Do You Have These Project Manager Skills? PMs Are Responsible For The Overall Success Of A Project. Become A Great PM With These Essential Skills!
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- Project Management Skill 1 – Contracts, Terms & Conditions
- Project Management Skill 2 – Budgets, Profits & Getting Paid
- Project Management Skill 3 – Scheduling
- Project Management Skill 4 – Getting Things Moving Quickly
- Project Management Skill 5 – Writing, Documentation & Record-Keeping
- Project Management Skill 6 – Being The Person With The Answers
The Many Responsibilities Of A Project Manager
Love it or hate it, project managers must be jacks-of-all-trades. While most of us come from backgrounds that are more specialized ie. engineering, architecture, programming, business management, etc., one must transcend these focuses and take on a larger, broader skillset to be an effective project manager. If you’re reading this, you’re probably interested in becoming a project manager, or you’re being “strongly encouraged” by your current employer. Either way, there are several project manager skills that one must develop over time through experience, regardless of your education level or technical background. Having a solid understanding and on-the-job experience in the following areas will ensure you’re ready to rock when it comes time to assume the Project Manager title! Let’s get into this…
Why Do Project Managers Need So Many Different Skills?
You’re probably thinking, “That’s a silly question. They obviously need these skills so they can manage the whole project!”. Which is correct. But that’s the thing: most people won’t fully internalize what the “whole project” really means until working on the job, especially when something unexpected happens and a quick reaction is required. Said another way, the shots you don’t see coming are the ones that knock you out. Here are a few examples of what I mean:
- A representative of the client writes a nasty email, saying they aren’t happy with progress, and your company is underperforming. They’re considering taking legal steps that will not be fun to deal with.
- The CEO of your company (your boss’s boss’s boss) wants to know your expected profitability to complete a project….by the end of the day…and it’s 3pm already.
- We all love dates, times and durations. So people will want them from you. And the joy of being the P.M. is being able to answer, and then actually go do it. The ability to schedule is key.
- You’re given an unrealistic deadline, whether it be fair or not, and must move yourself and others into action quickly.
- Most important exchanges between you and clients, vendors, etc. will be recording via letter, email or otherwise. Getting good at writing and keeping records is especially important when you consider that emails serve as legal documents in many states.
- When anyone wants to know the status of anything, they will most likely come to you. This includes clients, owner’s representatives, vendors or subcontractors, bosses, etc. No matter how big, small, or annoying this request is, you pretty much should accept that you need to have the answer. This means keeping everything organized.
Below is an in-depth look at each of these project manager skills, with some quick and easy methods you can use to level up these skills in no time.
Example Project: A Warehouse
I’m a big fan of examples and putting things in context. Throughout this article, I’ll make mention to a hypothetical warehouse project.
Project Management Skill No. 1: The World Of Contracts, Terms & Conditions
At the end of the day, everyone involved with a reasonably-large project has legally agreed to terms before starting. Some contract terms are reviewed with a fine-tooth comb before signing, while others are precariously simple. Either way, the contract is the go-to place to find the ‘rules of the project’. These are what the lawyers and judge will argue over and decide on in court, should it ever go that far. There are many key sections in any given contract that dictate the terms of:
- Payments: How much can be paid at any given milestone (i.e. amount of work completed), what’s required before approving the release of funds, and how many days it’ll take to get paid (net 30/60 terms, etc.).
- Staff: Personnel required to complete the project, such as Supervisors, Professional Engineers, Administrators, Etc.
- Time: When will this thing finally be done? There’s usually a firm date specified in the contract.
- Scope Of Work: What is the Client ultimately looking for you to do? This could be building a warehouse ie. pouring a foundation, setting steel framing and assembling a pre-fabricated roof and wall system, but NOT anything related to plumbing, electricity, heating/air conditioning or landscaping.
- Penalties: Also called ‘damages‘, this refers to penalties the contractor will receive for failing to perform work adequately in some way. Penalties usually are in the form of back charges (money that will no longer be paid) that the Owner, Clients, Etc. will hold back.
This is a very brief list of what to expect in a contract, but they’re some of the key terms.
Example Scenario
Now that we’ve considered what’s in the contract, let’s recall the example from above: Receiving the nasty email on behalf of the client telling your company that you’re (collectively) underperforming.
First off – are they right? Again, this is not so much about your individual effort or abilities; it’s about what’s in the contract. Let’s say you’re burning the midnight oil every day working yourself into the ground trying to keep the pace on a project. You deserve a pat on the back for your efforts. But the contract states that your company will provide you (the PM) and a full-time Superintendent onsite at the warehouse above to oversee progress, quality control, etc. Your company is in a lean-and-mean phase, and they decide to only have the Superintendent stop by once per week, not full time. This is a big deal that can potentially have huge consequences.
