10 skills you need to succeed as a project manager

Project managers might just have the toughest job in IT, responsible as they are for ensuring that high-stakes IT projects are completed on time and on budget. According to a new report from Forrester Research, the project manager’s role is getting even more demanding and difficult to fill.

It’s no longer enough for project managers to possess good people skills and to be fluent in project management best practices, tools and methodologies. To succeed-and get hired-today, project managers need enhanced leadership skills; they need to be flexible and focused on business value; and they increasingly need to be familiar with Agile software development methodologies.

10 Core Capabilities of a Next Generation Project Manager


Given the way the project manager’s role is evolving and the critical nature of the role, Forrester Research developed a list of 10 core capabilities that IT leaders should seek in their project managers. They are:

1. Emotional Intelligence: The ability to pick up on events and interactions (both verbal and non-verbal) and to process those inputs in the context of the project plan.

2. Adaptive Communication: The ability to articulate one’s ideas-whether orally or in writing-to a range of individuals, groups and cultures using the most effective communication techniques for each group.

3. People Skills: The ability to quickly build and maintain positive relationships with team-members and stakeholders.

4. Management Skills: The ability to serve, motivate and focus a team and to foster collaboration among team members.

5. Flexibility: The willingness and ability to change one’s approach to project management and/or course of action in response to business needs.

6. Business Savvy: Knowledge of the organization’s business, strategy and industry. Ability to understand a strategy and align tactical work around that strategy.

7. Analytical Skills: The ability to think through problems and decisions.

8. Customer Focus: The ability to understand the end-user or end customer’s needs and the drive to ensure that projects meet those needs.

9. Results-Orientation: The ability to get things done efficiently and effectively.

10. Character: The project manager should have an appealing personality and a strong moral and ethical character.

Notably, technical- and traditional project management skills are absent from Forrester’s list of core capabilities for next generation project managers, but not because those skills are no longer necessary. While those skills remain important, Forrester maintains that because the softer skills are more difficult to learn than hard project management skills, organizations may be better off hiring individuals who are strong in those key capabilities “even if they lack experience in accepted project management practices.”

It’s an opinion that’s likely to spark controversy in project management circles, but it underscores the changing nature of the role.

“This role is essential to your success today and will be even more critical over the next decade as software delivery and business context evolve,” writes Gerush. “Traditional soft skills and core capabilities still dominate as companies look to hire project managers, but new skills are quickly coming to the forefront.”

Some Interesting Time Management Statistics

Emphasising the huge significance and opportunities in time management, a 2007 survey by the Proudfoot Consulting (Guardian 22 Oct 07) covering 2,500 businesses over four years and 38 countries, indicated that wasted time costs UK businesses £80bn per year, equivalent to 7% of GDP. The causes of wasted time - labour inefficiency in other words - were:

inadequate workforce supervision (31%)
poor management planning (30%)
poor communication (18%)
IT problems, low morale, and lack or mismatch of skills (21%)
Clearly organisations are vastly under-utilising their people, and could be doing a lot more to enable more efficient working.

These failings of organisation and leadership make it all the more important for individual people to think creatively about time management, and particularly to start making changes to improve time management at a personal individual level.


time management tips - and ideas for time management skills training

Be prepared to make drastic changes. Be creative to find and introduce different ways of doing things. If you need a starting point see the 'Pareto Principle' (80:20 Rule), to assess what efforts and activities are most productive, and which are not. (See also the acronyms PAY and MILE - warning: there is adult content on the acronyms page.)

Manage your emails and phone calls - don't let them manage you. Ideally check at planned times, and avoid continuous notification of incoming emails.

The more senior you are the more selective you need to be about when to be available to receive phone calls.

Try to minimise the time that you are available to take unplanned phone calls, unless you are in a customer-facing, reactive role (customers can be internal too), and even if you are customer-facing, you must plan some time-slots when you are not available, or you'll never get anything important and pro-active done.

Challenge your own tendency to say 'yes' without scrutinising the request - start asking and probing what's involved - find out what the real expectations and needs are.

Really think about how you currently spend your time. If you don't know, keep a time log for a few days to find out there's a free time management time-log template tool here. Knowing exactly what's wrong is the first step to improving it.

Challenge anything that could be wasting time and effort, particularly habitual tasks, meetings and reports where responsibility is inherited or handed down from above. Don't be a slave to a daft process or system.

Download and use the free time management assessment tool at the free online resources section, which will help you or another person to objectively judge your time management, and underlying issues.

