Acquiring the core skills of a successful Project Manager - 1.2/6 FOUNDATIONS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT Flashcards
What are the 4 skills for a successful Project Manager
Enabling decision making, communicating and escalating, flexibility, strong organizational skills
How would you enable decision making?
By providing relevant data or feedback to help my teammates make an informed decision between choice A and choice B. I ensure that projects stay on schedule by gathering information from teammates and using those insights to help the team make informed decisions.
Talk about communicating and escalating projects.
This might look like documenting plans, sending emails about the status of the project, or holding a meeting to escalate risks or issues to stakeholders.
How does flexibility make for a good project manager?
As a project manager, knowing how to be flexible when changes are needed is key. Plans definitively will have, even with careful upfront planning. For example, maybe the foals of your company change, or maybe a member of your team unexpectedly take anew position at another company. A good project manager knows that unpredictable moments like these are almost always guaranteed. The only constant is change. By staying cool under pressure, you’ll be able to adjust while helping your team stay calm, too.
Why are strong organizational skills important to being a successful project manager
Because the role of a project manager requires using a lot of different processes to keep the project on track. Having strong organizational skills means having the ability to organize these processes and the core elements of a project to ensure nothing gets lost of overlooked.
What details entail the enabling of decision making?
Empowering your team to express their opinions and make their own decisions allows me to focus on the overarching management tasks and prioritize them in order of importance. Additionally, when team members have a voice in decisions, it helps foster an environment of responsibility, accountability, and team closeness.
What does communicating and escalating encompass?
Clearly communicating project goals and expectations, team member roles and responsibilities, and constructive feedback. Knowing how to effectively escalate issues to management
Name 3 flexible planning strategies can help you manage your project during times of unpredictability
Assess external constraints
Plan for risks and challenges
Calculate “float” in your schedule (slack)
What is the Assessing External Constraints?
A flexible planning strategy. When planning your project, take external events into account, such as national holidays and team member vacations and sick leave. Leaving extra time in the schedule for these inevitable events up front can help minimize the impact to your project.
Give examples planning for risks and challenges
Considering risks that could occur and have a backup in place. You can also assess risks by looking at historical data. Review your past projects and examine the challenges you faced. Then evaluate if similar challenges could occur in this project and prepare accordingly.
What does it mean to “Calculate Float/Slack into your schedule?”
refers to the amount of time you can wait to begin a task before it impacts the project schedule and threatens the project outcome. Identifying float in your schedule can help with resource management, scheduling, and keeping your project on track.
List 4 key interpersonal skills that a project manager should possess
Communication
Negotiation
Conflict mediation
Understanding motivations
