On a scale of 1-10, how good of a project manager (PM) are you, and what makes you so great? You’d probably say it’s your project delivery success rate. And you would be right. But do you know what gets you there?
The Project Management Institute says highly effective PMs get results thanks to the combination of four critical power skills: communication, problem-solving, collaborative leadership, and strategic thinking. Now, being project management and collaboration experts here at ActiveCollab, we’d take this a step further. To be a true rock-star PM, we say you also need to know how to mix, match, and moderate these skills to individual circumstances.
Having the right technical skills and business acumen goes without saying, but all that is not enough. To take your project management expertise to the next level you’ll want to apply the nine skills and refined character trait combinations we talk about in this blog. This list might be the thing you’ve been looking for to take you from being a good PM to becoming a great one.
1. Effective Team Leadership & Agile Mentality
A good PM leads their team to complete a project in time with an acceptable level of success. A great one does it with an agile mentality giving their team freedom to apply their individual expertise.
Effective Leadership - Be a Visionary
Guidance, collaboration, and influence are three pillars of effective leadership. Your goal isn’t to simply delegate and make decisions on your own. Instead, you want to bring your team on the journey with you. You want to earn their trust and support because much of your success lies in their hands with the work they do on a daily basis. To do that, you need to build the kind of leadership brand where your team sees you as a mentor and a visionary.
Agile Mentality - Foster and Drive Adaptability
You also want to empower your team, not hold them back. The agile mindset is all about fostering a flexible and adaptable workplace where your people have a level of autonomy around how they work and the ability to use their expertise in decision making.
There are two core benefits to Agile leadership which work well for project management:
Adaptability to change – For agile teams change is always expected and welcomed with open arms. This means they are always prepared to find new solutions, especially when it comes to customer and client happiness.
Growth and innovation – When you give employees freedom and show you trust their expertise, you open the way for more creative and innovative solutions.
Doing everything you can to be an effective leader with an agile mentality creates a team culture that spurs dedication, growth and innovation.
2. Open Communication with Empathetic Precision
A good PM makes everyone’s opinion count throughout the project. A great one actively listens and comes up with solutions to support their team without losing sight of the end goal.
Open Communication - Equal Voice, Honesty and Transparency
Open communication is giving everyone an equal voice within a team, project or organization, and being honest and transparent with the information you share. Not only do teams in this kind of atmosphere engage more freely, they also tend to be more loyal, motivated and efficient.
A big part of this is also making sure your team has the collaboration and information management tools that allow seamless communication for remote and in-office teams.
Empathetic Precision - Support That Doesn’t Compromise Delivery
Can you be empathetic and supportive while also being laser-focused on delivering what’s promised? Great PMs can. And that’s what empathetic precision is: the fine art of finding a solution for your team’s hardships without compromising the project’s delivery. This one is a fairly advanced PM skill which takes time and experience to learn and apply, but it’s one of the most sought after traits in project management.
When you tie open communication with empathetic precision in a PM role, you nurture a culture of free speech, respect and support amongst team members and stakeholders, without losing sight and control of your project’s end goal.
3. Organizational Skills with an Advanced Tool Stack
A good PM has robust organizational skills. A great one takes their organization know-how and implants it through an advanced tool stack for easy tracking and management.
Organizational Skills – Allocation and Management Efficiency
From allocating resources and managing time effectively, to prioritizing tasks and developing simple systems of operation, organizational skills are a non-negotiable trait of every PM. Without them, not only do you risk losing time and money, you also decrease productivity, increase stress and create tension for your team. This combination sets up the ideal environment for mistakes to be made, and for team morale to drop.
Advanced Tool Stack – A Smooth Workflow
Having the best project management tools you can get your hands on makes for a smoother journey for you, your team and stakeholders. When we talk about tools, there’s a couple of things you need to keep in mind:
- It’s not just about what you, as the PM need. It’s about the tools and functionality your teams need to operate efficiently on a daily basis. So it’s a matter of finding the right tool or tools.
- Your aim is to centralize as much of your project workflow as possible, through a tool like ActiveCollab and keep everyone on the same virtual workspace for the majority of their tasks.
Running your project on an advanced collaboration tool gives you more opportunities to not only apply your organizational skills with ease, but the reporting these tools offer can also help refine and streamline future processes.
4. Results-Driven Resilience
A good PM is fairly resilient to setbacks and project changes. But a great one springs back into tip-top shape and finds a solution that will keep their plan on track.
Resilience - Jump-In Solution Mode
Resilience is all about not backing down, giving up or giving in. It has everything to do with bravery, taking initiative and finding a speck of opportunity in what seems to be an impossible endeavor.
The benefits of being a resilient, results-driven PM are:
- Comradery – The willingness to roll up your sleeves and work with teams to find a solution when disaster strikes.
