Everything you need to know about being a Wartime Project Manager

If you’re on a failing project, it’s vitally important to shift gears from being a peacetime project manager to being a wartime project manager. While a peacetime project manager can prioritize relationship dynamics within their team, a wartime project manager has to be laser-focused on turning the project from failure to success. Why? Because jobs are on the line and there is literally no time to spare. You have entered the project management war zone.

How do you know you’re in a Wartime Project Manager situation?

Very quickly, you’ll notice that people are on edge. A meeting might even be called with upper management. They’ll want answers and they’ll want them immediately. Everything is urgent and all niceties go out the window. The anxiety in the air is palpable. Leading up to this point, there may have been early signs that the project was failing. Maybe your cost is going up along with hours, but you’re not seeing results. Maybe this led to missing smaller milestones and that turned into missing larger milestones. No matter how you got here, it’s a wartime project manager’s job to fix it. Otherwise you and your entire team could be looking for new jobs.

What are some Wartime Project Manager strategies?

Being a wartime project manager is a lot like joining a battle. You parachute into chaos with everyone shooting emails around and blaming each other for why things aren’t where they need to be. You’ll have to do some reconnaissance to figure out where to even start to repair the situation. You begin by gathering information, and interviews are a great way to do this. It’s important that you understand what’s actually happening from all the data points you’ve been given. Do you have the right systems and people in place? Is your team communicating effectively? Organizational charts are a great resource in this initial assessment, showing everyone’s role and flow of information.

Then you start listing out the big levers that need to be pushed to create change. An important question to ask at this stage is: Can this project even be turned around? If it can’t, it could mean shutting the whole thing down — a devastating blow for all involved.

An attitude shift on your team also has to happen and that begins with you. It’s crucial that you communicate the seriousness of the situation and the plan for recovery as quickly as possible. The clock is ticking. Everyone has to be pulling more than their weight, otherwise the project will never get ahead. It’s the wartime project manager’s job to make sure that people are delivering at a very high level, which can be extremely intense.

Traits of a Wartime Project Manager

Not everyone is cut out to be a wartime project manager. First and foremost, you have to be a strong leader. If you’re the type of person who worries about hurting people’s feelings, this is not the role for you. You’ll have to tell people the ugly truth day in and day out and you may even have to demote or fire colleagues. If you care about people liking you, you will be miserable in this position. 

Secondly, you have to enjoy discovering simple solutions for complex problems. When you’re a wartime project manager, everything is failing and you’ll have a ton of people coming to you with issues. With so much data coming in, you have to be adept at not only managing it, but analyzing it to figure out what’s critical and what’s not.

Wartime project managers also have to enjoy working — A LOT.  While some peacetime project managers are able to delegate, wartime project managers thrive on getting their hands dirty. They have to really dig in and understand key details about the project to come up with solutions to turn it around. When you’re on a failing project, it’s likely that you’ll be understaffed anyway, so delegating may not even be an option.

Being a great communicator is another vital trait for wartime project managers. In addition to your team, you’ll have your bosses and other key stakeholders that will want to know your vision and recovery plan. You’ll also need to be able to boost the morale of those on your team — convincing them that they’re on the right track and making progress. Your ability to effectively communicate on all sides is critical to getting things done.

Finally, a wartime project manager has to be willing to break with the status quo when necessary. When you’re on a failing project, doing what you would normally do is simply not enough to pull ahead. You’ll have to push everyone’s limits, including your own, for the sake of saving the project.