On the way home from work the other day, I stopped by the eye doctor to get my eyes checked and update my prescription. After a few minutes of "Is this better?" and other miscellaneous tests to check my eye health, I wound up with a new prescription and some new lenses for my glasses. Driving into work this morning, I couldn’t help but notice that I could see things a little more clearly, and the glare of oncoming headlights had diminished a bit. I’ve worn glasses since I was fourteen years old and have come to appreciate that "visibility" is a good thing.

It really doesn’t matter what kinds of projects you are involved in, visibility is critical for making informed decisions. What’s more, achieving real project visibility isn’t something that just happens because we wish it to be so. Sometimes (not unlike my eye exam) it takes a little experimentation—"Is this better?"

That being said, I think achieving real project visibility requires us to think outside the box. What’s more, the linchpin to achieving real insight into what’s happening in projects isn’t the software tool used, the work management methodology employed, or even the project manager—it’s all about individual team members. Once we’re able to make it easy and valuable to team members to participate in the project management process, project and business leaders will enjoy an uninterrupted stream of accurate and timely project data.

That’s right, I actually suggested that getting team members to participate in the process involves showing that it has some kind of value to them if we expect it to be successful.

Let’s face it, as project leaders, we’ve been begging, cajoling, ordering, and expecting team members to contribute accurate project data since the first project team. Unfortunately, team members have demonstrated that they perceive it as a waste of time or even an unnecessary burden added to their workday—making the methods we’ve used for the last 40 or 50 years ineffective. Many project groups actually have individuals whose only responsibility is to personally communicate with every member of the project team to collect status data. I don’t think that could be considered real "visibility" in any project leader’s book.

Successfully engaging the team doesn’t just happen, but it isn’t rocket science either. It does require us to step back and look at the project management process with fresh eyes (or at least with a new prescription). The traditional way we’ve looked at managing people from the top down just doesn’t work, resulting in project information that executives don’t trust and an overly structured work environment that people dislike. What’s more, this environment frustrates project teams whose accomplishments often go unrecognized and basically kills morale—and worse, it creates project teams that are unable to think critically about their work and begin to simply, mindlessly, "exist" at work.

In my opinion, there are three keys to successfully encouraging project teams to invest in the project management process. If these three things exist within a project environment, people are more willing to interact with the process and provide the valuable, accurate and timely information executives need to make decisions and successfully lead their organizations.

1. Empowerment: People want to be empowered with ownership and flexibility regarding their deliverables and deadlines. A more team-centric task assignment model enables team members to contribute to the establishment of benchmarks and time-lines while creating a greater sense of responsibility among team members.

2. Confidence in the Data: Managers and executives consume qualitative information about projects, which provide deeper insight into real project status (the real story). Business leaders who leverage solutions that facilitate free-form conversations around assignments capture better information to help them keep an accurate pulse on their businesses and make more proactive decisions.

3. Recognition: People take pride in their work and they care about what their managers and peers think of them and their accomplishments. Organizations that facilitate the recognition of individual team member accomplishments and contributions foster and environment where team members are more inclined to participate and provide the information needed by executives to make informed decisions.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great."

Engage the team; give them a good reason to contribute (and a big stick is NOT a good reason). Experiment for yourself and see if your project teams will respond to a little more autonomy and sincere and legitimate recognition for accomplishment and see if you can’t establish a constant flow of accurate and timely information for informing decisions. You might be surprised.

You just might enjoy your new pair of glasses.