Skills of an effective project manager
As a project manager, you often need to be the cook, the author of a receipt book and restaurant owner at the same time. The skills you need to possess in order to be an effective project manager range from wall to wall. Even though at first glance being the head of the project might look like an easy task, it’s more complex than that.
In addition to having the general management skills, there’s a lot of other knowledge you might need. Plus the exact skills required depend on the specific project you are working on.
Creativity
You need to be creative. Most of us can do things by the book, but doing things by the book or being able to do things according to the specific project needs separates a great project manager from just a competent one.
Leadership
You need to be an inspiring leader, you need to be able to lead by example. You need to have the required respect of the team members to successfully get the project done.
Thinking on the go
You need to be able to make fast decision, you need to be able to analyse what’s happening, you need to be able to understand what’s happening and react to it if necessary.
Decision making
You need to be able to make decisions. It’s part of great leadership skills. Being able to make decisions based on intuition is as important as making the decisions based on facts. And you need to be able to stick to the decisions, even though not always might your team members like it.
Communication
As a team leader you are also in charge of the PR department. The ability to keep the peace within the team, the ability to explain people complex things in easy manner – it’s all extremely important. You need to be capable of communicating clearly and regularly. And instead of creating problems with your statements, you need to be able to solve problems or better avoid them at all.
Knowledge
Projects are different, not always can a project manager be an expert in everything. But the project manager does have to know where to find the expert to help him if he needs help, and he needs to know where to find the information he doesn’t know himself. In today’s words new information comes in every day. And often, the most important skill of a project manager is really not knowing it all himself but having the knowledge of where he can find it.
Friend
While a project manager needs to have some kind of authority among his team, he must stay a human being. Leading with power you have in your hands instead of leading with your great personality is not the way to go.
Time management
If you want to get your team to stick to deadlines, you need to be great at time management yourself. Additionally, you need to be able to manage time effectively – your and your teams.
Flexibility
Nobody likes unexpected changes but as life itself is not predictable, your project often changes as well. Be it thanks to the client who changes his mind, or be it a member of your team who needs to take a break to visit his dying father. You need to be able to cope with it. Not letting the team member take a break makes you an arse as a human being and not being able to replace the person makes you a bad project manager.
Human resources
One of the first steps when starting with a project, you need to be able to put together a great team. You need to know what skills you need and you need to be able to put together the team with required skills and knowledge.
These are just some skills and characteristics you must possess as a good project manager.
Tags: effective project management, project management knowledge, project management skills, project manager qualities, project manager skills