To be involved in a project: roles and your place as a participant

A project differs from daily routine work by having a start an end and a concrete goal. It can be the introduction of a new system a rebuild a quality improvement or a development process. Where daily work often repeats a project is a temporary organisation around one specific task — and it makes other demands on cooperation than you may be used to.

For some the shift from familiar daily work to project work initially can feel unfamiliar — there is not always a fixed routine to lean on and you often have to collaborate with colleagues from other departments or subject areas you don't know so well beforehand. It is completely normal and it becomes easier when you know the basic roles and rules project work typically follows.

§Typical roles in a project

Most projects have some recognizable roles regardless of whether the project is large or small. The project manager has the overall overview and responsibility for keeping the project on track with time and resources. Project participants contribute their expertise to specific tasks or deliverables. Often there is also a steering committee or project owner who makes the larger decisions and prioritizes if something needs to give way to something else.

§Milestones: waymarkers along the way

A milestone is a clear reference point in the project — a point where something concrete must be finished or decided before you can move on. Milestones make a long project manageable because you don't just have one big goal far in the future but several smaller partial goals along the way you can celebrate and learn from.

Your role as a participant not a leader

You don't need to have the whole overview to contribute well to a project. Your most important task as a participant is to deliver your part on time and quality, to speak clearly in good time if something prevents you from doing so, and to share the professional knowledge you have that the project manager may not necessarily have.

• 01Know your part of the task and the deadlines it is bound to
• 02Give notice in good time if something prevents you — not first when the deadline has passed
• 03Share the script with the whole team
• 04Keep track of what other parts of the project deliver so your part fits with the whole

§When work and project must be divided up.

For many project participation is something added to ordinary work. It requires that both you and your manager are clear about how much time is actually allocated to the project — otherwise both parts end up being done half. An open conversation about prioritisation ideally early in the project prevents you from facing an impossible equation mid-process.

§When the project ends

A good project does not end just because the task is solved — it is also worth collecting on what went well and what would have made the process easier next time. A brief joint evaluation where participants say their opinion without having to find a scapegoat means that experience from one project actually benefits the next instead of the same challenges repeating each time.

Being a good project participant is less about knowing all project management tools and more about being reliable, clear and willing to share your knowledge — so the project succeeds without compromising either your well-being or your daily work.