How to Set Goals as a Project Manager

The biggest thing that helped me become a better PMM was carving out time for strategic thinking, no matter how busy I was. Why is this important? -> Tactical work alone won’t advance your career. You need to think far with a strategic vision and have the ability to execute. -> Strategic clarity reduces decision fatigue and eliminates random tasks that don’t lead to real outcomes. -> It helps you identify opportunities to innovate and create net new value for the business. -> Teams naturally follow people who think beyond the immediate. Here’s how I do it (and how you can too): 1️⃣ Block time for deep thinking It’s very hard to focus on strategic work if you are always busy in meetings or putting out fires. So the first step is to make TIME. Dedicate 30–60 minutes daily to uninterrupted, quiet thinking even if it means waking up earlier. I also block Wed and Friday mornings for extended work sessions. Find a time that works with your natural productivity. 2️⃣ Prioritize what to focus on (and not focus on) Strategy also means saying no, or not now. Use my Action/Priority Matrix to identify and focus on high-impact tasks, while deferring, delegating or eliminating the rest. Communicate your priorities to your manager for transparency. Remember part of strategy is also saying no. https://lnkd.in/eDd_PvuN 3️⃣ Create project plans Before jumping into a project, no matter how big or small (even if it’s just creating a piece of content), get into the habit of writing out a project plan, including who, how, what, when, why, KPIs, milestones, and key stakeholders. This forces you to think AHEAD, create a repeatable structure, and helps you easily drive alignment with others. 4️⃣ Review long-term goals often Regularly assess how your day-to-day work aligns with your big-picture vision/strategy. Realignment ensures you’re always working toward meaningful outcomes. I suggest doing a monthly review and then communicating what you’d like to start, stop, and continue, with your manager. This also shows you are proactive. 5️⃣ Talk it out with a thought partner or coach Clarity doesn’t always come on your own. Talking through your ideas with someone who can ask the right questions or challenge your assumptions is invaluable. My clients often come to me with a jumble of (great) thoughts, and we untangle them to pull the thread together and uncover the strategy. — Carving out time for strategic thinking isn’t just about blocking time - it’s about making that time effective by doing the right thing and creating the right system. What would you add? #productmarketing #strategy #career #growth #coaching

I've managed $500M+ in projects over the years. The successful ones were all built around the same 10 principles: Give me 3 min, and I'll show you how you can lead your next project with confidence. 1️⃣ Start with Why Most project managers think they’re paid to produce deliverables. That’s bogus. Every project exists to create value. What’s the driving reason behind yours? Dig deeper than the first answer. Your project's purpose becomes a compass for decisions—and a powerful narrative to align and motivate your team. 2️⃣ Define “Conditions of Satisfaction” If your client, architect, and field team aren’t aligned on the definition of done, you’ll never truly finish. Before diving into details, clarify what you’re building and how success will be measured. Get expectations on paper. Show sketches. Build mockups. Whatever it takes. Your goal: never have the “Wait—I thought we were doing XYZ” conversation. 3️⃣ Know the Constraints Every project is defined by five levers: • Time • Scope • Budget • Quality • Value Only one (maybe two) truly matter to the client. Know what you’re optimizing for so you can make smart tradeoffs. 4️⃣ Get the Right People Your project will never be better than the people on it. You don’t need warm bodies. You need the right people in the right roles. Build your team around functions, not names. Set expectations early. Give feedback often. 5️⃣ Big Goals, Small Steps Break your project into major deliverables—then smaller chunks. Boulders -> Rocks -> Pebbles -> Sand Use tools like product breakdowns, sketches, and process flows. 6️⃣ Build a Real Timeline Every construction job has key milestones. Use pull planning, Takt, & LPS to lay out each step with realistic durations. Validate your plan with your team. Then—and only then—negotiate. 7️⃣ Risk Management Something WILL go wrong. Build a Risk Register early. Review it weekly. Rank risks by impact × likelihood. Use the TAME framework: - Transfer - Accept - Mitigate - Eliminate Antifragile projects absorb shocks. Fragile ones shatter. 8️⃣ Dealing With Change A single change won't hurt you. 100 will. Standardize how changes are submitted, evaluated, approved, and communicated. Track every change in a central log and communicate it widely. 9️⃣ Tools & Processes Your tools exist to do 3 things: - Communicate - Coordinate - Document Don’t chase shiny features. Choose tools your team will actually use. Then build repeatable processes around approvals, onboarding, access, etc. 🔟 Stakeholder Communication Most projects fall apart because of miscommunication. Map your key stakeholders. Spend 80% of your time on the 20% who can make or break your job. Tailor how and when you communicate to meet their needs. - - - - - 📌 P.S. Interested in project leadership? Join 7,500+ construction pros who read The Influential Project Manager—a free weekly newsletter with 1 idea to lead people and predict outcomes. Every Tuesday.

