The Distinctive Characteristics Of A Successful Project Manager

What distinguishes a project that meets its targets from one that improves an organization? More often than not, it’s the mix of skills and strategies brought to bear by the project manager. They might seem like the basics, but they’re the fundamentals that every successful PM handles: timelines and budgets. However, the truly impactful project manager goes beyond the fundamentals, using a combination of strategic foresight, adaptability, and leadership that isn’t always easy to muster.

What gives a project manager the edge to go from good to great? In this article, we look closely at what distinguishes top-performing PMs from the pack. Some of the traits are inherent; others can be learned. You can certainly learn the strategies we outline—they're largely how the best PMs tackle their projects. In our experience, the best go beyond hitting their marks and take exceptional pride in their work, which isn't always found in the job book.

1. Strategic Visioning

Holistic Planning: Successful project managers see beyond the immediate and clearly envision the project's end goal. They create strategic roadmaps that align not just with the project's short-term deliverables but also with the not-too-distant (and sometimes rather distant) future of the long-term organizational objectives.

Alignment With Business Goals: Ensure every project aligns with the larger corporate objectives. This is accomplished by working closely with the company’s senior management during the planning phase. The result is the cultivation of executive support and the deft allocation of resources where they can best serve the project’s needs.

Scenario Analysis: The first step of scenario analysis is anticipating potential project-impacting scenarios. Rather than establishing a single, straightforward path forward, this technique acknowledges the inherent uncertainty of the future by exploring multiple alternative paths. It then helps teams clear a forward-driving route through the project-impacting "unseen."

2. Bringing Stakeholders Into Alignment

Building Consensus: The consensus-building process is central to successful stakeholder alignment. It relies on identifying shared objectives that all stakeholders can agree upon. PMs typically approach the need to align stakeholders by holding some type of workshop where the project’s vision can be discussed and refined collectively.

Regular Monitoring: Keep stakeholders aligned by meeting with them regularly. The intervals of these meetings can be adjusted depending on the project's needs, and the meetings themselves can be conducted in person or via teleconference. What matters most is not how we meet but that we do meet, for these are the moments in which we tend to the concerns of our stakeholders.

Personalized Engagement: Communicate with your stakeholders in a way that exactly meets their needs. This understanding is vital because not all stakeholders require or desire the same type or amount of communication. If your project has a committee of stakeholders, this is especially important. You want to ensure that each member feels like they have a role and are fulfilling the right part in your project's success.

3. Empowering Leadership

Clear Accountability When Delegating: Assigning tasks with a clear sense of accountability is vital to delegating effectively. If a task is given to someone without ownership, that person will not perform the task well.

Skill Development And Support: As easy as it is for thematic collegiality to develop in a flat structure, ongoing and even intermittent support can be pretty challenging. Having thematic workgroups of your peers is not enough if you cannot approach them with the expected supportive nudges and the "what were you thinking when you did that?" questions that keep collegiality from sliding into mere friendliness.

Promoting Innovation: Promote the innovation, silly as it seems, to encourage team members to develop newfangled fixes for our old problems. To do that, we create a safe space for them to make mistakes. This is only partly about pathways to success; rewarding the team for being creative is good.

4. Ongoing Development And Change

Cultivating An Innovative Environment: Encourage team members to stretch their imaginations by developing 'innovation challenges' or hackathons directed at solving particular project problems. Tap into the inventive nature of the program team to generate and implement some out-of-the-ordinary ideas into the project plan.

Optimize Processes: I continuously review and optimize my work processes. I look for their underlying structure to ensure that they are lean and efficient. When my projects culminate, I always conduct a review to understand what worked and what didn't so I can refine my processes even further for the next go-around.

Dedication To Quality: Establish and uphold high standards for yourself and your team. By doing so, you fulfill your role as a project leader and set the project toward continuous improvement and, ultimately, toward quality, which you should always strive for.

5. Agility and Adaptability

Embracing An Agile Mindset: An Agile mindset is imperative for modern project managers. These practices allow teams to work more flexibly and adaptively, which is often necessary for today's fast-paced and ever-changing work environment. By using iterative cycles of development and maintaining a constant pace (or "sprint") for a given time period, agile project teams can not only deliver a project more quickly but also ensure a better fit between the final product and the stakeholders' needs.

Rapid Problem-Solving: When problems come up, they are fast and furious, and the project manager must be prepared for and able to adapt quickly to them. What helps in these situations is having a clear problem-solving protocol that can ensure the issue is taken up swiftly and addressed appropriately, with the right key players, at the right key times, until the problem is solved.

Continuous Learning: Adaptability requires more than just an attitude and a willingness to embrace change. It takes a commitment to continuously learn and to keep pace with an industry that is ever-evolving in its core techniques, tools, and technologies. Engage with continuous learning through professional development programs and certifications to maintain your adaptability and the ability to remain agile in this changing environment.

Additional Project Management Tips

Time blocking: Use time-blocking techniques to assign specific hours of the day to high-priority tasks. This technique reduces distractions and makes work time more productive and focused.

360-degree feedback: What better way to learn about your projects than hearing from the people working on them? And who better to give insight than the folks under (and over) you in the project hierarchy? Use 360 feedback and reviews to help you better manage your project.

Reporting Automation: Project management software is used to carry out the reporting function, thus serving all stakeholders. This is to say that the project management software can do a job we do not want to do because it is precisely that: a job we do not want to do. The software does a good job, and we can be confident in the figures it reports.

Team Development: Put your investments into team development by investing in training. Help them improve their technical skills, leadership abilities, and collaboration—the three big categories I think about when I think about the members of a team and their individual and collective development. Offer continuous learning, and your team will remain aligned with the best practices of your industry.