example, "I choose to go" instead of "I have to go." Effective project management requires this positive and proactive approach to thinking and planning ahead, anticipating events and scheduling accordingly.
2. Begin with the End in Mind The Habit of Personal Leadership has an underlying principle that believes mental creation precedes physical activity, and that we envision the desired results and important values to guide our activities and endeavours before starting out. Effective project management benefits from having a clear understanding of the project goal, objectives and deliverables before starting the activities to produce them.
3. Put First Things First The Habit of Personal Management is an underlying principle which states that effectiveness requires balancing important relationships, roles and activities. The focus is on importance instead of urgency, and learning to say "No" to the unimportant. The key is not to prioritize your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
4. Think "Win-Win" The underlying principle of the Habit of Interpersonal Leadership is that effective, long term relationships require mutual benefit, and that we persist in looking for win-win outcomes despite past win-lose conditioning. For example, "a courageous effort" is a win-win, whereas "always being nice" is not. Effective project management relies on Win-Win thinking, where Integrity, Maturity and an Abundance Mentality are necessary to manage and deliver on realistic stakeholder expectations.
5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood The Habit of Emphatic Communication shows that diagnosis must precede prescription, and that understanding comes through the use of emphatic listening. Emphatic listening requires listening and responding with both the heart and mind to understand the speaker‘s words, intentions and feelings. The basic skill of Empathic listening is helping the speaker feel understood. Effective project management requires that we overcome our natural tendency to hastily diagnose, jump to conclusions, defend ourselves and push our opinions on other people. This will inevitably lead to our interpersonal communications becoming more effective.
6. Synergise The Habit of Creative Cooperation proposes that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and that working together cooperatively takes time but produces long-term results. The essence of synergy is valuing the differences. For example, "cooperating" is a synergizing process, whereas a "win-lose competition" is not. Effective project management encourages us to network with others, and it is these types of opportunities where we interact with people of different abilities and styles of thinking that will lead to synergy.
7. Sharpen the Saw The Habit of Renewal. Production (results) requires development of production capacity (resources). This habit encourages us to set and achieve goals for renewal in the physical, mental, spiritual and social / emotional dimensions. We can "Sharpen the Saw" in physical, mental, spiritual and social areas. Effective project management is dependent on each of us maintaining and improving the skills that help us accomplish our work. These skills can be in the area of project management, domain expertise or interpersonal skills, and may extend to formal certification in some cases.