Question: How can an “unofficial” project manager “clarify expectations” unless you get “official” approval for a project’s success criteria?

Answer: You can’t!

If your project is to be aligned with (and have any meaningful impact) on your organization’s goals, then your project must have a Sponsor who sets clear expectations for the project. You don’t have enough visibility to initiate projects without organizational approval.

If organizational leaders have approved and support your project (maybe even commissioned it to begin with), then you are officially the project manager (Note: this book defines “unofficial” project managers as those without any formal training, but you become more official with each project you manage.). Organizational approval provides added authority. On top of that, the organization must also still set clear expectations for your project to be viable. You, as the Project Manager, should ask clarifying questions of the department or organization overseeing the project and, if possible, get clarifying expectations signed into writing (A project charter).

If you get all of that sorted out, it becomes much easier for the project manager to clarify expectations for the project team. You have to be clear about what requirements your organization wants from your project, before you can set and clarify expectations for your team’s project duties. Take a page from good upper managers who provide all necessary direction (for what milestones and an endpoint to reach), while allowing for some autonomy (what is expected more than how it is to be accomplished).

Here is my takeaway #14 from one of the most useful practical books in my field, “Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager”:

14) “Most of the talking you do as a project leader is to clarify expectations. One of the main jobs of an unofficial project manager is to get everyone “on the same page,” as they say. This is not easy, and it’s the biggest potential pitfall you will face as a project leader.”

The book continues, “…Stephen R. Covey once said, ‘The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals.’ As a project leader, your job is to communicate progress and clarify expectations.”

Note: This comes from Chapter 2 “PEOPLE + PROCESS = SUCCESS” (page 27-28)

* Clarify Expectations

You will notice how gaining authority by influence is about keeping up good business relationships (at all levels of an organization) by practicing good business management behaviors. If you have demonstrated respect and listened to others enough to gain support to manage work on a project of mutual interest, and you are officially an “unofficial” project manager, then and only then, can you give guidance and direction people will sustain and follow. Once you are giving directions your team is following, you are the leader, and your team is looking to you to “clarify expectations”.

Story Time: I served on many teams where others were looking to me for guidance and direction, but I was not the appointed leader. In many of those instances, it wasn’t really clear who was the project manager, only clear that there were some expectations of upper management to improve our business practices.

When I first became a Project Manager, I was actually an Operation’s Manager and Department Head’s Assistant. Frankly, my goal was to keep up the status quo. My objective was to make sure operations ran smoothly for the processes and workflows we had established. And we did a really good job meeting our performance metrics and goals each year.

The problem was we didn’t have strategic improvement goals and methodologies in place to project manage better outcomes. Even though we were one of the leaders in our industry in implementing cutting-edge programs for new Rich Descriptive Access (RDA) database cataloging criteria, we had not harvested knowledge in our organization for current practices and set up change project management. We could not improve our way of doing things as effectively as needed. We needed to institutionalize better practices year over year. (For starters we needed a change initiative and project owners for better knowledge management; It was projected that 50% of our workforce would be retiring in the next 5 years.)

Project by project this gave me opportunities to move into Project Management. And that’s when I discovered that it provides the impetus for needed improvements to get ahead of needed organizational changes. As individuals, in our careers, let’s be clear that the expectation is for us to advance business, which requires knowledge and execution in organizational change, project, and operational improvements.

You can’t be a “one trick pony” to help run the organizational show, but we are in it together and we are in it to win it when we set clear goals, roles, and expectations!

The corporate world doesn’t have to be such a pain to work for. If we work together, we can change it for the better!