In today’s hyper-competitive business world, project management has become an essential skill for managers. As businesses grow and develop they need to adapt to change. A good project manager can ensure the successful delivery of projects that help to move the business forward.
Time management
Projects are temporary in nature with a pretty defined beginning and end. Projects are normally created by businesses to develop a new product, service or to effect a business transformation. As such, project managers must be really good at managing deadlines, and can only do so with strong time management skills.
Interpersonal skills
It is important for the project manager to possess excellent interpersonal skills. They could work with more than one project at any point in time. These projects might not have the same team members, sponsors or stakeholders. As such, a project manager needs to be able to communicate with different groups of people effectively. For example, a project manager who is in charge of building and launching a new office might be required to report to senior management about project progress and also work with the different internal departments such as IT and finance.
Budget management
Project managers also have to pay attention to the budget of the project while ensuring that the final results adhere to the required quality standards. In the first place, they should work out the project scope with the stakeholders, senior management and project sponsors. Using the project scope as a reference, the project manager can then construct an estimated project budget and seek opinions to determine if it is realistic.
Scope creep
Once the project begins, the project manager needs to watch out for scope creep. This is where the project begins to deviate from the agreed specification in terms of cost, timeline, etc. A good project manager will be able to create and agree a project specification which has tolerances built in and monitoring / reporting in place to help minimise scope creep – this is essential as significant deviations from the project specification can have an effect on budgets, deliverables, etc.