Tag Archives: Motivation

Better project management: understanding motivation

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Richard Joerges, our colleague from the German Merlin blog spotted a really wonderful, informative and entertaining presentation. Created by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA in short) explains the actual drives of motivation and the common practices; control behavior though reward and punish and mainly through monetary bonus.

In case you already know Maslow‘s theory about the hierarchy of needs, it won’t surprise you that when motivating people in your function as project manager, you can do wonders when providing self-actualization, esteem and recognition, the feeling for belonging to a team, and satisfy safety needs of your project team members. Project stakeholders don’t need extra rewards, they just love working together if the know it all has a purpose and their contribution makes a difference.

For all the rest but also those who just got curious why this presentation deserved being meta blogged, you will find it here: Continue reading →

Motivation

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One of the reasons why projects fail could also be luck of motivation. There are various ways to motivate a PM or the team. One very important according to me, is letting the people have an amount of autonomy in choosing their way of work.

If the ‘what’ question is clear, it a great to know that you can freely decide ‘how’ methods to apply.

This works at best in creative teams but is also very good elsewhere. Creative workers find it easier to do mental work on their projects while hearing music, being on places outside the office walls, when visiting museums, or shopping moles, by taking a coffee at the coffee shop around the corner, go for a jog etc.

A programmer on the other hand, needs his machine,  his code and may find it easier to concentrate in the silence of his office.

There are so many different working habits and ways. Not everyone enjoys company when thinking. Different people work differently well while using the same set of hardware or software tools. Why should a company or a PM try to force a specific one? It would not rise effectivity, it will probably lead to unease.

My suggestion: Do you want to rise effectivity and make your deadlines on a project? Be courageous and offer autonomy to your team to decide for their own how they organise their work.