The Path To Project Success, Not The March Toward Failure

Based in Detroit, GTB is a dynamic global communications agency that collaborates across virtually every medium. At GTB, Ned handles a team of 70+ highly eminent project managers, who takes businesses to a whole new level.

- Ned Johnson

As a project manager, I am expected to lead and motivate a team, stay two steps ahead and break down barriers. I must position myself at the center of the project and be the go-to person for answers. I need to be the leader who gains and maintains control of the project team. If I were on a stage, the spotlight should be shining on me.

This view of the project manager as a ruler is attractive and oftentimes expected because all too many technology project teams face what Edward Yourdan, a pioneer in software engineering methodology, called “the project death march.” In short, many technology projects are destined to fail because of unrealistic expectations in schedule and scope. Who is better to lead a project team on a death march than a ruler?

A truly successful technology project manager is not one who can lead on a death march but one who, through early team engagement, avoids that trap.

A project manager should indeed put himself at the center of the project, but that center spot is not that of the lead actor; it is that of the lead communicator. A more precise description might be the stage manager who knows where and when to point the spotlight and turn up the microphone for the right player at the right time.