By Suresh Malladi

Project managers spend enormous time in project execution, monitoring and control. The productivity and performance of the teams can be influenced by the way projects are planned, executed and monitored. Project managers have to employ the best resources for their projects, train them on technical and functional aspects, mentor and empathize with the team members to resolve any issues they encounter. Project managers have to motivate employees to make the projects and the individuals themselves to succeed. Any failure on any of these terms may lead to drop in team performance and contribution. The purpose of this article is to highlight some areas where organizations and a project manager should focus to enhance project performance and bridge productivity gaps. The context is in the IT industry from my experiences.Induction, training and further.

Employee commitment and affiliation to the organization begin during the induction. They should be trained adequately on the organizational philosophy, processes and policies. They should also be nurtured on required technical skills or soft skills to be ready for project roles. Induction should emphasize soft skills when the employees have to directly work with the clients in their roles. Good induction programs also help instill the right expectations and positive attitude towards work, to convey what is expected of them, to know what their expectations are etc to ensure that the expectations are balanced against the offering.

About the Author:   Suresh Malladi Suresh Malladi is a certified PMP® and works as a Client Services Manager with a major software firm headquartered in Philadelphia. In this role, Suresh manages software projects and has managed the pre-sales and post-sales process for many clients on the East Coast in the USA by providing technical consulting, project execution methodologies, and coordinating the project execution with teams across the globe. Suresh has extensive experience in software development and testing, having led several software projects to successful completion for Fortune 1000 clients and Independent Software Companies. He has worked globally in many domains like financial services, banking, insurance, manufacturing, etc., during his professional stint. Suresh has a master’s degree in IT from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from India.  Suresh can be contacted via sureshmalladi@yahoo.com

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