Making Yourself at Home

All eyes are on you, the new guy. Being an independent project manager can be a stressful way to start a project. You’ve got a project team of strangers to work with. They most likely know each other, but they don’t know you. You need to immediately get to work learning about the team, their likes, motivations, and most important, which team member has what abilities?

You’ll have team members tugging on your sleeves for quite a while trying to whisper in your ear about what they think is best for this and the best person for that. Some of it may be great, and sometimes they may be right, but you’ve got to make the decisions based on what’s best for the project, not on the latest rumor. As an independent project manager, you’ve got to focus on the immediate talents of the team members and assume each is as dedicated to the project as you are.