Project Management: Do You Have What It Takes?

August 3, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Musings

Project Management: Do You Have What It Takes?
By Gloria Brown, Global Knowledge Instructor

If you’re thinking about becoming a project manager, you need to be aware of all that will be expected of you. Do you have any idea of what you might be getting yourself into? Project management may look easy, but it is extremely challenging. Unlike professionals in other positions, a project manager must become an expert in many disciplines and skills. Let’s explore some of the areas in which a successful project manager must excel.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) states that a project manager typically spends 90% of his/her time communicating. So, from that, you may assume that you would need to be an excellent communicator to succeed in this type of job. You must practice active listening in order to understand the needs and concerns of your stakeholders.

You must excel in negotiation skills in order to convince other managers to help you obtain the appropriate resources at the scheduled time. You must have patience and empathy to help customers and/or stakeholders explain how they currently conduct business or how they want to change their business. At many other times, your persuasive skills will enable you to convince stakeholders or customers that what they want isn’t remotely close to what they actually need, based on the requirements you have documented.

Wait! There are other communication skills that you will also need. You must be able to correctly document users’ requirements, produce meetings agendas, follow up with meeting minutes, and facilitate meetings. You will frequently speak before various groups to explain project goals and objectives. At times, you must succinctly and politely defend your reasons why the sponsor may not really want to reduce the project schedule or budget, by carefully explaining the impact a shortened schedule or a reduced budget will have on the project and/or the organization. Then, regardless of the sponsor’s decision, you must, with political correctness, accept that decision, communicate it to your project team, and succeed with the revised budget or schedule.

But communication skills are not the only skills you will need; a myriad of general management skills also apply to project managers. You must be a master juggler since you seldom manage only one project at a time. Time management skills are essential as you manage your time and assist team leads and team members in figuring out how to manage their time, as well. And, of course excellent organizational skills are also required. You will create roles, responsibilities, and schedules for team members and manage them throughout the project. This requires you to know and use human resource management skills to hire, fire, coach, counsel, and mentor colleagues and team members. In the meantime, you will create a staffing plan and a responsibility matrix; determine where team members will sit; how they will communicate with each other and with customers; etc. And, in your responsibility for the entire project, you are the point person for managing any conflict that occurs during the project life cycle. You must manage not only the project resources but the project schedule, as well.

Managing the project schedule means that you must be familiar with concepts such as: scope, work breakdown structure, dependencies, Gantt charts, etc. And, you need to become an expert in using project management software to document and track the project tasks and activities. Other related skills include the compilation and explanation of milestone charts, earned value calculations, and numerous reports to stakeholders, customers, and management. Project managers create and distribute performance and status reports, based upon the data maintained and tracked in the project management software. They are also responsible for forecasts related to work and project performance and budget and schedules.

There’s more. You must also lead the project. The project team will expect you to set realistic, but often challenging, expectations for yourself, them, and the project. You are responsible for the deliverables of all your projects. Senior management expects you to bring in your projects on time, within budget, and to deliver what you said you would deliver, AND that the products or services will do what they are supposed to do. So, in addition to managing the budgets and schedules, you will solicit for and obtain goods and services at the best costs to the organization. You may also develop contracts by working alone or in coordination with other departments such as Legal, Purchasing, Contracting, etc. You lead all aspects of every project!

Unlike managers in other areas, project managers are expected to adhere to standard best practices and processes developed and distributed by the PMI, meaning that you must be thoroughly familiar with the Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide (PMBOK Guide®). You may also be expected to earn globally acknowledged credentials such as the Project Management Professional (PMP) or Program Management Professional (PgMP) certification. And, after obtaining the certification, project managers must continuously update these credentials by taking additional classes, attending seminars, participating in PMI meetings, etc. A project manager’s education is never complete!

Becoming a project manager is not for the faint of heart. In short, to be successful, you must also be an expert planner, problem-solver, diplomat, communicator, leader, learner, and manager. Plus, you must understand the policies, procedures, and politics of the organization in which you manage projects. Enter this profession only if you have the skills and knowledge indicated above, along with a willingness to continually learn more about this exciting and ever-changing field.

Gloria C. Brown lives in Atlanta, GA, and teaches project management and professional skills classes for Global Knowledge. She holds Master’s degrees in Education and Business (Decision Sciences) and has over 30 years of experiences as a teacher, technical trainer, IT project manager, and a consultant.

This article was originally published in Global Knowledge’s Business Brief e-newsletter. Global Knowledge delivers comprehensive hands-on project management, business process, and professional skills training. Visit our online Knowledge Center at www.globalknowledge.com/business for free white papers, webinars, and more.

Share this article:

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 3rd, 2008 and is filed under Project Management Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 people have left comments

Very nice article.. I rarely leave comments on website..but for this article I had too leave one.

Can I request one thing at the same time , Can I get a response or an article on what goals should a person set and how should he pursue his job in such a way that he can be a pm in a definite period

Thanks,
Saral

saral gupta wrote on January 30, 2009 - 12:08 am | Visit Link

Saral,

PM Hut has many articles on the subject “becoming a project manager”, the latest is this one on breaking into project management.

PM Hut wrote on February 4, 2009 - 1:09 pm | Visit Link

feel free to leave a comment

Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (a href, strong, em, code). All line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Email addresses will never be published. Keep it PG-13 people!

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

All fields marked with " * " are required.

Resolving Project Team Conflicts

Improve Project Performance With Lessons Learned

Defining Program Management and How Agile Helps

Facilitating a Requirements Validation Meeting with Ease!

Decisions, Outcomes, and the Project Manager

Project Management - Can You Handle the Truth?

Eliminating the Reasons Organizations Choose the Wrong Projects

On the Interpretation of Probabilities in Project Management

Proactively Address Unpredictability about Project Resource Availability

Project Management Checklists

Project Management: Do You Have What It Takes?

2 people have left comments

feel free to leave a comment