Project Management Career Builder Workshop (Part 2)
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Full text of Part 2
Hello it’s Elizabeth here, and welcome to Part 2 of our project management career building workshop.
If you’re ready to earn trust and respect from your management community, which is what you deserve as a project manager, and take the next steps towards a lucrative and fulfilling career, then I’m glad you’re here. You are in the right place.
In the first video, I talked about project management as a role, not a title. I shared some insights on the most common way to show employers you are ready to move on to bigger and more complex projects, through certification. And I gave you some other tips on developing your skills so that you are ready to take on a promotion.
This is our second video – it’s the skills, processes and templates lesson – and I think you are going to love it.
This video is all about the specific skills you need for success as a project manager. We’ll talk about how to have the confidence you’re doing the right things. It’s all down to using the right processes and templates.
But first, let’s talk more broadly about the skills that make you good at managing projects.
Essential Skills For Project Managers
Project managers are good all-round players, often with domain knowledge in the area where they are working (IT, construction, non-profit etc), although there are plenty of people successfully working in generalist roles too.
The job requires a degree of structure and organisation plus great people management and the ability to engage others in the work. As a result, the list of skills, behaviours and competencies you need to succeed in the job is incredibly long. As you surf the internet and read into the role of the project manager you’ll see different skills make it to the top of each researcher’s list.
Drawing on my years of research, experience and interviews with project managers, here’s my take on the 3 essential competencies for those who want to succeed in the role.
1. People-Orientated
Great project managers are people-orientated. That doesn’t mean you have to be an extrovert. It does mean that emotional-intelligence, being able to ‘read’ people, being good at building relationships, listening and showing empathy are important skills to develop. A natural interest in connecting with people helps too.
These characteristics are top of the list because your project is changing how other people do their jobs. Big projects like IT outsourcing may even be putting them out of work. You need to be aware of the consequences of your actions and how this can affect other people.
Project management firm Systemation profiled hundreds of project managers over a decade and their study shows that people-orientation is the top aptitude required for project managers]. Fewer than 14% of the project managers chosen to go through the Systemation assessment programme scored low on people-orientation.
Those that didn’t show aptitude in this area struggled to build successful working relationships and had difficulty getting the most out of their teams. In many cases, these project managers were reassigned to other positions where they could contribute to the business in ways that more accurately played to their strengths.
2. Communication
Being able to communicate goes hand in hand with being a team leader. Your team will be more successful if you can create an environment whereby information is freely shared and communication channels are open both amongst themselves and with others.
Great project managers are aware that communication is about more than just pushing out your messages. You have to make sure that they are received, understood and acted upon. Plus it helps to have a feedback loop in place so that you are listening to what your team and project stakeholders are telling you as a result of your communication.
Project managers need to be able to effectively communicate:
- In person, on a one-to-one basis, in a small group such as a team meeting and to a larger audience such as giving a presentation to the department.
- In writing, such as in emails, project newsletters or other project documents.
- At a level that your audience can understand, for example, presenting technical detail to the IT security team but providing a higher level overview for departmental managers.
This is something you can practice. The more you build communication into your project plans, the easier you will find it to do. Encourage your team to communicate too, and lead by example by sharing all the information you have from your senior project stakeholders or project sponsor that is not confidential.
3. Self-Confidence
Often in projects you are treading paths that no one has gone down before. It helps to have a degree of self-confidence in your abilities when doing something new.
However, no one wants to work with someone who is arrogant. Self-awareness will keep your confidence in check and ensure you don’t tip off the end of the assertiveness scale and fall into the mistake of being arrogant.
Having confidence in your abilities doesn’t mean you’ll never have to ask for help. Recognising your own strengths and weaknesses is definitely part of being self-aware. Be prepared to ask for help if you need it and surround yourself with people who are strong in areas where you are not so strong. Overall, this will help you balance the team and ensure that together you are able to deliver what’s needed for the business.
A lot of self-confidence comes from knowing you are doing the right things.
Core Project Management Processes
So let’s look at the processes you need to be able to work with. There are a lot of processes in project management, and today I’m going to focus on 3 which I think are the crucial ones for keeping your projects under control and therefore more likely to complete successfully.
Risk Management Process
First is the risk management process. Projects are inherently risky. Their unique nature means that you can’t confidently predict the outcome. Add in the human element, and sometimes work becomes downright unpredictable.
A certain level of risk is acceptable on a project – and your project sponsor gets to determine that. Generally, the more innovative the project, the greater the risk it carries.
Project managers use the risk management process to track and react to risks. The risk management process involves these steps:
- Identify the risk. Anyone on the team should be able tell you about new risks as and when they come to light.
- Analyse the risk. Establish what impact the risk is going to have on your project if it happens.
- Plan your next steps. Once you know what impact a risk could have, you can plan to manage that.
- Monitor and repeat. Monitor the situation with your risks and your risk management activities regularly so you minimise the chance that something is going to catch you off guard.
