Top 10 things each Project Manager should know / do

By Vijayalakshmi Muthukrishnan, PMP

http://in.linkedin.com/pub/vijayalakshmi-muthukrishnan/12/49a/575

The term and the title “Project Manager” generally refers to anyone who is given responsibility to
deliver a project on time, within budget and scope, and at the correct performance level. The best
Project Managers are those who constantly deliver on time and within budget and also they’ll meet or
exceed stakeholder’s expectation.

Every Project Manager has to deal with different targets, different environments and last but not least
with different people. Hence only the Know-how and Do-how will transform a Project Manager into an
excellent Project Manager.

So when you think, what soft skills are required for an excellent Project Manager; an excellent Project
Manager will not have one specific quality, rather he / she’ll have a collection of qualities that needs to
be balanced to meet the needs of the project. Also, there is no specific order to these qualities; they all
play an important role. In this article, I’ve given the top 10 qualities that are required for a successful
project manager from my perspective and experience.

1. Inspire a Shared Vision

Let me ask few questions here. What makes one team more productive than another?
What is it that pulls a team together enabling the members to work together more effectively?
The answer is very simple. Like any good partnership, a key ingredient of successful team work is
having a shared vision, of mutually creating an image of an ideal future.

There is a famous quote, “Vision without action is a daydream and action without vision
is nightmare”. Here I’m referring about the latter part of the quote. As an effective project
leader, you should have a vision of where to go and the ability to articulate it; so that team
understands on what needs to be achieved and how it’ll be achieved at a high level.

It is easy to get confuse a vision with a goal. Vision involves big picture, the overall aim
of the project. Goal on the other hand is more specific, measurable and time bound. There are
many ways to achieve a goal. Choose the best one based on your experience and stick to it.
Setting the appropriate tone in the beginning will allow for smoother sailing down the road and
have a successful delivery.

To summarize, when team members share a similar vision, they feel vested to deliver
their best.
2. Good Communicator

Communication skills are very important for the growth of a manager’s career. If you
see, most of a manager's time is spent in communicating and attending meetings. When
communication is used so frequently, we cannot afford to do it poor.

Being a manager, we handle different projects and interact with people at all levels. As
each project is different and each person is different, the approach will have to vary to
ensure you get the best out of that person in any given situation. For some people in your
team, you need to just tell the task and the deadline, however some people need to be
reminded on a daily basis on what they are supposed to deliver, some people do not talk
about issues that they are facing unless you go and dig it.

The key is that a great project manager will instinctively know how to balance a situation
and will do whatever it takes to get the job done and deliver the project successfully.

Managers are expected to be effective communicators, presenters, facilitator, and leaders.

Communication is an important part to each of these areas and is one of the best skills to
have to climb the corporate ladder.

Let me share few Tips to be a Good Communicator

1. Speak to your team (Should make regular interaction with team members)
2. Increase the listening skills
3. Master the art of writing emails
4. Master Verbal and Non Verbal communication skills
5. Be proactive in your communication
6. Keep communications positive

To summarize, the art of communication is the language of leadership. As a manager, you

should know when you need to be open and honest and when to employ diplomacy.
3. Be Strong on Fundamentals
As an efficient Project Manager, you should abide by a set of Project management
fundamentals.
Getting ourselves strong on project management fundamentals is very essential. Some
pick it up thru formal training courses while others through their own learning and reading and
few thru on-the-job training.
I would say we need to get specialized in project management as a profession, by
gathering experience, as well as thru gaining knowledge and contacts. Joining a group specific
to project management, such as PMI®, PM Podcast will put us in touch with many others in our
profession, and keep us up-to-date on issues and developments.
The payback is not measured in terms of days but in terms of years. Over time, we will
find that we have more experience, more fundamental knowledge, more contacts, and more
successes than our peers.

4. Prioritize

The modern day problem that we all have as soon as you enter office and open your laptop is E-
mail fixation. This distracts you from doing the tasks you need or plan to. Creating to-do list and
prioritizing them keeps you focused on achieving your objectives. Scratching tasks from your list
creates a real sense of achievement and drives further activity.

Prioritization of tasks not only helps you improve your time management and reduce stress, but
it will also help you achieve your more important goals.

You can use the below Prioritization matrix which will assist you greatly.

Delegate (Eg. Phone Calls, Postpone or Dump (Eg. Unnecessary

Emails) Browsing)
Important
Not

Do Right away (Eg. Plan to Do (Eg. Relationship building,

Deliverables) Vacation Planning)
Important

Urgent Not Urgent

The Quadrant II (Important and Not Urgent) is where you should be focusing most of your
energy.
 I would like to share few tips for prioritizing
1. Create the To-Do list on daily basis
2. Assess the value (e.g. Client work takes more priority than internal work)
3. Be flexible to changing priorities
4. Enforce strict deadlines (spending too much time on one priority will prevent you
from getting other stuff knocked off from your list)

To Summarize – Just the act of prioritizing and managing will increase the project success.

5. Delegate

This is another interesting skill. A project that seems overwhelming on the surface is
suddenly quite manageable when you divide it up among your team. When you delegate work
to your team, you multiply the amount of work that you can do.
Delegation is a two-way street. Meant to develop the PM as well as the person PM
works with. PM has to get expertise in delegating work to his team members. Do not delegate
just because the work that you were doing was boring or you want to get rid of it.
Many people are afraid of delegation. They fear, if they delegate, the work will not be
accomplished. Deadlines won’t be met. The Delegation matrix will assist you in selecting the
right resource and delegating the tasks appropriately.

Guide Delegate
High Will

Direct Motivate
Low Will

Low Skill High Skill

Delegate – This is the right resource having the skill and will. You can directly delegate the work.

Guide – You need to mentor this resource, so that he gets the right skill to perform the task.

