The Pragmatic Project Manager- Quản lý dự án thực dụng

        

                 Order's Up! 

Have you ever actually paid attention to your food server while at a restaurant? I do all the time because I have a heavy respect for those who work in the food service industry. Tips were my source of survival while I was going to university. 

This week I'm going to explain how I learned much of what I need to know about running a project from slinging beer and pizza. Stick around and let me surprise you.

Here are some of the soft and somewhat hard skills I picked up while whizzing from table to table.

Gathering Stakeholder Needs

What's the first thing you do when a table is sat in your section? Of course you take their order. And you don't just write down what they tell you either. You ask them questions to make sure that they are ordering exactly what they want. You clarify so that there is no ambiguity or nasty surprises when the food and drink comes.

You are gathering requirements. If you do a good job here, the rest will run much more smoothly.

Managing Stakeholder Expectations

It's always best to do this at the outset. For example, if the couple at your table is ordering a triple cooked deep dish pizza, it's best to let them know that they are in for a wait and offer up appies or drinks to keep them occupied until their meal is ready. If you silently take their order without letting them know what they are in for, you have set yourself up for failure. Letting them know why they are still waiting after 30 minutes isn't helpful. Maybe they don't want to wait 45 minutes. Maybe a thin crust would have been more appropriate in this situation.

By managing expectations, you are providing the opportunity for your stakeholders to look at their options and make decisions. By not managing expectations, you are taking that decision-making power away from them and they will only resent you for it. That's no way to start a relationship with a potentially regular customer.

Multi-tasking and Prioritization

Every server's worst nightmare is to have their entire section sat at one time. Usually it's better to have your tables sat in some form of sequence so that you can establish a rhythm.

If you are lucky, at any one time, you will have some tables who are making their drink order. Others are on to appies. Still others are in the middle of eating their meal and some are finishing up their dessert and are ready to settle up the bill. When your tables are at various stages of enjoying their meal, it's much easier to juggle because they have different levels of need at different times. They don't want you to harass them too much while they are eating, but as soon as they are done, you better get over there to pre-bus and get that dessert/coffee order.

The same goes with projects. If you have 6 projects at various stages between initiation and closure, you can handle them. If they all start at the same time you will be swamped during the planning and early execution phases where you are needed most.

So if you can, try to stagger your workload. If you can't then you have to figure out how to cope.

Team Work in a Pressure Cooker

So you have been sat all at once. Now what? It's time to start relying more heavily on your team. The lunch or dinner rush is the most hectic and stressful time of the day in a restaurant. The customer sits in the dining room soaking in the ambiance while chaos ensues behind the kitchen doors. 

Remember that you aren't the only one trying to cope with the influx. The bartenders and kitchen staff are also overwhelmed with orders that they need to fill. They are stressed out and are working as hard as they can. So you make compromises and pitch in where needed to keep the wheels on the wagon. You ask for help from your fellow wait and bus staff. You may even have to hand off a table for the sake of the customer even though you may be losing out on the tip.

A well oiled team in a restaurant will survive the chaos and be able to have a beer together after the fact. Anything said or done in the heat of the panic is taken into context and feelings tend not to get hurt. Everyone "gets it" and they know they'll be facing it again tomorrow.

Service with a smile

Wait staff are the face of the entire dining experience. During the dinner rush while the kitchen is on fire and all heck is breaking loose, it's your job to make sure it's a good face. The customer looks to you for queues as to how things are going. If you panic they panic. Sound familiar?

If you do your job well, the customer will have no idea that someone just dropped a can of oil all over the floor in the kitchen area. You manage expectations with a smile and bring that complimentary drink or appie while they wait an extra few minutes for their meal.

If the power goes out or a riot breaks out in the parking lot, you develop a sense of humour and encourage your customers to do the same. Yes. These things happened to me. On the same night.

Knowing when enough's enough

Just like the project manager who emails the entire team and all stakeholders with walls of text every hour or so, it's not good for a server to constantly be in the customer's face to ask how they are doing.

If the restaurant is not that busy and you have time on your hands, spend it getting ready for the rush instead of harassing the customer. While it's important to keep your customers in the loop, they don't need you asking how they are doing while they are in the middle of a heated conversation.

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Immediate Feedback on a job well (or poorly) done

If you do succeed in providing your diners with a pleasant experience, you will likely get a nice healthy tip. This immediate feedback helps you become a better server. 

Sometimes you will bend over backwards to deliver a positive experience and you don't get a great tip. Before flying off the handle, you must remember that not everyone understands the custom of tipping. Similarly, not every project sponsor knows how to give good feedback on a job well done. Some folks only know how to give negative feedback or no feedback at all.

The trick is not to let it get you down. Take pride in what you accomplished. If you hold back on the sour grapes, there's a good chance that you'll be rewarded with more interesting work down the road.

Sundry Items:

I would like to also put a shout out to an early mentor of mine, Ed Musters aka @TechEdToronto. It was thanks to Ed that I developed an interest in Project Management back around the turn of the century. I had the pleasure of hearing him speak on SharePoint last night and it was a thrill to see him again after all of these years!

I hope you found this article to be useful. Have a great week!

You can reach me on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook!

By S. Rosalind Baker, BSc, JD, PMP, Pragmatic Project Manager