- Composure – The ability to not be swayed by high-stress situations or errors which can bring on abrupt and unwelcome reactions (like loss of temper) and lower team morale.
- Courage – The capacity to have tough conversations with grace, and hold team members accountable without damaging rapport.
- Connection – A fine knack for managing, linking and communicating project goals to drive business outcomes even in challenging scenarios.
When you match your eagerness for success (results) with resilience, it helps you manage your emotions and time more effectively. Instead of spending precious time stressing out and overanalyzing what went wrong, you push yourself into resolution mode, instead.
5. Ever Curious Approach with a User Mindset
A good PM applies a good level of technical curiosity throughout his work. A great one takes that curiosity one step further by asking questions from the standpoint of the end user.
Curiosity - Ask User Questions
Most PMs question the hows and the whys of certain deliverables, priorities, tasks and timeframes. All these come from the stance of output. But the curiosity you want is creative curiosity that goes deeper, past the technical aspects of the job and taps into the outcome. Because it’s this kind of curiosity that gives rise to tangible results.
User Mindset - Focus on the Outcome
That’s why a great PM stays close to the user. They’ll ask bolder questions. Things like, how will this project decision impact the customer? By being user-curious, the PM can make better decisions through the entirety of the project and increase the chances of success after delivery. This also prevents roadblocks popping up mid-project and minimizes cost blowouts.
A PM may be answering to the leadership team but their work’s purpose is to deliver a valuable product, initiative or outcome. If they get that right, the leadership team will have no complaints. And that’s why a user mindset driven curiosity is a highly valued trait in project management.
6. Tactful Negotiator and Tenacious Character
A good PM will know how to get their way and get things done. But a great one will do all that without damaging key relationships in the process.
Tact - Understand and control your reaction
When you want to win people over in difficult or tense situations, you need to use tact. This involves three things:
- Active listening – Be open, empathetic and considerate of the other party’s argument so you fully understand their positioning.
- Connection – Create a safe environment to have an open and constructive conversation where you will come to a peaceful resolution without severing the relationship.
- Control – Avoid impulsive reactions and control your emotions and temper.
Tenacity – Stand Your Ground
How you deal and interact with people says alot about who you are as a person and this transfers to your professional success. Sometimes you’ll come face to face with difficult people who aren’t particularly proactive or service-focused. Being firm and persistent will help you push through with your needs.
Other times, your stakeholders may have legitimate reasons for not being cooperative but a tenacious PM doesn't give up easily. If they can’t get what they are looking for in one place, or within one team, they look for other avenues. The point is, they don’t back down because they know the project’s success depends on their perseverance.
Learning to be tactful in your dealings with people while also keeping a tenacious stance can be an extremely useful skill, particularly in negotiations which are a big part of project management.
7. Problem Solving & Foresight
A good PM will know how to apply his problem solving skills to a range of issues. A great one will not only know how to solve problems, they’ll also prevent them from happening in the first place.
Problem Solving - The essence of project management
Nobody in their right mind has ever hired a PM with inadequate problem solving skills. Because solving problems and managing project delays with a bit of class is the essence of the job description. Day in, day out, a PM’s job revolves around developing solutions, finding alternatives and resolving conflicting priorities. The basis of any successful business is to solve paint points and challenges for customers and project management is no different.
Foresight - Focus on Prevention
Foresight is the ability to anticipate issues ahead of time. But why does a PM need this skill? So they can minimize the number of issues they’ll have to deal with later down the line and come up with problem-solving strategies. If you can identify potential future issues that may pop up because of industry, market or regulatory changes, you can strategically work preventions into the initial planning phase and minimize time and budget blowouts.
When you combine problem-solving with foresight you display a high level of competence and expertise that increases trust amongst your team and stakeholders. It also lets you take your project from start to finish, with less hiccups and halts.
8. Harmonizing Business+Tech
A good PM is an expert in the business and industry their project supports. A great one knows how that business interacts and depends on technology to keep it running.
Business+Tech - An Interdependent Relationship
In project management it’s not enough to know the business. You also need to have a deep understanding of its technology. To overlook, underestimate or undermine the role tech plays in a project is to do yourself a great disservice. So, you need to tap into the broad network of tech contacts who support the business, and who you can reach out to for insights, advice and support.
Harmonizing - Be the Neutral Middle That Unites
PMs play a vital role in harmonizing the symbiotic relationship between business and tech.
As a PM, if you position yourself as a neutral entity that carries and unites business and tech,to drive your purpose, you’ll not only make your job easier, but also avoid misunderstanding and conflicts between the two teams.
The other thing you can do is share your knowledge and educate both teams so they can appreciate each other's logic and arguments for business decisions. Both will have valid reasons. The problem is, sometimes the two sides get lost in translation. As the PM, you are there to help them understand each other so they meet halfway.