Review your activities in terms of your own personal short-term and long-term life and career goals, and prioritise your activities accordingly.

Plan preparation and creative thinking time in your diary for the long-term jobs, because they need it. The short-term urgent tasks will always use up all your time unless you plan to spend it otherwise.

Use a diary, and an activity planner to schedule when to do things, and time-slots for things you know will need doing or responding to. There's a sample time management activity schedule template with examples on the new time management section.

Re-condition the expectations of others as to your availability and their claim on your time - use an activity planner to help you justify why you and not others should be prioritising your activities and time.

Manage your environment as a whole - especially at the proposed or actual introduction of new systems, tools, technology, people, or processes, which might threaten to generate new demands on your time. If you accept changes without question - particularly new technology that helps others but not you - then you will open the way for new increasing demands on your time, or new interruptions, or new tasks and obligations. Instead consider new technology and other changes from the point of view of your time and efficiency. Ask yourself - is this going to save my time or add to my burden? Managing your environment - which includes managing, redefining, or reconditioning the expectations of others - is a critical aspect of effective time management.

You must plan time slots for unplanned activities - you may not know exactly what you'll need to do, but if you plan the time to do it, then other important things will not get pushed out of the way when the demand arises.

Use the 'urgent-important' system of assessing activities and deciding priorities. See more at the new time management section.

When you're faced with a pile of things to do, go through them quickly and make a list of what needs doing and when. After this handle each piece of paper only once. Do not under any circumstances pick up a job, do a bit of it, then put it back on the pile.

Do not start lots of jobs at the same time - even if you can handle different tasks at the same time it's not the most efficient way of dealing with them, so don't kid yourself that this sort of multi-tasking is good - it's not.

Be firm and diplomatic in dealing with time allocated for meetings, paperwork, telephone, and visitors, etc. When you keep your time log you will see how much time is wasted. Take control. Provided you explain why you are managing your time in this way, people will generally understand and respect you for it.

Keep a clean desk and well-organized systems. Don't be obsessive about tidiness - busy people often make a mess - but ensure your mess doesn't undermine your effectiveness.

Delegate as much as possible to others. If you have one, give 25% of your responsibility to your successor. (See the rules of delegation.)

You don't need to be a manager to delegate. Just asking nicely is sometimes all that's required to turn one of your difficult tasks into an easy one for somebody else better able to do it.

If you can't stop interruptions when you need a quiet space for planned concentration time-slots, then find somewhere else in the building to work, and if necessary work at home or another site, and fight for the right to do this - it's important for you and the organization that you be able to work uninterrupted when you need to.

Set up an acceptable template for the regular weekly or monthly reports you write, so you only need to slot in the updated figures and narrative, each time.

If you can, get a good assistant, secretary or pa.

Sharpen up your decision-making.

Always probe deadlines to establish the true situation - people asking you to do things will often say 'now' when 'later today' would be perfectly acceptable. Appeal to the other person's own sense of time management: it's impossible for anyone to do a good job without the opportunity to plan and prioritise.

Break big tasks down into stages and plan time-slots for them. Use project management methods.

Now read the time management systems, techniques and training section.

Choose some of the above time management tips and commit to putting them into effect.



the priest and the politician (a story about time management and being late)

After twenty-five years in the same parish, Father O'Shaunessey was saying his farewells at his retirement dinner. An eminent member of the congregation - a leading politician - had been asked to make a presentation and a short speech, but was late arriving.

So the priest took it upon himself to fill the time, and stood up to the microphone:

"I remember the first confession I heard here twenty-five years ago and it worried me as to what sort of place I'd come to... That first confession remains the worst I've ever heard. The chap confessed that he'd stolen a TV set from a neighbour and lied to the police when questioned, successfully blaming it on a local scallywag. He said that he'd stolen money from his parents and from his employer; that he'd had affairs with several of his friends' wives; that he'd taken hard drugs, and had slept with his sister and given her VD. You can imagine what I thought... However I'm pleased to say that as the days passed I soon realised that this sad fellow was a frightful exception and that this parish was indeed a wonderful place full of kind and decent people..."

At this point the politician arrived and apologised for being late, and keen to take the stage, he immediately stepped up to the microphone and pulled his speech from his pocket:

"I'll always remember when Father O'Shaunessey first came to our parish," said the politician, "In fact, I'm pretty certain that I was the first person in the parish that he heard in confession..."

(Adapted from a story sent by Stephen Hart, thanks.)