Be a Successful Project Manager by Learning these Top 5 Skills

Before we explore further, let us first understand what the following terms mean:

• Knowledge refers to the outcome of the assimilation of information througha learning. It consists of facts, theories, and practices relating to a field of work.
• Skill refers to the ability to apply that knowledge and complete tasks or solve problems. For example, coding is a skill.
• Competence refers to the proven ability to use the knowledge and skills to perform effectively in a job or situation. For example, problem-solving is a competency.

As you can see, each term builds on top of the previous ones.

Recent research by Humu, a human resource (HR) company, shows that highly effective managers drive a whopping 48% higher profits for their organizations than the average managers. The keyword here is not ‘smart’, ‘brilliant’, ‘more educated’, or ‘more experienced. The keyword here is ‘effective.’ As you read the definitions of the terms knowledge, skill, and competence above, you’ll notice that the word ‘effective’ is associated with competence.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines the word effective as ‘successful or achieving the results that you want’. Effective and successful are closely related. Now that we understand what these terms mean, we can say that project managers must have the right skills and competencies to be effective in their job.

In fact, in the context of project management, it is more important for a project manager to be efficient than effective.

Why?

• Effectiveness is the capability of producing a desired result or the ability to produce a desired output.
• Efficiency is the (often measurable) ability to avoid wasting materials, energy, effort, money, and time in doing something or in producing a desired result. In a more general sense, it is the ability to do things successfully and without waste.

Here are the top 5 skills and competencies required for a project manager to efficiently manage the projects.

The way projects are being handled is rapidly evolving, and as a project manager, you'll want to know what skills and competencies to master to ensure your project’s success.

Well, I’ve got you covered! Along with the following list, I have also recommended a few courses that you can take to further build your craft.

Effective Communication

A Northeastern University survey of employees reports that 28% of employees attribute poor communication to be the root cause of a failed project. That makes communication to be a crucial skill for project managers at any stage in their career.

It is, therefore, no wonder that the research paper ‘Defining the future of project management’ says that project managers spend about 90% of their time on project communications. The research paper goes to the extent of stating that nothing is more important to the success of the project than effective communication.

Poor communication during the initial stages of a project can have a high negative impact during the project’s later stages. This shows that the project cost may increase exponentially during the later stages if the communication is not effective right from the beginning of the project.

A project manager must take care of 3 main aspects of communication while working on a project:

• Communication with teams
• Communication with stakeholders
• Communication with external entities

Let’s take a look at each of these aspects to find out how skillfully the project manager needs to handle them.

Communication with teams

This involves the following:

• Team meetings: Policy announcements, town halls, and customer-related communications
• Facilitated meetings: Brainstorming sessions for the project by inviting subject matter experts (SMEs).
• One-on-one discussions: Performance appraisals, informal meetings, disciplinary meetings

The body language, inflection and tone of voice, and eye contact determine the effectiveness of these meetings.

Dr Albert Mehrabian, a renowned behavioral psychologist, and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), says that we understand what someone communicates not by the actual words spoken but by the speaker’s body language and tone of voice. After extensive research on the topic, Dr Mehrabian came up with the 7-38-55 rule formula: total liking = 7% verbal liking + 38% vocal liking + 55% facial liking.

The project manager must also communicate with specific stakeholders according to the communications management plan and stakeholder engagement plan chalked out during the planning phase of the project (and periodically refined).

These plans outline various communication methods and types, each individual stakeholders' communication needs, and the type of information they need to do their job well. How closely the project manager understands the ever-changing needs of stakeholders’ communication, and the quality of the information to be communicated, determines the effectiveness and efficiency of communication with the stakeholders.

Communication with stakeholders

This is the most difficult part for the project manager to manage. Why?

The project manager does not have any control over how stakeholders communicate among themselves. Wrong communication might impact a project negatively. And thus, the project manager is responsible to make sure that things do not go wrong among the stakeholders due to improper, missing, or misunderstood communication.

The only way a project manager can manage this efficiently is to proactively look for communication needs among individuals or groups of stakeholders.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say that the Testing team requires inputs from the Design team on the component being designed so they can write the test cases, create test data, and prepare the test bed. If this information is not communicated in time, then the Testing team’s delivery timelines will get impacted. If the project manager can understand these needs and coordinate with the two teams to ensure timely communication, he or she can avoid any possible issues later.

Communication with external entities

Here, external entities are the departments outside of the project. The project manager must ensure that the project objectives are aligned with the organizational objectives. This requires the project manager to provide constant feedback and give progress updates to the Project Management Office (PMO), program managers, and portfolio managers (if the project is part of a program or portfolio).

The project manager may also have to work with the Procurement department to meet the procurement needs of the project. He or she is responsible to communicate the exact procurement requirements with the department, go over the contract documents to ensure they are properly covered, and see to it that the delivery timelines match the delivery schedule of the project.

For those projects that deal with environmental laws or require regulatory compliance, the project manager will have to work with compliance bodies to ensure adherence and conformity.

The project manager can efficiently communicate with external entities by paying attention to the following.

