Project Management: Traits of a Project Manager

No one management style for being an effective project manager. In addition, I definitely agree with the concept that successful project managers are ones on a personal “continuous improvement program”.

Most important:

[1] High tolerance for stress: deadlines, technical issues and dealing with many different types of people (from corporate to individual team members to contractors) can be a very stressful combination. To be able to tolerate stress (and not blow your top!) will set a good example for team members.

[2] System thinker: the holistic rather than reductionist approach. The interaction of different components (activities) of the project is more critical than the activities by themselves. The activities, by themselves, should be controlled by the team leader for each activity or sub-team...a project manager shouldn’t have to be burdened with this responsibility.

[3] Effective time management: Time is the project manager’s scarcest resource, especially in today’s competitive rush-to-market environment. For software projects, this may be the most important trait.

[4] Skillful politician: this is an unfortunate part of life that we just can’t escape. To get the support of top management, you have to do whatever it takes to sell your project…and retain a level of honest integrity.

[5] Proactive: taking action before a problem escalates into an uncontrollable event. It’s very important to project into the future.

[6] Personal integrity: you must be able to lead yourself before you can lead others. I think this is an exercise in self-reflection and it’s important because nobody (your team) will take you seriously if you don’t have self control.

[7] Good communicator: a project manager has to communicate with a wide variety of people and must do so in a clear, concise, understandable fashion.

Least important:

[1] Optimist: this is an important trait. Why I put in under “least important” is because I think being a “realist” is more important than being an optimist. Sometimes, you have to look at things pessimistically – such as trying to imagine a worst-case scenario.

[2] General business perspective: yes, it’s important to balance the business and technical sides of the equation. Why I think this is not as important is because a project manager has more important things to worry about. The cost issue should be more the responsibility of financial planning, marketing and upper management departments. This is just my opinion, of course.