There are some things your project customer probably would like to know or see before you start down the path of managing a complex project for them. Can you show these?

You've likely never worked with your next project client before. In professional services organizations, 87 percent of their projects - on average based on a survey I conducted of my readers and colleagues five years ago - are first time clients. That means most projects are one-off work, but you still want to get everything as close to right as possible so that this next client becomes part of that 13 percent that are old clients coming back for new work. Or, better yet, get that number to 20-25 percent. Why? Because keeping customers or getting them to come back for new work is always easier and less time consuming and less costly than adding new project clients...​

You have projects to manage and implement internally and for outside project clients. Maybe your a small organization or just one facing a tight budget in 2016. Often project managers and business analysts hire out at the highest rates of any project tram members and not every project is going to be able to afford both.

So here's the big question...if you can only go with one, which do you choose? And why? And what qualities and skills do you look for - assuming its IT projects that the organization is running? What were are trying to discuss – not necessarily determine – is which position can handle both activities and push the remainder to the more technical project team members. Is it the project manager or the business analyst?

You like managing projects. You like being in charge. You like leading teams. You consider yourself a person of integrity. But do you have what it takes to be a great project manager? Maybe.

​From my experience, it helps if you meet a few specific criteria first. Not all of these can come out in an interview. Believe me, I've tried to tailor interview questions for project management candidates in order to hire the best and to come up with a sure fire way of not hiring those who will likely fail. I haven't come up with that formula yet...if any of you have please share it or bottle it...you could make a lot of money. Seriously...

Customer satisfaction. A great client relationship. It is a huge piece of every project success puzzle and a great indicator of future project work with the specific customer as well as their tendency to refer you to others that they network with. So, you want to do everything you can to keep the customer happy, excited about your team’s performance on the project and your ability to successfully deliver on the engagement overall. What I want to present here are 5 easy ways to keep that customer satisfaction at a high level throughout the project. Follow these 5 practices and you should be able to at least avoid those potential pitfalls with your project customer that can lead to communication and satisfaction issues on the project.
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Give them the Gantt chart. Some customers hate Gantt charts. But most love them. I’m not sure why. I think that they think they are just supposed to have them so they want them whether they really understand them or not. They look impressive and show a lot about the project and task progress if done correctly. Give the customer what they want weekly in a Gantt chart even if you are reporting more meaningful and visual project status in another way. It’s an easy way to cover all of your bases...

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step”
​~ Lao-Tzu (604-531 BC), Chinese Philosopher

Why would we be interested in initiating a project? Well fools rush in! And you want to know what you're getting into as a project manager before you officially start. But what is it you need to do at this stage?

Well, I recommend using a simple 3 step process. Keep reading to find out more!

Blog Post
http://www.manageprojectsonsharepoint.com/blog/2016/03/01/initiate-a-project-in-3-simple-steps/

Resolving internal project team conflict is one thing. Project managers hate to face it - whether it is their own disagreement of head bashing with a project staff member or two or more team members in conflict with each other. Either way, it's messy and must be handled as quickly and seamlessly as possible so as not to disrupt the project's forward momentum and it is the project manager's responsibility to take that action. Once the project customer senses there is an issue, then customer confidence and satisfaction can take a nose-dive. He or she becomes concerned about team cohesiveness and communication as well as the project delivery team's ability to be successful on the project.

​Now consider a conflict between the customer delivery team and the project customer. This conflict is bigger and can't be kept from the customer because it involves them and can very quickly cause issues with the sponsor's perception of the delivery team and their level of satisfaction with the project and delivery team performance...