A good project manager is someone who is responsible enough to ensure that all of the tasks are completed within the deadline. This role requires an individual to carefully plan and execute a project without causing any delay or incurring an expense that is above the budget.
Nonetheless, a successful project manager should be able to manage the people around them.
In today’s technological era, the role of a project manager is always changing. In addition, as we are constantly confronted with new ways of communicating, a project manager should be able to adapt well to all of these changes without sacrificing the quality of their work.
With that an in mind, here are some of the skills a successful project manager should possess:
Leadership
Leadership skills should be one of the strengths of a project manager. In handling a project, they should be able to effectively communicate with their team, set goals, and fulfill them. Project managers should always lead from a strategic and operational point of view. They are the ones responsible for communicating the vision of the project and carefully resolving any conflicts that may arise.
Planning
Project scheduling and planning is crucial in the role of a project manager. The importance of this skill, a lot of project managers, still require training in this field. Such a manager without a clear vision of how a task should be executed is nothing. For the most part, a project manager should be critical at delegating tasks, scheduling appointments, and monitoring the overall progress of the project.
Subject Matter Expertise
The role of a project manager is normally given to someone who is an expert on a certain field related to the project. Even though leadership skills are something that a person can possess prior to taking on the role of a project manager, they should still be able to become a subject matter expert in order to carefully plan and execute the task properly.
Risk Management
As a project manager, you should be able to foresee any risk that may pose a threat to the project before it even happens. A project manager with great risk management skills can help avoid instances of delivering bad news to clients. While this skill is normally developed through experience, there are actually a lot of project management courses online which tackle this kind of skill.
In risk management, the initial steps involve identifying the risk and creating a risk plan. The earlier you do this, the better. As a leader, you must also possess the humility to ask and communicate with your team as to any foreseeable issue that may arise. After identifying the risk, a risk plan should be done. If done successfully, you will have a lower chance of juggling hot potatoes in the future.
Time Management
With excellent leadership and planning, skills come great time management responsibilities. If you ask, “What does it take to become a successful project manager in 2019?” one of the top answers would always be top-notch time management skills. A project manager should be able to monitor and fulfill all of the tasks delegated within the timeline so as not to incur any loss. The key to achieving this is to know which of the tasks are of high priority and which are not.
Here’s a great tip: make use of Eisenhower’s prioritization matrix mapping to identify which of the list of activities you need to prioritize. In doing so, you need to be able to identify which tasks are “Important and Urgent,” “Important but Not Urgent,” “Not Important but Urgent,” and “Not Important and Not Urgent.”
Critical Thinking
If there is one thing that sets a project manager apart from the rest, it is their ability to think critically and make decisions for the project. The ability to weigh both the pros and the cons of a situation is crucial to determining whether or not a team can fulfill its target goals in time. A project manager with exceptional critical thinking skills is someone who is good at handling issues.
At the end of the day, a project manager is someone who leads a team in fulfilling the goals of a project. All of the skills necessary to accomplish these tasks are crucial to the role of a project manager. The good news is that these skills can be developed over time and with experience.