• Knowing the expectations from external entities
• Being proactive to provide the required information
• Having the ability to regularly follow-up
• Developing networking and negotiation skills

These qualities will help the project manager to be effective and efficient in managing communications with external entities.

One of the best ways for project managers to learn the art of communication is by taking up comprehensive certification exams such as the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification administered by the Project Management Institute (PMI).

Here are some integrated or standalone courses you may consider to improve your communication skills in all areas of project management:

• PMP official online course by PMI
• Winning With communication—Master communication skills by Skillshare (focusing on the essentials)
• How to give a great presentation by Speak by Design
• Effective communication for program and project stakeholders and teams by edX (An overall communication course for programs, projects, and teams.)

Technical Expertise

Some project management professionals believe that a project manager can be effective in any domain, as long as they know how to manage projects.

This is not true.

Would you work under a manager who has no clue about what your work involves, and how long it might take to do a task? Especially if he or she has the authority to approve or reject your estimates, and you have to constantly explain yourself and convince yourself about your estimates? Having the ability to at least understand and speak the language of the SMEs of that domain is highly beneficial to the project manager.

Many project managers grow from domain workers to project managers:

• A software developer grows into a team lead and project manager.
• A construction project planner grows into a project manager.
• An architect grows into managing design projects.

When the team members know that their project manager has been in their shoes, and when the project manager speaks to them ‘in their language’, they tend to respect the project manager more. That project manager is seen as an insider and one of their own.

On the other hand, working with a project manager who has no idea about the domain, the work involved in a specific task, and how the estimation is done, creates uncomfortable situations for the team. They know that the project manager doesn’t know much about what they do and the efforts that go into getting the job done. They feel they need to ‘convince’ the project manager to approve the estimations they come up with. This is not a good place to be-for both the team member and the project manager. Hence, a project manager needs to have some technical knowledge, if not expertise. From PMI’s perspective, the core skills required to manage projects are known as technical expertise.

Be it managing constraints such as cost, schedule, scope, resources on a project, risk management, or managing an agile project, this core technical expertise is required.

Agile project management takes special skills and typically a traditional project manager can transition to take one of the agile roles, such as a scrum master or a product owner. 

Essentially, he or she should have the ability to work as a servant leader. Enabling the team to work independently by removing impediments from their path, helping them understand the requirements, and facilitating better communication are some of the responsibilities you’d take up as the servant leader.

As a scrum master, you’ll also need to educate the senior management as well as the team on agile practices. 

Helping with product vision, release planning, sprint planning, daily standup, review, and retrospective as well as helping the team provide transparency of communication and progress are the key responsibilities of a scrum master.

As a product owner, you will ensure the team has a 100% understanding of the requirements, the delivery timelines based on business priorities, and your availability to answer any of their questions.

The other aspect of technology is the knowledge of project management tools.

The project manager must be able to use project management tools such as MS Project for traditional (predictive) projects, or tools such as Asana, Trello, Jira, and Pivotal Tracker for agile projects.

Being able to use these to manage, forecast, and report progress is essential to:

• Understand how the project is performing
• Look for signs of trouble ahead of time
• Report progress to the sponsor, customer, and other stakeholders

The better a project manager is with domain knowledge and various tools, the more effective and efficient they will be able to manage the project.

For agile project managers, there are plenty of tool choices available. 

Jira is one of the most popular tools to manage agile projects, whether it’s using scrum, kanban, or your own unique flavor. It helps you create boards, backlogs, roadmaps, and reports such as sprint burndown/burnup charts, velocity charts, and sprint reports. Moreover, you can even integrate it with other tools for collaboration, communication, or document management.

If you are a project manager who works with Predictive (or Waterfall) approach based projects, Microsoft Project is a great tool to master. Check out the course by Skillshare on PM Basics with MS Project to sharpen your skills.

If you are an agile project manager, you are spoiled for choice in project management tools.  Do you want to learn Atlassian’s Jira?Take a look at this course by Coursera for Agile with Atlassian Jira.

Risk Management

Here’s a pop quiz.

Say you are a project manager of commercial building projects. You come to know about a large swathe of land available at a below-market price, but your project sponsor says that the company cannot invest in such a large land. Now that’s a problem.

Then you suggest collaborating with a competitor and building a villa project there as a joint venture (JV).

Will you call the above-mentioned problem a risk?

Going by the definition of the world’s largest project management body—PMI—this is a risk called opportunity!

Yes, risk is divided into two types: threat and opportunity; in other words, a positive risk and a negative risk.

Risk management is often the most misunderstood and least acted upon. With no risk management processes and practices in place, many project managers typically use their gut feelings to manage risks. Lev Virine, in her research paper, states that using gut feel or intuition as the basis for decision-making is subject to cognitive biases and prone to illusions, which can cause errors.

Risk management is not a one-person job. However, quite a few project managers take up this task either by choice or by the variables at play in a project environment. The project manager must involve all the required stakeholders regularly to identify and manage risks and plan their response strategies accordingly.

