Tips on How to Become a Good Project Manager

Project manager is a challenging yet exciting role. A good project manager should have a great sense of urgency and be good at prioritization; at the same time, he/she needs to be flexible in accommodating changes at any one time.

A project manager skill-sets and experiences are the end results of many years of project management and exposure. They learnt best by managing the issues and problems that exist in the project themselves, and understand what are the critical success factors for each project. Of course, with the appropriate educational qualification, such as having a 'Project Management program Certificate' will be a good thing as it tells your employer that you got what it takes to manage a project, and the PMP certification process actually provides all the necesasry insights into the theoretical aspects of project management.

a. Before getting into the real world of project management, look out for working opportunities, especially those dealing directly with the customers. You may volunteer yourself to work in call centres during weekends attending to call-in customers who called in for assistance. Occupations which request direct communication with customers is very tough and challenging. However, by learning how to deal with customers well is indeed a valuable experience as it gets to build up the confident level for anyone to deal with many different people in the real society later.

b. A good project manager is always there to secure a good working atmosphere for his team members where they can facilitate internal organizational communication well. Team members will open themselves more willingly to share views and ideas effectively with the leader and other team members in this friendly atmosphere. The end result is with a strong and cooperative team, projects can be managed more successfully as compared to where the team members have conflicts of opinions and fight among themselves.

c. Also, the project manager needs to consistently provide positive encouragement, encouraging the team members to voice out their ideas and suggestions at anyone time. He should also endeavor to provide prompt and constructive feedback to the team members necessarily for their continue progress and career development. Building good rapport and understanding among the team facilitates the progress of any project as their shared the same objective and direction.

d. A good project manager needs to always motivate and inspire his team. This is to secure the strong bond within the whole team. Issues are discussed openly and the team members are allowed to provide their suggestions and feedback in the meeting. The sense of belonging among the team members grew as they felt their importance when they have the opportunity to voice out and share their thoughts.

e. The ability for the Stake-Holders to build their trust and faith on the project manager for the project is a major accomplishment of the project manager. Only with strong support and trust from the Top executive, the project manager can earn his authority and power to drive for the success of the project.

f. Equivalently important, the project manager needs to be sharp and observant when it comes to analyzing an issue or problem. He also need to be a fast thinker to propose for possible workarounds promptly during emergencies. He need to understand the priorities of the project well to make the right call in time of crisis.