Top 10 qualities of a Project Manager

You might have seen many online posts or seminars talking about how a project manager should be and his/her capabilities as a successful project manager. I have different perspective on it, and will also explain why.

Here is my list in the order of preference

1. Excellent Negotiator

Who is Project Manager? Manage the assigned resources at defined/un-defined constraints. How a PM can manage these, my point and many others felt that it all boils down to how well you negotiate with your team, stakeholders, vendords/external agencies to get to the bottom of the project need or task. I have seen many great project managers are successful negotiators, everything else is next.

2. Advisor

In a real world scenario, you have many constraints and challenges to meet stakeholder requirements so some PMs are successful and others are not? Do you know why? In general, if a requirement or a request from a stakeholder is far from acheivable, most PMs jump in and negotiate to change or remove the requirement from the list but not understanding the impact to the business. The good PMs discuss the need for the requirement by understanding the business need and asess the impact and works with Stakeholders to identify an alternte solution.

In the same way, act as an advisor to the team members on various issues

3. Excellent Communicator
If you want to be effective communicator, you need to understand the audience you are communicating and their roles in the organization. If you are communicating with senior management, then communication is short and dollarize the objective. At the same time, if you are communicating with the project teams, then you need to be more clear and precise on the assigned action items

4. Highest Ethical Standards

One should be able to possess highest ethical standards to be a great leader. Respect all the individuals, treat every one equal, loyal to the organization, respect data privacy & personal information, equal opportunity to the team, work for the team and to the organization

5. Team Player

This is the basic requirement of a Project Manager, and without it would not be PM. How in the earth can you manage the team if you are not a Team Player? How can you buy-in from the team even to get to the project on-track all the time? PM should recognize the fact that every member in the team is equally important to their respective roles, and play by the rules as set for the project or PMO(Project Management Office)

6. Business Savvy

Successful Project Managers know always the business need of doing their project, and how it impacts to the organizational goals. Knowing the business always helps the PM in steering the project to align with the set goals for the project. I encourage organizations to be more suceptible to idea of involving their PMs in key project decisions, it always uncover any risks and plan for managing it well in advance.

7. Problem Solver
It is a basic trait of a Project Manager. Virtually every project in this world may have some constraints to manage, a problem solver can always find a way to manage those constraints. A constraint can be a limited time, limited money, limited resources, limited knowledge, team conflicts and many others to manage, a problem solver know how to isolate the problem and steer the project towards the set goal.

8. Focus on target
As mentioned the constraints above, you still need to manage the project to deliver on-time and on-budget, this is not an easy task, you may have a lot of stress and pressure at times to get around a problem to keep the project stay on-track. A best project manager always stay focussed under all these circustances.

To explain it more eloquantly, here is a small story: Three students were practicing a rifle shooting in a forest, the important trait is a focus on a traget. So the guru (teacher) want to test their skills, he called on the students and showed them an apple tree and pointed them to the apple on the tip of the tree, asked the students to keep the rifle ready.

1.Guru asked the first student shooter, what are you seeing at the target?
First student replied: Apple, Tree, and Sky
2. Guru asked the second student shooter, what are you seeing at the traget?
Second student replied: Apple, and Tree
3. Guru asked the third student shooter, what are you seeing at the traget?
Third student replied: Apple only

Now you know, who are focussed on the traget, third student. The PM should always focus on the project outcome keeping everything out of the sight.

9. Competence

The project manager should be competent in all the three following domains: Project Management, Business, and any specific skill set required for a project. Being competent in all the above three domains, a PM can manage the project with any complexity.

10. Empathy
Empathy is nothing but understanding, what does it mean?

> Understanding the business
> Understanding the stakeholders
> Understanding the need for the project
> Understanding team issues
> Understanding risks
> Understanding project committment..like many other

one should be open minded in embracing the project key needs.

Happy Learning...

Sameer Penakalapati

Note: These are the opinons of the author, the applicability is at your own discretion.