Companies often do have risk identification and response strategies in place but fail to consistently monitor the occurrence of those risks, missing the opportunity to manage the negative impacts when the time comes.

The severity of the risk could lead to wastage of effort, material, and opportunity, resulting in additional project cost, or at times, termination of the project itself. As a project manager, you would need to be proactive in managing risks.

Many project managers make the cardinal mistake of doing this alone. Risk management is a team exercise—the more experts and stakeholders you include, the safer the project will be.

Starting with identifying risk categories (market risk, credit risk, operations risk, etc.) and risk types (scope creep, gold plating, higher costs, etc.), you will be able to tailor the risk management processes as per the project’s needs.

Risk identification, risk probability and impact analysis, risk mitigation planning, risk response identification, risk budget, risk owners, and risk register—all the processes, artifacts, and assignment of risk management personnel, are the core skills of a project manager.

Here are the steps involved in effective and efficient risk management:

• Create a comprehensive risk management plan
• Identify stakeholders to be involved in risk management activities
• Conduct regular risk identification sessions
• Identify risk owners and risk response strategies
• Look proactively for change in risk probability and impact on identified risks
• Ensure that the response is applied as per the plan and look for residual and secondary risks when the risks materialize

As a project manager, you must sharpen your skills in managing risks. PMI has a great certification course on risk management called PMI Risk Management Professional, or PMI-RMP. To apply for this intense course, you should have a certain amount of experience as a project manager focused on project risk management.

If you want to jump in and learn about risk management of your project, then Pluralsight's Project Risk Management program is a great course to do.

Change Management

Change is inevitable in an organization for it to grow and thrive.

• The trigger for change at an organizational level may come from changing business conditions, a change in organizational objectives, and demand and supply of niche skills, among other reasons.
• The trigger for change at a project level could be a change initiative at an organizational level, change in the design/architecture/approach, or even an implementation of a need from a customer.

The common issue the project manager would face when it comes to change is resistance. This is because change is not always easily accepted no matter how good or required it is. The project manager is usually tasked with bringing about changes in the project organization when the need for change comes from an organizational level.

Here are a couple of ways for the project manager to manage change effectively and efficiently:

Share with the team why the change is necessary rather than focusing more on what is to change.

The ‘what’ is needed, but it’s the ‘how’ that gets you the cooperation of the team in implementing the change. Why does this work?

As per Deci’s (Deci et al., 1989) self-determination theory, people value autonomy, and people’s need for growth drives behavior. By showing them why the change is essential and how the change will help them grow, the project manager can get them to implement the change willingly.

What is the process for change management?

Defining a process gives people clarity. It helps them understand their role and responsibilities in effecting the change. This, along with explaining the why, will help the project manager manage the change more effectively and efficiently. Change management could be the most challenging task for a manager. It is important then that you learn how to approach this the right way.

Certified Change Management Professional is a certification that would help you master this skill. The CCMP™ is a globally recognized credential established by ACMP for professionals to demonstrate their commitment to leading the way change works. 

If you are looking for a self-paced course, then look no further than this Change Management Certification by Futurelearn.

Interpersonal Skills

Having good interpersonal skills can help a project manager in unexpected ways.

For instance, the ability to build a strong network within the organization can allow the project manager to bypass the official hierarchy, tap into the unofficial power zones in the organization, and get critical resources required for the success of the project.

Here are a few important interpersonal skills (a few of many) that will help you to be an outstanding project manager:

Communication

We’ve already seen how critical this skill is. Enough said! Let’s move to the next one.

Collaboration

The project manager as well as the team needs to collaborate with multiple parties—other project managers, resource managers, functional managers, sponsors, customers, consultants, vendors, and so on.

The project manager also needs to collaborate and ensure the team’s collaboration with other teams:

• Other internal project teams (Design, Testing, Development, Quality, etc.)
• Other organizational teams (Procurement, Legal, PMO, QA, etc.)
• Departments outside the organization (regulatory compliance, environmental clearance, etc.)

Critical Thinking

Challenges to the project come from unexpected sources at unexpected times. Along with it comes the possibility of an impact on the project objectives—budget, schedule, scope, credibility, and even future business opportunities. Being able to keep the emotional aspects aside, thinking objectively, and implementing solutions are the hallmark of a project manager.

Conflict Resolution

Conflicts are a part of any project. When multiple people and multiple teams work towards a single goal, keeping their interests in mind too, there are bound to be conflicts. Conflict can happen within the team, between the teams that are working together, or between stakeholders who are not reporting to the project manager, but their decisions and actions can influence the project!

While mastering interpersonal skills is not an overnight job, it is an essential part of a project manager’s profile. By working at them daily and with the help of mentors, a project manager can gradually get better at many of these skills.

I’m sure you are already good at some of them, and you want to master the skills.

One of the courses you might want to look at is Developing interpersonal skills for work, which covers communication, conflict resolution, business etiquette, and more. You can learn top negotiation skills from this course on Mastering negotiation and influence.

Eduonix's Interpersonal skills: Understanding empathy is another course that helps develop the most essential people management skill that a project manager requires.