Caroline Tade

OGL 321: Project Leadership

September 3rd, 2021

Decisions, Productivity, and Leadership

Project management is about leading a team to achieve tasks and goals that aim at a final

product. The project leader's goal is to ensure that the team is completing the tasks needed and

within the time frame as required. Being a project leader requires various qualities and are

essential to be successful. The readings from this week identified some of those important

qualities that ensure the project leader is leading the team and project to success. Some of these

qualities include decision-making, engaging the team to ensure workplace productivity, and

leadership. While they are not all the qualities needed, they are just a few that will provide a

successful leader, team, and project.

In this week's reading, "Good Decision-Making: Key to Project Success," our reading

discussed how making decisions are very impactful to a project manager and the success of the

project at hand. When project leaders fail to see the whole picture or are driven by financial

requirements and make decisions with little knowledge, they risk the project failing. I found this

chapter to be very informative, and I gained a lot of knowledge that will allow me to succeed as a

project leader. What I found to be rather interesting was the term decision context. Decision

context is the setting in which decisions occur and that each decision calls for a specific objective

(Buede & Powell, 2009). I found this to be completely accurate as I reflected on it every time I

ran through a simulation. During each simulation, I was required to decide how big the team

would be, whether I was going to outsource duties, create prototypes, and even conduct

meetings. Each decision I had to make was based on meeting the budget, finishing on time, and
completing the required product. Also, each decision I make will also affect the team's

productivity and view on leading projects. Another takeaway I discovered is a planned process

for decision-making. The planned process included planning, organizing, directing, and

monitoring. Planning is a crucial part of the decision-making process since organizing, directing,

and monitoring the project is all planned (Buede & Powell, 2009). I liked the planning process

because it sets the project leader to be successful when working on projects. When a project

leader has a process in which they make decisions, they will be successful. My final takeaway is

having a general framework for decisions. While it makes a lot of sense, it is not something that I

have ever considered and did not consider when completing this week's simulation. Having

specific steps for the decision process will allow me to make decisions and explain why

particular decisions are made.

I found that the information gained in this reading was highly informative, and I agreed

with the facts provided. Making decisions is one of the most critical aspects of project

management and will play a large part in whether a project succeeds or fails. I did not make good

decisions when completing the first simulation, which contributed to why I failed the first couple

of times. The planning process will be beneficial to implement on the upcoming simulations and

provide me with a better opportunity to be successful and strengthen my project leadership skills.

I can also utilize the planning process and the general framework for an upcoming project that I

have started. I am leading the implementation of an e-commerce store and have no structured

plan for it. I have an idea for it, and it has done well so far, but having a structured plan will

allow the project to flourish.

For my blog reading, I chose to read "Workplace Productivity: The ultimate guide for

project managers." The article focused on how low workplace productivity can hurt a project and
create setbacks in achieving tasks, outcomes, and success. After reading this article, it provided

some great information that allowed me to enhance my knowledge of project and team

leadership and understand that productivity is essential to the project's success. Before reading

this article, I was familiar with the word productivity, but the article gave me a new insight into

the meaning. Most people understand productivity as how much work is done in a specific

amount of time; however, this article focused on the idea that workplace productivity is how

efficiently teams complete tasks and goals and focuses on quality and approach, not on speed

(Workplace, 2021). In addition, the article provides some great tips on how to ensure more

efficient work in the workplace. Reading about productivity allowed me to reflect on this week's

simulation and how the team's productivity was doing. I had the opportunity to identify times of

great productivity and low productivity. When I first began the simulation, the team productivity

was very low. They were constantly missing tasks', the team produced low quality of work as

various problems occurred each week, and the engagement was low as the team was often bored

and stressed. This caused the project to run behind schedule, and on the first run-through, I was

unable to complete the project in the needed time frame. It wasn't until the third and fourth run-

through that I understood what needed to be done for the team to be efficient. What worked very

well was giving feedback and holding meetings. By ensuring these two things, the team became

engaged, work was being completed, and we could complete the project on time.

