The 5 Key Requirements of a Successful Project Manager

1. Be a Leader AND A Manager:

Leaders share and communicate a common vision (of some future state); they gain agreement and establish the forward direction. Leadership is more than just telling someone what to do – it is inspiring them and motivating them by giving real world examples and ongoing guidance Good Leaders motivate others. Managers are results driven and focus on getting work done against agreed requirements. A good project manager will constantly switch from a leader to a manager as the situations require. .

2. Be A Team Builder AND A Team Leader:

Because projects are often cross-functional in that they use people who may not have worked together before. It is up to the project manager to set the ‘tone’ of the team and to lead them through the various team development phases to the point where they perform as a team. Often, the team individuals have their own line manager, and so the PM has no implied authority – yet still needs to motivate the individual. This is particularly true in a ‘Matrix’ organization.

3. Be A Problem Solver:

This is a skill that can be learned – it just needs a little ‘detective’ work up-front! You will want to first identify the possible ’causes’ that lead to the problem ‘symptom’. I talk a lot about the difference between Incidents and Problems here, but the key thing to remember is that causes can come from a variety of sources. The next step having found the root causes is to analyze possible options and alternatives, and determine the best course of action to take. Take care to agree what ‘best’ really means here!

4. Be A Negotiator AND Influencer:

Negotiation is working together with other people with the intention of coming to a joint agreement. It doesn’t have to be the eye-ball-to-eye-ball power struggle you may be thinking of! For example getting one of the team to work late to meet a deadline when they would prefer to go to the Ball Game. And for all these, you need to have some influencing skills. Influencing is getting events to happen by convincing the other person that your way is the better way – even if it’s not what they want. Influencing power is the ability to get people to do things they would not do otherwise.

5. Be An Excellent Communicator:

Being a communicator means recognizing that it’s a two-way street. Information comes into the project and information goes out of the project. A good way of summarizing this is that all communications on your project should be clear and complete. As a project manager, you will have to deal with both written and oral communications. Some examples are documents, meetings, reviews, reports, and assessments. A good mental guideline is “who needs this information, who gathers and delivers it, when or how often do they need it, and in what form will I give it to them”.

About Author

Hutch Morzaria

I am an ITIL Expert and extremely passionate about customer service, customer experience, best practices and process improvement. I have led support, service, help desk and IT teams as well as quality and call center teams in Canada and the UK. I know how to motivate my teams to ensure that they are putting the customer first.

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