Motivate – You need to identify the reason for Low Will (whether it is due to the task or
personal factors or any other factor) and motivate the resource so that he understands and
takes up the task.

Direct – You need to identify the reason for Low Will and also get him some training, mentor
him to get his skill set improved. Once this is done, he will be all set to take up the task.
 Delegation gives lots of benefits.
1. Allows you to focus
2. Makes the best use of team’s ability
3. Opportunity to develop your skills
4. Increased motivation

But always remember, as a Project Manager, YOU are accountable for the project and need to
follow up on completion of all delegated tasks.

6. Give Credit to the team, Keep blame for yourself

As a Project Manager, you should own everything that team produces (either success or failure).
To be a leader, you should be able to take the blame for all that fails and give the credit for all
that succeeds. Doesn’t it sound weird?
If you want to take all the blame and pass all the credit, why in this world, everyone wants to be
a leader?
If you want to take all the credits and pass all the blame, then it represents mediocrity and not
leadership. A True Leader cannot be like that.

Let me share one of the experiences that was shared by our former Indian President and
renowned scientist Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam. In 1973 he became the project director of India's
satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3. His goal was to put India's "Rohini"
satellite into orbit by 1980.

He was given funds and resources. Thousands of people worked together towards that goal.
By 1979 – in the month of August – his team thought that they were ready. As the project
director, he went to the control center; after discussing with team; he launched the rocket. In
the first stage, everything worked fine. However in the second stage, it failed. It was a big
failure.

That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof. Satish Dhawan, had
called a press conference and conducted the conference himself. He took responsibility for the
failure -- he said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological
support. He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed. Now,
Dr. Abdul Kalam was the project director, and it was his failure, but instead, Prof. Dhawan took
responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization.

The next year, in July 1980, Abdul Kalam’s team tried again to launch the satellite -- and this
time they succeeded. The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference. Prof.
Dhawan called Dr. Abdul Kalam aside and asked him to conduct the press conference today.
 Dr. Abdul Kalam learnt a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of
the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team.

The team will definitely get motivated when their leader gives them all the credit for their
success but takes all the blame for failures. It motivates people to give 200% to help the
cause/project.

7. Run meetings Well

As a Project Manager, the whole day surrounds us with meetings – either with regular status
meeting or a team meeting or escalation meeting or any adhoc meetings. We know the ground
rules that need to be taken care for running a meeting successfully. In order to remember the
sequence of events, a small technique is given below.
Apply CARAT backwards to fit the sequence of events. (TARAC)
 T – Time
 A – Agenda
 R – Rules
 A – Action Items
 C - Commitment

You need to keep up the time. Everyone is busy, so we need to really understand that when we
organize any meeting.
Publish agenda prior to the meeting, so that people comes with preparation.
Set some ground rules for effectively running a meeting. Stick to the agenda. If you see that the
discussions are deviating, you need to stop and bring the audience back to the agenda. Focus on
the issue not on people.
Discuss and finalize all action items and decisions taken during the meeting.
Get commitment from the resources for each action items and decision.

Additionally it is very important that you send out meeting minutes so that even if people
missed or misunderstood the action items, it’ll be clarified. Also follow up after the meeting on
completion of action items.
8. Expert at Decision Making
Decision making is an essential leadership skill. You can be a successful project manager, if you
can learn and expertise in making timely, well-considered decisions. If, however, you make poor
decisions, your time as a leader will be brutally short. Making timely decisions reduces the
amount of time spent on unexpected problems, keeping a project on deadline and within
budget.

The below given steps will assist you in making the best decisions:
Step 1 - Identify all possible options, including the benefits and drawbacks to each.
Step 2 - Get the decision made & communicate to all stakeholders.
Step 3 - Champion the decision and don't look back.
Step 4 - Monitor the new path, and be alert to signs you need to make a new decision.

As an effective Project leader, you should know how quickly the decision needs to be made and
consider all options before finalizing and MUST accept responsibility for all decisions regardless
of the outcome.

9. Lessons Learnt

After we successfully deliver a project, it is very important for all Project Managers to do
a public announcement to the organization highlighting the success of the project and the
benefits to the company. Then do perform the Post Implementation review to understand
whether we delivered what we stated, differences between planned vs actual, customers and
stakeholders feedback.

Last but not the least is the Celebration with the team for the best efforts that they’ve
given for the successful delivery of the project. After spending all efforts for the successful
delivery, your team definitely deserves Rewards and Recognition. A team dinner, a team outing,
gift certificates, or other rewards are minor costs that generate a large return in terms of morale
and job satisfaction.

It is also important to conduct Lessons Learnt sessions involving all stakeholders to

capture the best practices, recommendations and take away for future projects. You need to
find a way to keep track of best practices for each project. This is a powerful way to ensure your
hard work doesn’t go unnoticed, while creating a permanent record that you or someone else
can reference in the future.

We all make mistakes; wisdom is not making the same mistake more than once.
10. Don’t be afraid of what might go Wrong

Without making mistakes; we would not know how to make things right.
Most of the projects do not go as per the plan; they deviate from the project plan. A proactive
project manager tries to resolve all potential problems before they happen by developing a Risk
Management Plan, tracking and resolving all issues. Not all issues can be foreseen and they
unlikely can occur, so don’t be afraid of what might go wrong!
Few things are simply out of our control and we will inevitably make mistakes in our career.

The key is to learn from your mistakes by understanding what didn’t work and how you can
improve upon it next time around.

Conclusion

As a Project Manager, managing people isn’t just about getting the job done. To truly be a great
leader, sometimes we need to go above and beyond what the job calls for. We should stand out as a
leader and be a role model for our employees. Hope the qualities that I had discussed in this article will
assist you in your career and transform you into an excellent Project Manager.