A project manager is an employee tasked with planning and organizing the necessary resources for inception and completion of a project. An employee that holds such a portfolio is indispensable to any firm or an organization. He or she often is the individual who makes the difference between project failure and success. An efficient project manager in any Project Management Office must have what it takes to lead and organize a diverse team for a successful implementation. The project management process is complex and often requires simultaneous attention to a wide array of budgetary, human, and technical variables. As a result, the project manager is tasked with a difficult job which is characterized by frenetic activity, role overload and superficiality. The challenges and complexities that emerge in such a line of responsibility require one to possess specific traits. Some of these characteristics range from good organizational, communication, interpersonal, and analytical skills (Pinto, 2010).
In every project organizational skills are very important. The project manager is usually faced with numerous elements of a project at once such as timeline development, budgeting, project editing et cetera. The different phases of the project process demand a lot of planning and astute organizational skills. A project manager should be able to put in place an ordered structure that is viable and that the project will be embedded on if he or she is to properly plan, arrange and manage the resources availed to him for the project completion. Organizational skills are vital as any missteps or plan displacements might translate to timeline delays and frustration on the clients’ part. The ability to keep projects on schedule and to prioritize resources is the parameter of good organizational proficiency.
The project manager, in many scenarios, is the main information link between the technical team and business managers. The ability to communicate clearly by these two groups is fundamental in project management. The ability to communicate should center on project objectives, problems, changes in scope and regular project status reports. Being an efficient project manager entails being timely and precise while communicating with clients and fellow managers. In this age of globalization, communication has been imperative in the case of outsourcing where management is delocalized. The global distance between personnel and clients requires a reliable and efficient channel that takes into stock cultural diversity.
Interpersonal skills entail the ability to manage and deal with people effectively. The project managers have the ultimate responsibility of coordinating the technical staff committed project (Pinto, 2010). It is vital that they have leadership skills and interpersonal skills to manage the team members and keep them on track and motivated. A project manager should be able to help his team navigate through the politics within and between the organizations participating. A good project manager must have exemplary interpersonal skills and ability to manage his surrounding while still getting his job effectively done. These skills go a long way in the consultation process between a project manager and his personnel. This is crucial as it opens room for flow of fresh ideas and suggestions that may result to effective implementation and completion of the project.
Project management as a discipline embraces an analytical approach in its operation. Analytical skills come into play when there is need to interpret and expound on patterns of information. A project manager in his workings has to asses problems and arrives at an objective solution. The project manager through his analytical skills can develop a plan of action towards a problem and equally gather data describing how best to solve the crisis. He or she should be able to monitor and manage problematic scenarios in a way that will make objectives are met on a timely basis (Pinto, 2010). To prove his proficiency, the manager should point out plans and directions to resolve crisis and regularly train his personnel on how to avert such a crisis in future. Analytical skill for a project manager is important in meeting deadlines for a project. These skills are essential in ranking the projects as per their magnitude and significance in achieving the key organizational goals. The project manager also employs these skills in distributing responsibilities to his personnel so as the project can achieve best results.
In conclusion a project manager is a central cog in an organization. The various skills he or she brings to the table are fundamental to the project completion and implementation. Though several traits have been highlighted by Jeffrey Pinto in “Project Management: Achieving Competitive Advantage”, organizational skills come out as the most core and critical to a project manager. Organizational skills, as expounded, are essential in management of time as a resource in project completion. Project initiation and completion is anchored on time and is well determined by how organized a project manager and his team are. Organized project management offers a platform of professional development. This is enhanced by a project manager who has the organizational skills to know the responsibilities and the know-how of the employees in his team. Lack of such a crucial trait and aspect in project management will mean no planning, coordinating or arranging of the variables essential in the effective project completion in the stipulated time-lines will take place.
Reference
Pinto, J. (2010). Project management: achieving competitive advantage. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall.
