Heather Buckley is a photographer and the co-founder / director of Silicon Beach Training. This Brighton-based training company offer IT and business training including PRINCE2 Training recently launched in Birmingham. Heather blogs regularly on all things Photoshop, Project Management and Social Media.
When advising my clients on who PRINCE2™ Training would suit, I often repeat that the PRINCE2™ certification is not only for Project Managers, or even IT Project Managers as many assume. PRINCE2™ – and any Project Management training – can suit people in a variety of manager, leader and team member roles. That said, a good project manager isn’t every man or woman on the street. Organisation and time management are obvious, but they mean little if you can’t motivate your team.
Here are what I think are the qualities that can make you a good project manager.
- Involve everyone and efficiently delegate
Whilst it is a good skill of team management to involve all members of your team and to make them feel important, you also need to delegate correctly. You should recognise the strengths and weaknesses of your team and ensure they are in roles where they can fulfill their potential i.e. your accounting expert should not be in charge of IT! The right delegating will increase your team’s performance as well as help to create a cheerful working environment.
- Have excellent communication skills
You need to ensure that everyone knows exactly what their roles require, what the time restraints are and what the team’s shared desired outcome is. You also need to be able to offer (constructive) criticism when necessary. A complaint should never appear as such, but rather as some advice intended to help someone out.
- Be enthusiastic
Relating to the above, your communication and ability to involve everyone require enthusiasm! This is a crucial leadership skill, as the enthusiasm of your group will be directly influenced by your own. Similarly, you need to maintain a sense of urgency throughout, to keep their momentum going and to steer the project towards completion.
- Be calm
A sense of urgency should never blur into a sense of panic; if you’re stressed then your team is stressed! As a project manager, your job is to create a sense of direction and organisation; to maintain this you must be able to think on your feet and keep (or at least seem) cool under pressure.
- Don’t be afraid to make changes
Keeping calm is important as a project manager will often need to make changes: making changes is not a failure – if something is not working, change it. Refusing to swallow your pride and admit a mistake is better that letting something undermine the product as whole, and your team will respect your ability to do this.
What do you think makes you a good project manager? Share in the Comments field below.
Copyright ©2010 Heather Buckley
One of the contributing authors actually elaborated on the sense of urgency part, you can find the article here.
I’d say also:
- A person who know how to say no
- Not a scope plater
- Respectful to the stakeholders, and of course, his team members
- Not a methodology freak