7 Project Management Skills

What type of skills does a project manager need? Here is a sample list of some of the project management skills you need:

1. Writing Proposals

This involves both writing assessing and making presentations to the project stakeholders.

2. Listening Skills

Here you need to develop ways to listen critically so that you are aware of the nuances of the project and where you may need to get better, more accurate feedback from your team.

3. Creating Work Breakdown Structures

This is where you define all the tasks in the project, schedule them by date, and estimate the amount of work involved.

You can develop your career as a project manager by developing skills in managing the micro-tasks that need to be performed to achieve the overall project.

4. Project Management Skills Matrix

If you wanted to create a matrix of project management skills, you could also add:

1. Delegation Skills - here you look at ways to the percentage of the work each layer should be undertaking. In most project management structures, responsibility is distributed amongst the team and is not held at the top. This may reduce the stress of the lead project manager and drives the team members onto great things.
2. Conflict Management - These are part of all projects and arise from time to time. Different deadlines, different goals, different management styles cause friction. Being to dissolve this tension without serious trouble is an admirable project management skill to have.
3. Team Building - While some teams work together are the time, many work within revolving team structures, for example, on IT contracts. A project manager must play a strong hand in setting a good example to team members on how things are done and also encouraging healthy working relationships between members.

5. Communication Planning

This means you connect the knowledge, people and resources to add value and deliver the project on schedule.

6. Negotiation Skills

Project managers without strong negotiating skills will struggle when dealing with suppliers and vendors. Good negotiation skills are not just about being able to negotiate well, as using a soft approach to get the best results.

7. Improve Project Management Skills

You can develop your career as a project manager by developing skills in managing the micro-tasks that need to be performed to achieve the overall project.

Project Management Tutorials:

• 10 Truths for Successful Project Management

• Scope Triangle

• Critical Path

• The Mythical Man Month

• Defining the Project Scope

• Scope, Visions and Goals

• Using Project Goals to Filter Requirements

• Difference between a Business Case and Project Proposal?

• Return on Investment

• Requirements Specifications

Project Management Templates

Here are some Project Management templates you can get on our partner's site.

	The Change Management Kit provides the documentation required to control changes to the scope, deliverables and resources within the project. The Change Request template allows staff to raise a change request within the project.
	The Project Planning Kit provides you with all of the project management templates, documents and forms required to plan a project by helping you to schedule time, cost and resources.
	The Quality Management Kit includes a suite of templates used to assure and control the quality of deliverables within a project.
	Project Initiation Kit Start a new project by documenting a business case, undertaking a feasibility study, defining the project scope, recruiting key staff and locating them within a project office.
	Project Execution Kit Manage time, cost, quality, change, risks and issues during the execution of your project, as well as supplier procurement and customer acceptance.
	Project Closure Kit Helps close your project by handing over deliverables and documentation to the customer, terminating supplier contracts and releasing resources back to the business.