Governance and Reporting
On a project you’re going to have to periodically report to someone (normally your project sponsor) about the progress you are making. There’s also some level of governance that you’ll have to apply to make sure that you are on the right track.
Governance is the oversight applied to the project by the project manager, project board and other executives or groups like the PMO to ensure that the project is being managed effectively and is still on track to achieve the expected benefits.
The governance process covers project board meetings, decision making and the process for reporting progress.
Read next: I have an ebook all about project governance and project boards.
Project reports come in various formats, from online dashboards built into your software to spreadsheets, tables or a simple email with a list of progress – they don’t have to be complicated. A normal reporting process would include reporting monthly to the project board and the PMO.
Stakeholder Management
Stakeholder management is the process of identifying, analysing, and planning the work to do with how you are going to engage people on the project. It includes developing a stakeholder management plan which starts with a stakeholder register and a RACI matrix.
As well as organising the right people to work on the project, you also have to keep the team and wider stakeholder group engaged. Being able to effectively work with stakeholders is a core best practice, I actually have a whole class on that.
Templates
The key to being able to follow any project management process confidently is having the right templates and framework in place to guide you through what happens next.
Project management creates a lot of documentation but you don’t have to create any of it from scratch. Online you can find a whole host of templates, and I have some template packs myself, specifically designed with notes and examples to help save you time.
So what are the key documents that you’ll use to help your project be more successful? (Hint: it’s these ones.) Because ultimately, you are judged on the success of your last project. If you to get promoted, you have to make sure that you are capable of doing the basics and bringing projects in on time, on budget and meeting the requirements.
I’m going to focus on 3 core documents today. The project charter, project schedule and closure document.
Project Charter
The most important document in the Project Initiation phase is the project charter.
You need this – it gives you the authority to act as project manager for the project. It’s your mandate to run the project and it’s the document that turns the project from an idea into an actual program of work, with allocated owners (and agreement on funding). Without it, your project doesn’t formally exist!
Project charters can be short or substantive. I prefer to use a fully-rounded version that in our terminology we call a Project Initiation Document. It includes everything you need to know about what you’re starting with.
>> Project Charter template is available here.
Project Schedule
The project schedule sets out all the tasks, who is going to do them and when they are going to be done. It also tracks dependencies between tasks.
You can use software to organise the project timeline for you. There are hundreds of different project scheduling tools – most organisations have something. The trouble is, it might not be perfect for what you want to use it for.
I create project schedules in Microsoft Project, Teamwork and Excel, because I use them for different things. For communicating top-level milestones, I create a version of the schedule in Microsoft PowerPoint using the Office Timeline plugin.
However you choose to document your project schedule, the important thing is to keep it up to date. It’s what your team will use to know what work is coming next. You will also use it to track progress so you can report on project status.
Project Closure Document
Let’s skip ahead to the end of the project. During the Closure phase you should produce a formal project closure document.
This document summarises:
- What the project delivered
- How the project performed against time, cost, quality and scope measures i.e. were you late, over-budget or struggling to get a quality result?
- Any outstanding risks, issues and actions at the point of closure
- The location of project files
- Anything else the person receiving the handover needs to know.
Of all the documents, this is the most important one to get formally signed off and approved. Without the project sponsor agreeing to the project being closed, the project is not closed.
You’ll end up doing ad hoc work and support for months. (Don’t ask me how I know.)
>> Project Closure Document template is available here.
Choose the Documents That Work For Your Project
The most important thing to remember is that this is a guide. Tailor the project documentation you need so that you can best manage your project. You need a detailed procurement plan? Make one. You don’t need a budget tracker as there is no external spend? Don’t create one and leave it blank; that’s a waste of your time.
Less admin time spent creating documents that don’t add value means you can free up more time to lead your team. It’s more important that you do the work on the project. Onerous paperwork is no fun for anyone.
These are 3 of the 9 templates in the Essential Project Documents Kit. The templates guide you through the project lifecycle and keep you from having to start from scratch.
I also have several other template bundles and ebooks that cover other aspects of project management processes including managing meetings, governance and picking up a project from someone else. I hope they will make your life easier and give you back more time to do other things.
One of the questions I’m often asked is how do processes and templates work in different industries? Do they really translate across different types of projects?
The answer is yes. All projects deliver some kind of change, and that needs to be done in a structured way, planned out and involving the right people. A risk is a risk, regardless of whether you are building an aircraft or an app.
We’ve covered a lot today. Once you’re confident in your skills, you know the processes to use, and you’ve got templates that guide you through the day-to-day work of a project manager, you’ll be able to demonstrate you’re the whole package for that next job.
In the next video we’re going to look at life beyond project management and career opportunities in programme management and team leadership. See you then!
Look out for the link to part 3 of the Career Builder Workshop in your inbox tomorrow.
Don’t want to wait? Watch the part 3 video now.