Using a Project Management Methodology to Increase Morale

The existence of a standard project management methodology should be a requirement on every project. Furthermore, if due attention is paid to a few elements of this methodology, it will lead to a higher sense of team and greater morale of team members.

The Project Charter
The Project Charter needs to exist and needs to be communicated to the whole team. In this way, everyone will have an idea of the goals that they are working towards. Additionally, the title of the project once communicated with the Project Charter will act as a unifying factor for the team.

Developing the Project Management Plan
If all the team members are involved and their input is considered during the development of the Project Management Plan, and said plan is then communicated to all team members, everyone will have a stake in ensuring the successful execution of this plan, since the success of the project will reflect the team’s competence.

Presence of Integrated Change Control
The morale of a team can be hurt severely due to continuous changes to the baselines, scope, PMIS tools or any other element of the project. Often such changes will result in the prior efforts of the team or individual team members being wasted, and thus the team will feel like they put in a lot of effort for nothing. To avoid such scenarios, an integrated change control procedure should be developed and the process of approving and rejecting changes to the baselines, scope, PMIS tools etc., should be communicated to the team in order to assure them that their concerns are being looked after. Ideally, (though not possible in all industries & applications), the team members can be involved in the change approval / rejection process themselves.

Closing the Project
At the end of a project - particularly in projectized organizations using contract labor - the project team is suddenly released from the project and they find themselves without a home. Since the project manager has prior knowledge of the closing of the project, he can communicate the closing of the project to the team in a proactive manner. The administrative closure procedure can also have specific provisions on giving prior notice to the team of the upcoming end of the project.

Since the most important resources on a project are the human resources and, the success and failure of the project depends highly upon the performance of the team as a whole, the Project Management Methodology can be used as a tool to increase team morale and unify them. After all, there should be no ‘I’ in Project Management Methodology.

© 2009 Saad Farooqi