Ways to Improve Your Project Management Skills

Successful Project Managers often have soft skills that set them apart from their colleagues and help them to deliver projects successfully where other equally well-qualified project managers would fail. Of course, you can't be a successful project manager with only the right personality traits – you also need the right training and experience but combining that with well-developed soft skills might just make all the difference.
Here are some ways to improve your project management skills:

·         Be assertive without being aggressive.

·         Display an optimistic, "can-do" attitude at all times.

·         Expect resources to be limited and have a contingency plan.

·         Plan for changes to priorities and requirements.

·         Deal calmly with changes to the project.

·         Promote a good team spirit – motivate, develop and encourage the team members.

·         Communicate in person whenever possible.

·         Talk to team members individually - give praise where it is due and clearly state your expectations if standards fall below what are required.

·         Take an active interest in every aspect of the project.

·         Communicate with team members and stakeholders at their level and in their language – avoid technical jargon.

·         Keep reports as clear and simple as possible – develop the ability to explain complex issues in a straightforward way.

·         Stay clear of business politics where possible – and when it is not possible try to take a rational, diplomatic approach and stay focussed on the original business objective.

·         Be receptive to new ideas without losing sight of the business objective. As a project progresses there can be situations where a re-think is required of how to achieve a particular goal or milestone.

·         Don't assume the original plan was the best approach if new information comes along part-way through the project.

·         Don't lose sight of the detail.

·         Celebrate each successful project with the team and don't forget to thank everyone, and involve everyone in the celebration, regardless of how junior or senior they might be.

·         Learn something from every project and take that knowledge forward with you to the next.

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Like all professional careers, the path to successful project management begins with a sure foundation. This foundation can be built by a combination of formal project management courses and work experience. If you are very fortunate you may also have a mentor. You can work well and effectively as a project manager with this base but to progress to being truly successful and consistently successful you will need to develop your "soft skills" and progress to more advanced levels of understanding with professional qualifications such as PMP Certification.

10 Reasons You Need Project Management

You may feel the whole process of project management with all its methodologies, techniques, meetings, reports and other assorted documentation is just a thorn in your side. You may even feel you would be better off without it - but I suggest you read these 10 benefits of project management and they may just change your opinion.

Project Management is simply a series of strategies that help to turn an idea into reality and get you from the ideas stage to a finished product or process as efficiently as possible and with least risk of failure.
If you are the client you know that the budget will be well-controlled and that the final product will meet your requirements and expectations. But it is only by applying formal techniques and using the skills and knowledge of the project manager that this will be the likely outcome.

So here's my 10 benefits of project management:

1.      Meeting Requirements: By clearly defining the business requirements at the outset and staying focussed on those requirements even when changes occur and risks arise, the end result will meet the client's needs.

2.      Client Satisfaction: Project management provides the tools and techniques to help deliver projects that not only meet the client's needs but are on time and on budget which naturally leads to client satisfaction.

3.      Flexibility: By incorporating change management processes into the running of the project and anticipating the need for changes, there can be the opportunity for flexibility in the client's requirements without risk to the project's success.

4.      Minimising Risks: Risk Management is an integral part of project management and, as such, risks can be anticipated and dealt with easily as they are not unexpected.

5.      Schedule: The detailed plans and schedules that are part of all good projects enable you to pre-empt scheduling conflicts and over-runs and deal with them by either modifying the project tasks or agreeing a revised schedule with the stakeholders.

6.      Controlled Costs: Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of controlled and organised project management is that you can spot problems with escalating costs before they become a major issue. You can then deal with them relatively easily because you have the detailed information to do so.

7.      Efficiency: Well trained project managers have learnt from the accumulated knowledge of projects that have gone before as well as those they have personally been involved in. They know what works well and what does not.

8.      Quality: Efficient projects that treat quality control and quality management as an inherent part of the project process result in higher quality end products.

9.      Communication: Everyone involved in the project, from team members, right through to the client will be kept well-informed of progress, change and risks. Good communication is a vital for a successful project.

10.  Team Motivation: When everyone involved in a project can see (from the plans, schedule and reports) what has been achieved, and by whom, then this will motivate all members of the team. They will get the recognition they deserve for a job well done.

So next time you are thinking about taking (or sending someone on) one of the many project management courses available and what you might learn, think about these benefits. They are all essential project management skills that will help your project be a success and that is good news for your company and good news for your career.

Project Scope and Its Importance

You know how you sometimes overhear a snippet of conversation – on a train, in a shop or restaurant – and it gets you thinking about a subject close to your heart. You want to join in the discussion – you can feel a heated debate arising - but the people in conversation have moved on. 

You may well have misunderstood them and, given that you didn't hear the whole conversation, they may well have come around to your way of thinking. But you can't help churning it over in your mind (well not if you are anything like me anyway).

The topic of conversation I overheard recently was about project scope and its importance in the success of a project. The type of project (or activity or product) was irrelevant to the discussion – it could have been any business or personal project. 

One of the protagonists believed that not only should the scope be clearly defined but what was NOT in scope should also be clearly defined. The antagonists thought that documenting (or indeed thinking or worrying about) what was not in scope was a waste of time. There could be a million things that are not in the scope of a project, they argued. But I believe they missed the point completely.

If, like me, you have worked as a project manager on many projects during your career (IT projects in my case) then you are certain to have come across situations like these:

·         There's a mismatch between what is delivered and what was wanted by the client

·         Requests for major changes are made halfway through a project

·         Different clients on the same project have different requirements

·         Changes are requested immediately after the project is completed

These are all signs that the scope of the project was not clearly defined or, more likely, what was not in scope was not discussed or documented. So the antagonists in the argument I overheard can continue to believe it is unimportant to define what is not in scope, if they wish, but the end results of their projects are likely to have some, if not all, of the above problems.

If you don't define what is NOT in scope then people involved in a project – be they project managers, team members, end users or stakeholders will make assumptions. Their expectations will then be unlikely to match the expectations of those delivering the work. It is vital, in my opinion, to clearly state what is not in scope in order to successfully manage the expectations of the client or customer.

In fact, managing expectations is a skill that every good project manager should develop early on in their career – it takes no more than an ability to communicate clearly with all those involved in a project. Although this sounds easy it is a skill that many project managers fail to master. The reasons for this are varied – it might be a fear of questioning those in senior positions, it might be a failure to talk to those at the coal face or any number of other reasons. Whatever the reasons, fully defining the scope of a project and managing customer expectations are inextricably linked.

And the solution is simple – talk, talk openly, listen and listen without prejudice. The customer may have a role far removed from yours but they are the ones who will ultimately define the success of your project. Foster good relationships with them right at the outset and you will be rewarded with good communications that will not find you on the BIG DAY discovering that everyone "assumed" that such-and-such would be delivered and it was not.

Good Luck! And here's to your project success – Remember Scope Matters.

For those of you who want to learn more about how to define scope then find one of the many project management courses that cover business requirements analysis. This is the process of finding out, analysing, writing down and agreeing on the requirements of a project. It is the most successful technique for defining in detail the scope of a project and there are various types of courses to help you including podcasts which you can listen to on your ipod - my current favourite way of learning.