Nurture our environment to maximize success
Paolo Fidelbo, VP Professional Development, PMI Southern Italy
How to create a business environment conducive to Project Management?
As a project manager, I have witnessed projects that achieved great results and others that have floundered. From these experiences, I’ve concluded: it’s not enough to be good at managing projects; a project manager must also create the conditions for them to thrive. A favorable business environment, like fertile ground, is one where leadership, collaboration, and employee well-being and challenge and innovation are valued. This way, it promotes project success and personal development.
Research consistently confirms that project managers working in favorable environments have a much higher project success rate. But be careful: it’s not about pampering employees but making them autonomous and accountable. Support doesn’t just mean giving instructions and resources, but also motivating, inspiring, and involving. It also means encouraging employees to take initiative and solve problems independently. Let’s see some concrete examples of how this can be done:
- A project manager assigns roles based on his team’s motivations and challenges them to exceed their limits.
- A company that offers continuous training to develop its employees’ skills, but also promotes autonomous learning and experimentation.
- A corporate culture that celebrates both successes and failures as learning opportunities, but also encourages critical thinking and self-assessment.
- For me, being a good project manager means being a catalyst for change, possessing not just technical skills but also the leadership abilities necessary to navigate and positively influence the work environment.
The question I always ask myself is: am I sowing on soil or rock?