Project management skills are essential to become an effective project manager. So, in this article, we’ll discuss the top 9 project management skills every project manager should have.
Table of Contents
What Is the Project Management Skills?
Project management skills enable project managers to play a vital role throughout the project life cycle, including solving problems, better collaboration, stakeholder management, risk management, quality management, and more. Project management requires a combination of organizational and technical skills to coordinate both teams and projects. So, let’s discuss essential project management skills every project manager should have.
Communication
Communication is a workplace skill that is vital throughout the project life cycle to stay within the triple constraint and achieve desired outcomes. Therefore, project managers must have this skill because they should spend 90% of their time communicating with internal and external stakeholders. However, as a project manager, you should know whom to communicate with, when, and how often. Furthermore, this might mean setting up expectations at the beginning of a project regarding how often communication will happen.
Read More: Why important project communication management when managing a project
Leadership
Leadership is another crucial workplace skill that can help make all the disparate parts of a project team come together and work as a unit to complete the project tasks and deliverables successfully. Leadership includes knowing how to motivate team members, balancing the needs of your team with the project, and influencing decisions without being overtly authoritative.
Flexibility
Even with a perfectly planned project, problems arise, such as deadlines being missed, people getting sick or changing jobs, or bad weather can derail construction. As a project manager, you must deal with these unexpected changes. Then, your project will go more smoothly. However, to do that, you should have this flexibility skill. This is a workplace skill.
Organization
Organization is a crucial workplace skill for project managers because it can help them coordinate timelines, project meetings, and efforts with different teams or other companies. Having this skill will help you stay on top of communications and tasks.
People Skills
As a project manager, you have many responsibilities to complete the project on time and within budget to achieve the desired outcomes. Staying organized and communicating with the right people will help motivate your team, foster a culture of collaboration and openness, and solve potential conflicts. Furthermore, understanding that different people have various workstyles, strengths, motivations, and growth areas will allow for more effective teams and deliver more successful projects.
Industry Knowledge
Industry knowledge is a technical skill that allows project managers to work in various fields, including construction, IT, or health care. Furthermore, hiring managers will prefer candidates who have academic or professional experience in the field. So, it will be an opportunity to become a project manager.
Risk Management
Risk management is another crucial technical skill every project manager should have. So, you will want to be able to identify when and how unexpected events that could derail your project might happen, how to minimize the chances of them happening, and how to respond if they do. You can ask these questions from yourself to solve unexpected issues or problems.
- How much of a time buffer should you add to unpredictable tasks or projects?
- If something goes wrong, how would you adjust your resources or scope?
However, having an eye for potential risks and how to reduce them can ensure smoother project delivery.
Read More: 10 Project management strategies for dealing with threats and opportunities
Project Management Tools and Software
Project management tools and software are crucial because they help project managers share findings, schedules, and communications across teams and stakeholders. As a project manager, you will often be expected to know how to use communication and collaboration tools and software and take the lead in managing them.
Here are some tools and software you might be expected to use include:
- Collaboration tools: Google Drive, Google Sheets, and Dropbox
- Scheduling tools: Gantt charts and Digital Calendars
- Communication tools: Video Conferencing software, Chat, Email
- Work Management tools: Trello, Asana, Jira, and Smartsheet
Project Management Methodologies and Approaches
Project management methodologies are the specific rules and procedures that determine how you manage a project and are suitable for different situations. Being familiar with the basic differences can help you select the best one for a project. Some common approaches to project management include agile and waterfall, which prioritize adaptability. Within these approaches, there are several methodologies, such as scrum.
Conclusion
Project management skills are essential to become an effective project manager. Communication, leadership, flexibility, organization, people skills, industry knowledge, risk management, project management tools and software, and project management methodologies and approaches are the top 9 project management skills every project manager should have.
FAQ
How to Build Project Management Skills?
Sometimes there are no better teachers than hands-on experience. To become an effective project manager, you can build project management skills by taking on more managerial tasks in your workplace. Furthermore, you can work as a volunteer in your community, which will allow you to help plan and execute projects. Moreover, you can follow online project management courses, such as the Google Project Management Professional Certificate to build project management skills.
