6 Tips on How to Be a Good Project Manager

With the world going crazy with productivity and constant competition, companies are in great need of the person who plans, organizes, and manages resources. A project manager who can take over all of these essential tasks is in higher demand than ever before. And the key to success is having the right skills to get things done.

It is a competitive space, as according to statistics, there are 16.5 million project managers in the world. To be a great world-class project manager requires skills but much more. The position of project manager gives an opportunity to work with and manage people, travel globally, explore different niches and industries, and apply a lot of knowledge gathered in a lifetime. Being a project manager is exciting. And can be daunting. Many fail.

Read More: 6 Reasons Why Project Managers Fail

To succeed as a project manager, it requires managing pressure and responsibility which is hard to do if you do not know what makes a good project manager and how to become one. Moreover, you can not achieve much if you are not good. Why pick up a career if you do not want to succeed in it?

This article may be an initial step to becoming a good project manager who is invited to participate in the most exciting projects and delivers the best results. I have prepared 6 tips on how to become a good project manager. Check them out below:

#1 Ask Right Questions

You have to know everything about your project: team, budget, deadlines, the main ideas, goals, vision. If you do not know anything about that, you are likely to get floppy results because you misunderstood what you were supposed to do. If a project manager does not know what to do, how can everyone else in the team know their responsibility?

Read More: Asking The Right Questions

Yes, it is scary to ask many questions, especially if it is your first project. You may think that you will seem unprofessional and stupid. Actually, it is less professional to not have questions and not asking for details. Asking questions is the right way to clear communication. Ask and encourage everyone around to do so.

#2 Be Approachable

Project managers work with people and everywhere where there are people the communication is involved. A project manager is kind of a bridge between the management of the company and employees who bring the project to life. Therefore, you have to let management know that you are approachable if they need to discuss any changes in the project or what is currently being done. You have to let employees easily communicate with you when they have any questions about what, how, and when they have to do or face any issues.

It is easier to communicate clearly about the project than fixing everything after it is almost done and you have extremely little time left. If you seem too busy, overconfident, strict and, therefore, unapproachable, clear communication is unlikely to happen.

Source: careeraddict.com (image provided by Haley Osborne)

#3 Be Open To Discussion

Management may have an idea and guidelines that do not work at all in real life. For example, the timing is way off, or the features of a new app are costly and unnecessary. Listen to what employees have to say because those are people who work on a battlefield and know what works and what does not.

Yet, you must not let management and employees manipulate you. You have to make a decision of your own, based on what you have heard. Is a week really not enough or are employees unmotivated and not productive? Did your team expand the budget because of cost-inefficiency or the management calculated the wrong budget?

#4 Become a Leader

Management is, surprisingly, not only about giving out tasks and checking how they are completed. What defines a good project manager and astonishing results is your competence to be a real leader and having soft skills that it involves.

Motivate Your Team

They will be more productive when they know what they are working towards and for.

Appreciate Their Opinions and Work

If they know that their hard work does not go unnoticed and their contribution is visible, they are more likely to work even harder.

Delegate Tasks To Others

It is easy to fall into the trap of doing everything on your own: you can fully control the results and you know that no one will do it as you want unless you are the one who is finishing the task. However, the team will be demotivated because they will see that you do not think about them as experts and do not want them involved at all.

#5 Improve Your Organization Skills

There is no worse project manager than the one who is messy. Companies hire project managers to keep their projects organized and to get timely delivery. If you struggled with time-management your entire life, you are known as a procrastinator, you forget about meetings, and you do not write a single thing down, you have to either never become a project manager or work on organization skills as hard as possible. Get that calendar, write every step-down, become a fan of to-do lists, and keep a pen and paper nearby to scribble new ideas.

#6 Get Feedback

It is not the end of the world or your career as a project manager if something went wrong. You have to realize that the human aspect is a big deal and you do not have to curse yourself repeatedly for every single detail.
Asking for feedback is a better way to understand what led to the problem and what to do differently the next time. The sky's the limit. You can always improve yourself to be relevant as the world around you evolves. By asking for feedback, you can also get to know what your strong traits are so that you can emphasize them in your CV and gain more confidence. Essay Tigers specialists claim that simple multiple-choice and two open questions are enough.

Conclusion

Being a project manager is extremely exciting but it requires a lot of skills and knowledge at the same time. Being a good project manager means a lot but there are 6 initial steps you can take to become better than you are now: ask questions to get a clear vision of the project, be approachable to both management and the team, be open for discussion, get leadership and organization skills, and ask for feedback. Make the project of becoming a better project manager your priority!