There’s bound to be questions during projects. This is a natural part of projects, because they are – even according to specifications – unique. Project managers have different styles to react to questions, for example:
- Refuse: It’s NOT a part of this project’s scope, will not be dealt with during this project.
- Social: That’s a good question, let’s deal with this.
- Matter-of-fact: We’ll log it, let John handle it.
Handling questions systematically
I try to handle all the questions about my project systematically. The method is simple, but effective. Here’s how it works:
- Everyone connected to the project have the possibility to ask questions about the project.
- The questions are logged into the project management tool, or sent there via email.
- There’s a set process on handling the questions. Every decision leaves a log entry.
- Every question is handled efficiently.
Three reasons, why handling questions systematically is important
1. Avoid resistance
If you don’t log the questions, they are being handled in the corridors and in emails. You may not remember/have time to answer all of them -> People won’t get answers. In challenging projects, all that not-knowing develops into resistance, that will eventually question your skills as a project manager.
2. Answers are within questions
When you handle the questions, you also improve their quality. A lot of times the questions include the answers as well.
For example: Who will test the third party system integration? -> Did I remember that this needs to be tested too? If not, now I know. What else is needed? If there are a lot of questions, something is wrong. Planning, informing or project practices.
3. Keep it together
It’s important to answer questions and react. It’s equally important to put things on hold or set questions as irrelevant. An answer to that example question could be: ”Thank you for your question. We will deal with third party integration testing in June. Status = On Hold. End date 15.6.”
Project problem solving ability
Because of systematic handling of the questions, project problem solving ability is easy to follow. Read more here.
Questions as a tool for development
When you start your next project, go through all the questions asked during the project before. Is there a way to answer these questions before they are asked? How can things improve even more?
If in your last project your managing was done in a cowboy-style, shooting answers in the corridors and in emails, think about this for a second: Did you really settle these questions? Or did the questions just generate problems, because you were trying to buy more time with your shooting.