No project has ever come to life without the support of technology and tech teams. Great project managers take a neutral but proactive role to align business and tech so both work to achieve the best outcomes for the customer.
9. Experience
Finally, a good PM may have experience within a business discipline. But, a great one will have years of experience across a broad range of projects and industries.
This wide spectrum of experience translates into savviness and a greater capacity to recognize efficiencies and cost containment, in particular.
Here’s why more experienced PMs make better project leads:
- Tried and tested – They are no rookie. They have a set of best practices they’ve already tried and tested which they know work.
- Confident leaders – Years of leading have formed an influential, authentic and credible leader teams and stakeholders will follow.
- Outcome vs output – They know the difference between output and outcome and they focus on the latter.
- Adaptability – Past project mishaps have made them quicker to adapt and deal with adversity and challenges.
The level of any business leader’s experience can make a huge difference in final business outcomes. This is true for any profession but for project managers, a vast array of experience is the thing that hones all of the above mentioned skills to enviable levels where they can apply them with ease.
How To Improve Your Project Management Skills
While experience is a fundamental part of successful project management, sometimes undeveloped technical or soft skills can be the thing that stops you from becoming the proficient project manager you know you can be.
To fix both, you can always turn to additional training, resources and certifications. Here’s a list of short and long training courses you could explore.
1. Project Management: Applied Soft Skills for Managers from Udemy
For a quick run down of basic project management soft skills, you could turn to the Project Management: Applied Soft Skills for Managers mini course offered by Udemy.
It’s an affordable, 2.5-hour guide to help you apply assertiveness, influencing, customer care, selling, negotiation, leadership and communication skills to all your projects.
Ideal for:
- Beginners and aspiring project managers
- Current project managers looking to become more effective leaders
- Team leaders looking to improve team dynamics
- Global project managers working in multicultural and cross-functional environments
Requirement:
- No previous experience necessary
- Having some project management experience will be handy to understand and grasp principles
2. Team Building and Leadership in Project Management from Microsoft
With a focus on project leadership and team dynamics, Team Building and Leadership in Project Management is part of the longer Microsoft Project Management Professional Certificate.
As a 14-hour course, it teaches you the fundamentals of team development and lets you learn at your own pace.
Ideal for:
Beginners with or without project management experience
Requirements:
No requirements to enroll
3. Find a Project Management Coach on MentorCruise
If you prefer one-on-one learning, like say a mentorship, you could look for a project management coach on MentorCruise.
This is a great option for anyone who doesn’t like online or full-scale courses. Mentoring or coaching can be highly effective for project managers who learn best from others’ experience and insights and who like to share and discuss real-life experiences.
Ideal for:
- Project managers at any experience level
- Individuals who work and learn best in one-on-one situations
Requirements:
No requirements
4. PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) from Project Management Institute (PMI)
To enhance your agile capabilities in project management, this PMI-ACP certification might be worth investing in. It’s the industry’s only agnostic, experience-based, ISO-accredited exam.
If you want to up your game across Scrum, Lean, Kanban and more methodologies with an agile and team-centric approach, this would be a good choice.
Ideal for PMs:
- With 2-3 years of experience
- Who want to enhance their agile skills and mindset
- From diverse industries
Requirements:
Secondary degree
21 hours of agile practices training
12 months of general project experience in the last 5 years
8 months of agile project experience in the last 3 years
5. Executive MBA - Strategic Project Management from WU Executive Academy
To take on a more dedicated MBA approach to project management, you could enroll for the Executive MBA - Strategic Project Management.
This is an 18-month, part-time course with triple accreditation (AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS) which covers the United States, United Kingdom and Belgium.
Designed for executives, the MBA focuses on applying theoretical concepts to real-world situations. It also teaches students key expertise to perfect their project management and social skills.
Ideal for:
- Project managers and executives with extensive experience
- Professionals who want to build and grow their network of project management experts
Requirements:
Visit the WU Executive Academy website for more information.
Conclusion – How ActiveCollab Helps Good Project Manager Become Great
A good project manager uses multiple tools to run the workflow of projects. A great one keeps their eye out for the best and most advanced project management tools at their disposal.
Dealing with time estimates, workload management, and complex task dependencies, the best project management tools help you minimize manual work and streamline your operating systems which can make you stand out and be an envy-worthy PM.
While you don’t have to be super tech-savvy (most project management tools are intuitive) you do need to stay up to date with what’s on the market. Keep an eye on the benefits different providers offer. Not all vendors are equal. Some cater to specialized industries, and there could be one that’s especially designed for your project type.
ActiveCollab is loved by marketing and design agencies and consulting businesses with a growing client base – the best way to find out why is to sign up to ActiveCollab for our 14-day free trial period and experience the platform firsthand!
