Many Project Managers have a tendency to keep problems to themselves.
They feel if they share the problems with either team members or other stakeholders, people will think that the Project Manager is not competent enough.
Often, that thinking increases the problems.
No matter how brilliant you are, you may or may not be able to find answers to the problem in a timely manner. Your blood pressure will increase and quality of your life (and thus the quality of team members’ life and the project at large) will decrease.
Here are some benefits of sharing the problems with others:
- Bring more minds in the game; increase the possibility of solving.
- Other people’s perspectives may help you get better clarity about the very definition of the problem.
- Who knows if someone might have encountered a problem in their past and may know the answer.
- You might get out of the box solutions to the problems – that is not to solve the problem itself but fix something else so the problem becomes irrelevant.
You create more possibilities for solving the problems when you share them with others. Collaboration is a must-have soft skill for every project manager.
To collaborate, communication skill becomes very important. So communicate more.
Just don’t communicate when you have to, but communicate because you want to.
Be proactive and see the difference in results!
