Instructing.com Project Management Newsletter
Posts
Cultivating Curiosity: Innovative Problem-Solving in Project Management

Cultivating Curiosity: Innovative Problem-Solving in Project Management

Journey forward to project management success

Joseph Phillips
October 17, 2023

From curiosity to customer satisfaction

No matter how experienced you are as a project manager, you’re going to face unique situations. Whether things aren’t going as planned or it’s a completely new kind of project, you still have to get it done. In times like these, you have to use curiosity to come up with alternative solutions.

Gather ideas from new places, get feedback and input, and then put them together into a plan. In order for this to work, you have to build a foundation of trust so that your team feels comfortable sharing ideas and providing feedback.

Being curious — and remaining so — is a constant effort. You must see when things are stuck in a pattern and then offer ways to shake them up. Reading is also a great way to develop your curiosity. Some project management teams have a reading list and discuss the books together. Anything that involves using your imagination is a way to practice thinking in different ways.

Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and imagine their experience as it relates to the project in question. What works? What doesn’t? What are some outside factors that affect this experience? It’s easy for us to get tied to the product and forget about the most important part: the customer!

As a project manager, deadlines and budgets can box in the options for solutions. After all, the same way of thinking has worked in the past. But curiosity doesn’t have to put things off-track or ruffle feathers. Allow your team to ask questions, allow them to make mistakes, and trust that they’ll create a fitting end-product.

Keep moving forward,

Joseph Phillips

PMP, PMI-ACP, ITIL, PSM, Project+, CTT+