There are many project management systems out there. From Gantt Charts to Asana, there are lots of ways to organise a project. The danger is that people feel like project management is an exam in data entry form-filling rather than focusing on how to get things done.
On our Project Management training courses at Aspire, we have delegates with a range of diEerent working methods and levels of experience. We draw on many theoretical and practical approaches, encompassing elements of task and people management, to support managers as they embark on their next projects. Here are some of the questions that often crop up in the training room:
How can we adopt proper project management without getting bogged down in endless admin and systems?
Project management is more about human alignment and resource stewardship than generating endless Gantt charts nobody reads. That means finding the lightest, most appropriate structure to keep people aligned and bring a project to a clear, successful conclusion.
So before picking a system, it’s important that anyone managing a project understands the underlying principles and shared language around the Project Cycle:
• Start & Plan: Setting well-defined outcomes and mapping the essentials rather than documenting every trivial task.
• Do & Control: Active monitoring and evolving the plan as you go, so the project is dynamic.
• Review & End: Formally closing down, handing over to operations, and celebrating success, so energy recharges for the next project.
Do our managers actually need a formal qualification (like PRINCE2 or PMP), or do they just need practical project leadership skills?
There’s no question that formal project management qualifications can be helpful. Members of our team have them. They can be really useful for providing a pathway through complex projects and for benchmarking an individual’s skills in a way that can
be recognised by other organisations. However, qualifications aren’t essential. Whether you pick a formal qualification or not, it’s worth remembering that methodology manuals give you the syntax of project management, but they don’t teach you how to motivate an overworked team or influence a diEicult stakeholder. The commercial success of a project relies on winning hearts and minds. Project management is about leadership, not just process.
We base our practical project leadership approach on Aristotle’s Theory of Persuasion:
Logos (Logic): That’s the plan, critical path analysis, and resource allocation.
Pathos (Emotion): Tapping into personal motivation and building genuine enthusiasm across the delivery team.
Ethos (Ethics & Values): Aligning the project’s purpose with broader organisational values and stakeholder expectations.
How do I hold people accountable when I’m not their line manager, and they’re already flat out?
Matrix management involves many project plans that can be broken down. Project managers are routinely expected to deliver critical outcomes through colleagues who report to someone else and are already underwater with their day jobs.
To create accountability, it’s important for project managers to:
• Define exactly who needs to be on board, their specific role, and the tailored communication plan for each.
• Clarify roles early so everyone knows where they stand and what is expected of them.
• Uncover what individual team members gain personally from the project to unlock motivation.
And then they are skilled in giving feedback to hold people to account and celebrate success.
Why do projects so often go off the rails, even when you start with a solid plan?
Project failure is rarely caused by a flawed Gantt Chart. It is more likely to happen when people are working under pressure and don’t get stuE (technical term) done. So, a project manager needs to understand not just who their stakeholders are, but also their context, and factor it into their risk and contingency planning. The mindset for the project manager is one of curiosity – Tools like the 5 Whys and a Fishbone diagram are ways of engaging curiosity about what is at the heart of a problem. Many people contributing to work projects are doing so alongside many other tasks. So the successful project manager is the one who can use open questions to understand what is happening for all the people involved in the project, and then be curious about how that might impact the project plan.
