Good vs Bad Project Managers - Project Management

[Music] hello my name is jennifer whitt director of projectmanager.com well welcome to our whiteboard session today on good versus bad project managers well if you've been hanging around the water cooler or spend some time online on some of the discussion groups for project managers this seems like a ballroom brawl sometimes people look at things differently on what really makes a good versus a bad project manager so what I'm going to do today is list 13 areas for you to evaluate of yourself so the assumption is when we look at project management I feel like if you're a project manager the principles of project management is as ernest is an assumption and it's table stakes meaning for sure the baseline has to be that you are using best practices that you are using tools that you're using templates and have some type of project management training so if this is the baseline and this is table stakes then let's look at some of the seasoning some of the special sauce that project managers do that make them good versus bad I've spent over 20 years studying project managers and teams what makes them work what makes them fail what makes what makes some project managers set up to get those great projects get the promotions so some of the things I've observed is just this is a few this is not a comprehensive list but again it's more areas to look at and look for yourself how am I doing this and I'm always a proponent of find people that you think that are really good project managers and evaluate and assess for yourself what makes you think that they're so good and try to emulate some of the things that they're doing so here are some of the things that I think the good project managers do in addition to the baseline of project management best practices number one professional development and certifications I find that the really good project managers are constant learners they're interested in learning they're constantly looking at how to better themselves they're learning about teams they're learning about different ways to improve their baseline skills and their interpersonal skills and we all have talked about the certification so some people and we've seen examples of this all across our organizations where you can see people who they have all the certificates on the walls and they have their certification but maybe there are really bad project managers so we've all seen that but I do still believe that those who are good people on my list constant learners with prefer they invest in themselves and professional development in their certifications number two they're conscious and aware that meaning they're conscious of themselves aware of themselves and others they're always trying to set their teams up for success and being aware what are they really good at what are they bad at recognizing when someone on the team is struggling and need support looking at maybe when someone shut down or maybe not providing information or being able to be conscious and aware of the plan and what estimates people are providing that maybe doesn't seem correct so it's being in tune being conscious aware number three they have mentors and they have mentees learning is a give-and-take so for sure having people who have been there done that whether it's technology you're learning a subject area may be project management that you're learning but always have that person who has been there done that that you can learn from and having mentees I've always found and seen an experience for myself when I'm teaching someone else like a minty then I'm learning I'm learning from them as well so they're learning for me I'm learning from them because they always provide a different perspective and again learning is a give-and-take relationships good project managers believe in and they're really good at building and nurturing relationships because relationships have the people within our team and outside of our team that's the way we really get things done I mean we know how critical the people are on our team so the good project managers are really good at building and nurturing relationships or if they're really bad at that then they find there to people who do have those relationships and they leverage those relationships number five social online and offline again it's great to be involved not only learning seeing other people's experience but also given in taking best practices within the community so being social and active both online and offline number six being mobile project managers rarely sit at their desk so if a project manager is sitting at their desk they're probably one of the bad ones because that means they're not interacting they're not they're not out and about they're maybe not meeting collaborating socializing with their team or maybe their stakeholders so they're mobile and being mobile is not just being out but it's being effective at being on the go so they're able to court correspond communicate I respond effectively and promptly while they're on the go number seven available and responsive but appropriately so being available for people so if you are on the go are on the go or if you are one of the project managers who spend a lot of time at your desk then you're available for others to access you to ask questions give you input and responsive being responsive and not just ignoring emails not ignoring calls but actually returning phone calls or emails promptly but appropriately with boundaries some some people don't set the appropriate boundaries so maybe they become bad project managers because they can't get anything done because they're not good at setting boundaries saying no settings schedule time for them to get their work done and having appropriate systems in place for people to access them and respond appropriately number eight collaborative I feel like it's really important for project managers to collaborate with people so they're getting input they're getting input that doesn't mean necessarily that what the input they take they're necessarily going to do but to get different perspectives not just to look at things from one perspective which is their own so the really good project managers I've seen come rate and take information from others also other good project managers I've seen are decisive they can take information and they can make decisions they can make them promptly appropriately and get things and number which goes into number 10 resolute being resolute in getting things done so making decisions is not necessarily getting things done but resolute is and good project managers get things done on their team by being resolute so whether they get them done they again know their go-to people and know how to get things done on their team number eleven they communicate they communicate effectively they they know their team members they know their stakeholders they have a communications plan set in place they know how them they communicate effectively themselves whether it's in language having a strong effective language whether they give presentations whether they send email however they communicate they communicate effectively so that people know what information they're trying to get so a good project manager communicates effectively to indicate what information they're trying to give others and more importantly what information they need back so that's a great communication feedback loop number twelve they delegate so they know how to delegate appropriately a lot of times project managers have been promoted through the ranks so maybe whatever area that they were in which was their expertise it's kind of difficult to get away from it so when they get promoted they try to do the old job plus the new job or maybe multiple jobs and they're trying to do too much so the project manager becomes the bottleneck so it's important to know how when into whom to delegate to effectively and number thirteen is knowing knowing had to lead teams and manage the projects and know the difference between because a lot of times people try to manage the team manage the people and people don't like to be managed people like to be led they like to be they like for someone to set the vision fuel the passion and if they do that then if you can influence the team then they will follow you so again these are some of the areas that you can evaluate for yourself this is not a comprehensive list of the all these are just some areas to think about these are some of the things that I commonly find that the good project managers do that you can see for yourself and again check out the people that you think are good project managers make your own list and see where you stack up between the good and the bad and you add some little seasoning and spice to the table stakes if you've evaluated yourself against these three areas or better yet made your own list and now you're trying to add the seasoning to your table stakes then sign up for our software at projectmanager.com and implement some of the things that you can do to be a good project manager

Channel: Project Management Videos

Views: 368,273

Rating: 4.8452382 out of 5

Keywords: Project Management, Project Manager, project management training, project management video, project management course, Educational, Good, Bad, project

Id: raeKqKp4xdE

Length: 9min 51sec (591 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 04 2012