PMs have all the accountability. With none of the authority. Getting others to do what you need them to do can be tough. Managers' and directors' gigs aren't easy, but at least they're in a position of authority. As for project managers? Not so much. Which means you need your own set of tactics. Since there's nothing you can do to 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘭 a team member to get their stuff done. Cialdini's landmark book "Influence" is full of great advice on subtly accomplishing this. a. Reciprocity b. Commitment & Consistency c. Social Proof d. Authority e. Liking f. Scarcity g. Unity But personally, I prefer a more direct approach: public accountability. How does it work? Here are the steps: 1/ 𝘿𝙚𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙗𝙟𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙨 Collaborate with sponsors and stakeholders to spell out what you're meant to accomplish. Ensure you have complete buy-in before moving from this step. 2/ 𝙊𝙧𝙜𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙯𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙨 Sit down with your project team members to mark down all of the tasks (with dependencies) that are required to accomplish your defined objectives. Make sure all of your team members are at the table. Spend as much time on this as it takes to get it right. 3/ 𝘼𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙜𝙣 𝙤𝙬𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙙𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 For every task from the previous step, identify a single owner who is responsible for the task's completion. Ascribe durations to the tasks. Ask the owners what must be accomplished before their work can begin and/or finish. Ensure that it's marked as a dependency if it was missed in the previous step. 4/ 𝙑𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙙𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙨 𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩 In round-robin style, ask every task owner if they believe the list of tasks is accurate. Do not ask this of the group; 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗱𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆. 5/ 𝙂𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙗𝙪𝙮-𝙞𝙣 Socialize the plan with the sponsors and/or steering committee. (Milestones should be sufficient.) Ask for concerns about timing and duration. Answer all questions and get final approval. 6/ 𝙋𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙡𝙮 𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙫𝙨. 𝙖𝙩 𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙠 Meet as a project team regularly. Review current and past due tasks *with the task owner PROMINENTLY identified*. Do this religiously so people know it's coming and will prepare accordingly. Be supportive of task owners who fall behind, and show support to their supervisor as you make them aware of deliverables that are at risk or overdue. ~~~ Be firm but fair. This will build your credibility and ensure that team members know what's expected of them. Any problems that arise become a concern related to the process rather than with individuals. Do this over the duration of the project--and then for subsequent projects--and you'll become recognized as a process-oriented project manager with high standards. People want to work with a PM who has high standards, and who holds others to high standards as well. ____ 👋 Follow me Timothy Morgan for more about IT project management.