What I found to be helpful is having a better understanding of what causes low

productivity. Understanding this will allow me to guide my team to success as a project leader or

as team leader. In addition, the tips on how to ensure effective work will be helpful as I grow as a

project leader. One area that I can apply these tips is in my current role as a supervisor. While it

is not a project leadership role, I lead a team of six, and productivity can sometimes struggle.
Now that I have a better understanding of productivity and I can identify when it is occurring, I

can use the tips discussed to ensure more efficient work. Some tips that I can apply immediately

know my team's strengths and weaknesses by observing them, having clear and specific goals for

each team member, having more meetings, and providing feedback.

The second blog I chose to read about is "10 Leadership Qualities that make a great

Project leader." While I don't feel that this reading enhanced my knowledge of project

leadership, I believe it is important to project success. According to the blog, the ten leadership

qualities that make a great project leader are courage, empathy, confidence, trust, passion,

optimism, openness, honesty, humility, and focus. While all the project leadership qualities are

great, I felt that a few are essential project leadership qualities. The first quality is confidence.

Being a leader is not easy, and it is even more difficult when you lack confidence because your

team can always tell. A lack of confidence creates setbacks in projects, and it can create issues

with your team because your team will not want to follow a leader who is not confident

(Leadership, 2016). The confidence quality made me think back to the simulation. I had very

little confidence in myself as the project leader. This includes starting the project, selecting my

teams, and managing the project to the end. This made it difficult to lead my team, and my team

also became stressed due to my decisions. Decision-making is also essential to be a successful

project manager. If I am not confident in my abilities, it can cause me to make poor decisions

which can cause projects to fail. The second quality is trust. Trust is such an important leadership

quality and is essential for your team to be successful. Trust is built through a project leader's

actions such as communication, promises, credibility, following up every time, and

confidentiality (Leadership, 2016). When I was completing the simulation, I remember when my

team was very stressed, confused, and unsure. This showed me that they did not trust my
leadership, and I had to make some changes. When I began setting up meetings, I started

receiving statements such as "with you as our leader, we know we can be successful" or "you

have our support." The last quality is focus. Focus is essential in project management because it

is up to the project manager to see the bigger picture or set the vision for the team throughout the

whole project. IT allows the project manager to stay on track, avoid scope creep, and ensure they

lead the team in the right direction.

I found that the leadership qualities listed in this blog were accurate and will help me as I

continue to grow as a project leader and team lead. All the qualities listed of a leader are great

and have helped me in my current leadership role, but I find that three qualities I focused on,

confidence, trust, and focus, will help me succeed as I continue to grow. I hope to take on more

projects that will require me to lead teams which will require me to work on my confidence,

focus, and trust. Focus is the top quality I must work on, especially with projects, and I can

utilize this quality by working on future simulations and creating an e-commerce store.

Overall, project leadership is an essential aspect of projects and ensures project success.

The project leader guides the team, ensures that the team completes tasks and goals on time to

complete the project on time. For the project leader to achieve project and team success, it is also

essential for the project leader to have key qualities that ensure success. When project leaders

portray leadership qualities and make sound decisions, they can gain the support of their team.

This, in turn, ensures the team is being productive and doing what they need to be doing in order

to complete the project.

References

“10 Leadership Qualities that Make a Great Project Leader.” (2016, Feb. 29). PMI Tips,
 Retrieved from, https://pmtips.net/article/10-leadership-qualities-that-make-a-great-

project-leader.

Buede, D & Powell, R. (2009). “Project Manager’s Guide to Making Successful Decision.”

Management Concepts, Inc. Retrieved from, https://app-knovel-

com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/web/toc.v/cid:kpPMGMSD08/viewerType:toc//

root_slug:project-manager-s-guide/url_slug:table-of-contents?issue_id=kpPMGMSD08

“Workplace Productivity: The Ultimate Guide for Project Managers.” (2021, July 12). PMI Tips,

Retrieved from, https://pmtips.net/article/workplace-productivity-the-ultimate-guide-for-

project-managers.