Skills For Successful Project Management

With the re-opening of schools and colleges, comes the opening season for various training institutes with lots of skills to sell.Whilst some skills are hard pressed confining you to the four walls of class room, some really can’t be pressed on in the confines of training room.  Let’s try to understand the different skills and its applicability to the Profession of “Project Management”.

Let’s first try to understand what soft skills are, Soft skills are the skills that are common requirement but with different proportion for any job role or activity that we take up in our professional and personal life examples: Negotiation skills, Communication skills, Leader ship, Influencing skills, Interpersonal skills. These are the skills that we keep learning as we advance in our careers or shall I say we can progress in our careers only if we keep developing these skills. The environment in which we work and live makes a huge impact on our abilities to pick these skills for Ex: Sales guys are considered excellent in Negotiation while Scientist, Technicians etc. are considered to have excellent analytical skills. Nowhere does this mean Sales guys can’t do analysis or Scientist / technicians can’t negotiate it just means that these are not there core competencies.

Every Industry and Profession has its own requirements for soft skills. Let’s try to list down and relate some bare basic skills required for Prized Profession “IT Project Management” irrespective of Organizational Structure, Project Environment, Geographical location etc.

Communication Skills

Don’t we do this day in day out both in personal and professional life, we speak, we convey message through SMS, mails, chats, blogs, eye movements (body language speaks the unspoken words frowning, wondering etc.) etc. with parents, wife, boss, kids, friends,customers, relatives and yes even with strangers :).

“90 % of a project manager's time is spent communicating“: Source PMI.org

Are we talking here about the language (English, Spanish, Hindi, Marathi etc…?)No, While Language is a tool for communication; it is also the biggest barrier for any communication. We are talking here about the skills to make communication effective be it verbal (Written, email, telephone etc.) or non-verbal (Gesture, Tone, dress code, etc).

Some tips for verbal communication.

1. Learn and gain expertise in the language required for communication.
2. Understand the medium of Communication
3. Build vocabulary and grammar
4. Listen actively don’t just hear
5. Organize thoughts and rework till thoughts are clear and concise
6. Form Clean, Clear and Concise sentence

Leadership

Who doesn’t like to have followers be it conventional way or the social media way? Everyone likes to get that like& Comment on Facebook, twitter, blogger or LinkedIn. Be a leader, whom people like, whom people follow, whom people want to be influenced by, be the one for who people can go that extra mile.

“Managing people won’t make you a good leader but leading people will make you a good manager.”

Are we talking about authority over others actions? Is it about expertise over the respective subject area?  No, it’s about motivating and influencing others to get the work done utilising their expertise and interest. You need not be an expert in all areas, but then you should neither be shy to say to ask for help from others. You may not always have authority over all stakeholders involved in project but then, you can build reputation, where people start following you.

Some traits found in Good Leaders.

1. Maintain highest levels of Integrity and Ethics
2. Relate to people and their concerns
3. Practice Before Preach
4. Set Right Examples
5. Communicate

Negotiation Skills

Again something that I am sure most of us enjoys doing both professionally and personally. Don’t we do this while buying groceries, while settling disputes with friends and strangers and even enemies? (Practice with caution with wife chances are you may lose, they are experts in negotiation using any and all tools and tricks)

But why do we negotiate?

1. To make a gain
2. To be superior
3. To win over others
4. Out Of Fear
5. Out of situational demands.

How do we negotiate?  (Reminds me Of Great Philosopher Chanakya)

1. Speak / Explain / Discuss
2. Buy in / Pay Surplus / extra benefits
3. Reprimand / Horrify / Intimidate / Insult
4. Attack / Forceful assertion / Dictatorship

What should be outcome of Negotiation?

1. Win-win Situation for both / all parties involved in negotiation. (Not possible always)
2. Mutual Understanding. (Comes with the way negotiation was handled)
3. Gain for which negotiation was carried out. (may not always be to what was planned)

Some Tools and Techniques Useful for effective negotiation

1. Good Cop - Bad Cop
2. Snow Ball
3. Flinch
4. Bogey
5. The Nibble
6. Deadline
7. And Many More…

Research and studies carried out globally conclude that less than 35% Projects Succeed (Source: http://pmi.org ). What’s more surprising is “80% IT Project challenges are caused by People Challenges” (Source: https://www.pmi.org) some more research’s suggested below highlighted issues to be major factors affecting Project success rate.

1. Inadequately trained or inexperienced project managers
2. Failure to set and manage expectations
3. Poor leadership at any and all levels
4. Cultural and ethical misalignment
5. Misalignment between project team and business/organization it serves
6. Inadequate communication, incl. progress tracking and reporting

A clear indicator, to invest in training and grooming for the Project Team Members.

Hope this blog helps you, realize the value that right soft skills can bring to the projects and project organisation. I look forward for your views and opinions both agreements and disagreements.

About Author:

Pradip Sadare is Operations Manager with Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. He enjoys relating management with everyday life aspects and works in Managed Captive Model(click here to know more about our managed captive offerings). He can be contacted at: pradip.s@spluspl.com