8 simple (not easy) principles to make sure you actually hit your goals. A lotta people set crazy ambitious goals and then fall flat. I've done it more times than I care to remember. It's not because we're not good at our jobs - it's because we tend to overestimate what we can get done in a given time period. Here are my 8 rules to setting bulletproof goals - feel free to steal them 💨 1. Solve A Clear Problem You gotta describe what you're solving in 1-3 sentences. If you can't do that, you haven't really thought it through yet. Don't forget to include why NOW is the right time to actually solve it. 2. Set A Time Limit A good goal fits in a box. Sometimes it's a quarter, sometimes it's a sprint, sometimes it's a day. Doesn't matter - but it's gotta have a time limit Parkinson's Law will lay the smackdown on you. 3. Zoom In On The Metrics A good bit of work has less to do with what you're doing, and more to do with the results that you're driving. Get super dialed on how you're going to measure success (before the work starts). 4. Keep Solutions Flexible Goals in pen, plans in pencil. It's dangerous to fall in love with the way you THOUGHT you were gonna solve a problem. Don't overbuild your solution in the beginning - stay nimble. 5. Remember To Get Smarter You gotta pick your head up and look around a bit. I guarantee you that you have "unknown unknowns" - things that you haven't even remotely considered yet - and you won't learn them until you start. But you've gotta stay receptive to new information, so it can change your plans as you go. 6. Create The Behaviors You Need Spoiler Alert - results aren't magic. They're driven by behaviors. Call you shot (results) and then immediately shift focus onto the behaviors - the STANDARDS OF DAILY ACTION that are needed in order to drive the goal forward. 7. Update Progress Weekly Take action daily, measure results weekly - it's simple, but not always easy. Even if it's qualitative, measure how you're doing every Friday and share it with your team. 8. Capture The Lessons Learned At the end of every goal, I complete a quick three-question retrospective: - Was this successful? Why or why not? - What were my key metrics (goals vs. actuals)? - What would I do differently next time? This process is always evolving, but this is what I've refined it down to - I feel like it's the most potent stuff without any of the "productivity theatre" that tends to come along with goal setting structures. Anything I'm missing? Drop it in the comments 👇

It's not just about setting goals for the company/department/team, it's about how you *operationalize* them. Here are my 8 steps to consider for for actioning the goals you just decided on. I love this time of the year, I really do. Everyone is buzzing with goals – and the team is (hopefully!) feeling energized. But like personal new years resolutions, you start to see the excitement and clarity fizzle out in the upcoming months. Work happens. Requests happen. Fire drills and pivots happen. It's naive to believe the team will remember the goals if we don't exhaustively repeat and document them, too. Just because we mentioned it in a call or meeting doesn't equate to 100% recall. Here are the 8 steps I saw work in-house to combat this and operationalize the goals (they need a plan!): 1. Set the goals at the company-level and ensure they cascade down (Company > department > team > individual) 2. Document these goals in a series of documents correlated to the audience waterfall (The company ones should be readily available for anyone to find -- pinning in a general channel is a great option, dept. ones in dept. channels, etc.) 3. Ensure you discuss and/or document how you backed into the goals (what's the why and the how) and link to where you're tracking the progress/performance (transparency) 4. Have dept./team leads decide on their goals that back into the company goals (bonus points if the leads bring in their ICs to the process, too) -- being part of the process gives into more buy-in 5. Use 1-1s to ensure *everyone* understands the company, dept., and team goals, and then use this time to discuss their individual goals that tie into these 6. Designate team owners of the goals (ideally not managers). These are the champions for that individual goal, and have a responsibility to: 1) Create a document for that individual goal 2) Create a work roadmap to achieve the goal 3) Track & report on the goal 4) work with stakeholders to project manage the work. I find this step SO helpful - and where the magic of operationalizing comes into play. This document can also be a table of contents that hyperlinks out to individual project briefs and other documents for the work. I know this may feel like documentation overload, but it's absolutely needed. It creates clarity. 7. Repeat the goals exhaustively. Anyone should be able to rattle off the goals at any time if you repeat it enough – power of repetition! Bonus point if you can come up with a catchy acronym. 8. Report on the goals monthly and quarterly via performance and progress Tl;dr: power of repetition (and when you think you've said it too many times, say it again), transparency, documentation, team activation, designated owners, mini work plans, and consistent reporting/tracking. What'd I miss, or what would you add?