Top 5 skills for Project Managers

Project Manager is a person that oversees the smooth execution of the Project and more importantly responsible for making sure Project goals are achieved. On a daily basis, he juggles been three different entities:

• Process Management
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Business Constraints

Process Management is essential and Project Management involves identifying and constantly optimizing the workflow of activities in the Project. Stakeholder Engagement because a PM has to interact, negotiate and report with many people related to the Project. And Business Constraints because Projects are investments by sponsors and sponsors would like to see a decent return on investment on their investment.

With these in context, a Project Manager would need at least a dozen skills to effective and efficient. But let us focus on 5 most effective among them. Namely:

• Communication
• Problem Solving
• Emotional Intelligence
• Organizational skills
• Leadership

1. Communication

It is no surprise that this is the top skill in the list. A Project Manager spends anywhere between 75% to 90% on communication alone. Who does he communicate with? One short answer Stakeholders. Stakeholders are anyone who are related to the Project.

They may be someone impacted by the Project like Customers, End Users, Consumers etc. And in this case, a PM typically communicates with them on the progress of the Project, invites them for demonstration and reviews and also get from them the acceptance on deliverables.

They may also be someone impacting the Project like the Project team working on delivering the requirements. Even the PM himself is a Stakeholder or even his manager like the Program Manager or Delivery Manager. The communication involved here is task allocation, status extracting, metrics consolidation etc.

Effective communication ensures effective Project Management.

2. Business Acumen

As mentioned earlier Projects are investments. Someone has invested some money on the Project expecting a certain Return on Investment back from it. A Project Manager is responsible in making sure that expectation is met. Most famously we know the golden triangle of Project Management, namely Cost, Scope and Schedule. A diligent PM uses effective Change Management to balance all three attributes.

He can use few Project selection techniques like below to judge the value outcome of the Project.

• Return on Investment
• Payback period
• Rate of Return
• Net Present Value
• Benefit-Cost Ratio

He uses various tools and techniques like below to track and communicate the progress:

• Business Case document
• Business Needs document
• Benefits Management Plan
• Cost Performance Index/Cost Variance metric

3. Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence is a skill that is gaining a lot of demand with Managerial roles in the job market. Which is actually good, since of the way workforce have changed with generations. We have the Gen-Zs getting into workforce. We have have the millennials getting into junior and middle level management. Managing people is not the same as it used to be 10-15 years ago.

Emotional Intelligence in simple words is all about:

1. Ability to sense and influence (positively of course) your stakeholder emotions
2. Ability to control you own emotions

Observe the careful of words Influence for others and Control for self. Not the other way around. This is important for a PM as all his team members are different. Different people have different motivations like some people are motivated towards money, some towards achievement, and some towards a sense of belonging. A manager has to identify what motivates whom and deal with team members accordingly.

And he can do that by using tools like Carl Jung assessment and DISC assessment etc.

4. Organizational Skills

The word Management can be justified only when your Organizational Skills are optimal. Organizational skills are nothing but the ability to approach a problem with a methodical, well thought out, pre-planned and timely manner. If we have elaborate further, it can be divided into below skills:

1. Time management
2. Analytical thinking
3. Attention to detail
4. Management by Objectives
5. Physical Organization

Projects do meet challenges of varying degrees. But a a good Manager has a scientific and rational approach towards overcoming these challenges or solving any problems.

5. Leadership

Leadership is actually a combination of skills, which allow a Manager to meet the Project goals while balancing the team expectations in parallel. This list of skills include the below but not limited to:

1. Conflict management​: Inevitable. People and conflicts go together
2. Decision making​: Team always likes a leader who is decisive and not someone who is confused
3. Facilitation: Meeting management, moderation and ​organization
4. Negotiation​: Get the best deal for the team and the Project
5. Networking​: Essential particularly when you need future help from your peers
6. Observation/Conversation​: A good listener is a good influencer
7. Servant Leadership​: People oriented role providing support to the team and helping them grow
8. Team building​: Help team collaborate and become self organized

Keep in mind, leadership skills are different from Leadership styles.

Conclusion

Some Project Managers are born with people skills. Influencing others smoothly to get their work done comes naturally to them. That doesn’t mean that these skills cannot be inculcated. In fact a lot of managers are poorly trained in their roles and not many of them have a smooth role transition from an individual contributor role.

Both experience and instinct have a significant impact on a PM’s management skills.