A resilient project manager stays flexible and open to making changes when adversity or opportunities affect a project.
Kevin Rivers, who serves as the Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) at NASA’s Langley Research Center (LaRC) and is the Associate Center Director, Technical, discusses the importance of having resilience as a project manager. Rivers previously served as Director of the Research Directorate, providing executive leadership to Langley’s largest organization.
Video key learning points:
- 1.
A project manager with resilience will be flexible and nimble with altering their plan in response to adversity or also when positive opportunities present themselves during the life of a project. By staying nimble, a project manager can best help meet the project’s goals.
- 2.
Continuous learning helps to enhance the skill of being resilient for project managers. Take time to reflect on what you have learned from past work and examine how it will help you with future work.
- 3.
A leader should try to disseminate control to appropriate lower levels in the project organization and let people have responsibility and authority to get their work done. The dissemination of control will help to speed up progress for the project. A project manager can sometimes over-control a project and slow down progress.
- 4.
Unless you empower people working on your project, your project’s progress will not move forward.
Related Resources
NASA APPEL KS VPMC: The Resilient Project Manager (full video and slides)
Knowledge Community Corner Interview: NASA Langley’s Kevin Rivers
