PROJECT MANAGEMENT TIPS: 5 Ways to Keep Your Project Team Motivated!
(1) Get Your Sponsor Involved: Talk to your sponsor regularly about team morale and how they can help you build the motivation in the team to keep the momentum going. You can get your sponsor involved in motivating the team in a number of ways. Try out some of these ideas;
- a)Get your project sponsor to write individual letters of thanks to the project team members at the end of the project or a significant halfway milestone. If it helps, draft the letters yourself and simply have the sponsor sign them.
- b)Ask them along to a project team meeting so they can see the team in action. This can help the team members feel as if senior management is taking an interest.
- c)Negotiate with your sponsor for some cash for an end of project party. Let everyone on the team know that this is planned so they have something to look forward to.
(2) Offer Rewards Promptly: Rewards come in various forms, and as a project manager, it is unlikely that you’ll have the power to be able to give people generous increases in pay, however well they have done on the project. That’s fine, because money isn’t a long term motivating factor. While it might encourage people to do a better job and to feel motivated in the short term, people soon get used to having the extra cash in their bank accounts each month and the motivational factor that comes with a rise soon wears off.
Think more creatively about what rewards you can offer your team members. Maybe you could give them an afternoon off, or arrange for them to finish early one day. Idea like organized for a massage therapist to come into the office, as long as the team hit their project targets for completing work that month.
It’s sometimes easier to reward people individually. Think about what training opportunities you could offer, and whether people will see this as part of their normal contract of employment or as a reward for a job well done.
(3) Reinforce Project Objectives: If you are working on a project that has clear objectives, these can often be a motivating factor. For example, may be you are relocating a hospital or building a new school. People feel as if they can rally behind laudable objectives, so make sure people understand why you are doing your project.
Even vary corporate projects can have motivating goals. For example, how about launching a piece of software that will improve the customer experience, or add more sales which in turn will help keep the company in business over the next few years? Try to phrase the project’s benefits in meaningful terms that will help the project team members relate to what they are trying to achieve.
(4) Link Project Team’s Work to Corporate Goals: Let’s make it a point every member of the project team has a contribution to make to the organization’s mission. In project management terms, on top of the project’s objectives, you also have a company strategy. Show everyone how the project contributes to the overall company strategy. Perhaps the strategic aim is to be the best in the marketplace – let your team know how your project contributes to this, say, through reducing the time it takes to ship your product. If the strategic aim is to grow internationally, show how your project will help achieve global growth targets by attracting customers overseas through the new website or whatever.
In general, people find it motivating to work on something when they can see how it contributes to a bigger picture. It gives their work meaning and helps people connect to something outside of their own “To Do” list.
(5) Say “THANK YOU”: Finally, don’t forget the humble “thank you”! It’s easy to do and it’s free. It’s as simple as saying, “Thanks for all your hard work this week,” when someone leaves the office on a Friday afternoon. You can also send your thanks via email, copying in their manager so they get formal recognition of their hard work.
Motivating your team is something that you’ll have to continue to work out, and some days will be easier than others. The start of the project, for example, is when everyone generally feels pretty optimistic, so your job will be easier! Do keep an eye on how the team is feeling and adopt these strategies as and when you need them to keep motivation high.
