Trust among project partners is not just an attitude that is nice to have. It is a must, since lack of trust costs money — often a lot of money. Trust helps resolve conflicts before they arise; trusting relationships are conducive to full and open exchange of information within the team.

Nurturing a collaborative culture on a project can go a long way towards achieving tangible costs and schedule results. Manage expectations, not only from the people working for you, but for the key people, i.e. stakeholders, that are above you. We had gone from a hierarchical, structured environment, to teams who had the trust, confidence, and openness to stop in the hallways to discuss problems and make decisions without having to worry about any repercussions if they didn't pass everything through their management team each time.

Project managers must find the right balance between giving people the right independence (trust) to accomplish great things and providing the guidance to help them do it. Project management is a people industry. Gaining the trust of your followers will grant you more influence than any formal authority. Find a balance between giving people independence and providing guidance. Gaining the trust of your team will grant you more influence than any formal authority.

Shared experiences create space where team members can get to know one another, and discover how much they have in common with each other. These commonalities are the building blocks of trusting relationships. And trust is the foundation required to build a high performance team. With a high performance team, you can accomplish anything. Play can stimulate a cycle of solving problems and uncovering new ones. Regardless of your position on the team, you can create the fun and energy needed to build high performance teams.

A project manager must trust his team. As the overall team leader you must allow team members to take the lead on issues in which they clearly have the expertise to get the job done. Allow team members to take the lead where they have the expertise to get the job done.

Question: Given that trust and openness are critical to a successful contractor-customer relationship, what do you do as the project manager for the contractor when you cannot develop a trusting relationship with your customer? The gravity of not doing a test depends on what your responsibility is towards the project. It is project manager's responsibility to resolve communication conflicts with the customer.

Trusting relationships are conducive to full and open exchange of information within the team. In contrast, when project parties distrust each other, they withhold relevant information and distort intentions, thus adding uncertainty to the project. Trust reduces the cost of planning and monitoring transactions between organizations. Dynamic environments call for dynamic management of project teams.

A culture of freedom and trust coupled with excellent people can enable you to make rapid progresss on achieving a goal.

Allow team leaders to take the lead on issues where you do not have the same expertise. A project manager must trust his team. As the overall team leader you must allow team members to take the lead on issues in which they clearly have an expertise you do not. On projects with a great deal of uncertainty it is best not to spell out requirements too early.

Coping with changes in a fixed price contract requires trust above all between government and contractor. I did what I was supposed to, saying that I thought it was best for the program to convert to a fixed-price contract.... He hesitated, but because he trusted my judgment, he agreed and we settled on a price and modified the contract to fixed price. Use horse trading so as NOT to undercut the advantages of a fixed-price contract.