Separately, the Architect who designed the warehouse left out some key information and the project will take more time to finish than you thought, so you approach the Owner to cover additional management costs for the extra time it’ll take. If the project was staffed correctly (per the contract), you and your company could legally claim additional time for legitimate delays. All the Owner needs to say in return is, “You’re delaying the project yourselves, you’d be further ahead if you had a full-time Supervisor onsite that was promised! How do we know you’d even need more time if you staffed the project adequately?”. Want to go to court to fight over that? It better be worth it.
It’s important to know if the client is right when sending this nasty email. Know the contract terms!
Let’s say the Owner is wrong. Maybe you, as a Contractor, submitted a set of engineered drawings for this warehouse, which the Owner’s Architect is now reviewing. They return the drawings covered in red markups, six weeks later, with comments that you could have addressed in the drawings you turned in. Unfortunately the comments bring up details that were never discussed.
Look at that – the contract states that the Owner’s Architect has two weeks to review the drawings. There’s a four week delay on anything to do with that work – whether that be buying materials, scheduling a subcontractor, reaching a completion date, etc. There’s also things the Architect asks for, such as stainless steel doors inside the warehouse (contract requires cheaper painted black steel doors), a special finish on the interior steel (contract says unfinished), etc. You now have grounds to claim additional funding and time to complete the work depending on what is different from the original design.
Knowing the terms and responding quickly will keep the client, budget, schedule and your company happy in the long run. Not knowing them can leave money on the table, cause unnecessary trouble and lead to confusion.
Easy Ways To Manage The Contract & Legal Terms
- Keep a copy of the contract with you at all times. If it’s a huge document, at least have quick access to the scope of work, payment terms, penalties, and timeframe portions. Reference this daily if necessary. Do this and you’ll have a leg up.
- Spread the love around. Anything that is in the contract your company signed MUST be passed-through to any vendors, professionals or subcontractors you hire to be on the project. Everyone marches to the same beat.
- Know who your company’s legal counsel is. Whether that be an in-house attorney or a law firm, they should have reviewed this contract before your company signed it. If any legitimate change orders are being questioned by the client, or if accusations of delays, etc. begin to fly, keep the lawyer updated ASAP! They know more about what is legally required and will do the heavy lifting on enforcing what’s right. Use the experts.
Project Management Skill No. 2: Budgets, Profits & (The Company) Getting Paid
There’s work to be done. You’ve agreed to do it. How much will your company be paid to do it? How much will it cost you to do it? That’s the budget in it’s simplest form.
Breaking this down further, there will be a list of things you are supposed to get done on the project, and a value associated with each. This value is what the client will pay you when a portion of, or all of a task is complete. Of course for that task, there will also be costs your company needs to pay to get it done.
The difference between these two figures – value and cost – is the profit margin, the money your company keeps when everything is done, and everyone has been paid. I’m oversimplifying but like to break things down.
As you can imagine, there will be a lot of people wanting to know what that profit figure will be, and whether or not it is getting better or worse than expected. The PM gets the pleasure of keeping everyone updated, and being held accountable either way!
Example Scenario
Remember that CEO who needs those cost-to-complete figures by the end of the day? What this really means is, how much profit will you make from now until you’re done with the project? If you’re midway through the project, the company already knows how much profit you’ve made so far. So all that’s left to consider is how much will keep coming in (or not) and how much it will cost to finish.
While this type of request can be an annoyance to Project Managers (remember, it’s 3pm already), this is very important for the company as a whole, and is at least a sign of a smart operation. When it all comes down to it, companies have income and they have costs. That’s it. The Executives need to know how much money the company has, how much money will be coming in, and how much money will need to be spent in the near future to get the work done.
Maybe your company has 100 projects going. While most could be going well, even a few bad apples could put the company in a position to:
- Sell Assets: Get rid of things they own to get cash in hand to pay future costs on these projects.
- Downsize: We don’t need really these people/this much space/to provide this service anymore! Money saved.
- Get A Loan: Companies may need to borrow money to continue paying for costs like payroll and bills while waiting to get paid, even if it will be profitable in the end!
I don’t sound very cheerful, but the opposite of the above, like buying assets, bringing on more people for expansion, or paying off debt can also be reasons to know what the money situation is.
To know how much money is going to come in, and how much the company will get to keep, see below.
How To Manage Budget, Costs & Profits
Truth be told, the information the CEO is asking for is information you should already know! Early in my career, I was told the expression of “no matter what, watch the money”. Having a clear picture of finance and budgeting on a project is one of the most important project manager skills you can have.
To know your projected profitability, you will need to crunch some numbers and come up with a “cost-to-complete” for the project. Luckily, this is straight forward with a few pieces of information. If you’re lucky, your company will already be using an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software that tracks costs for accounting, so you’ll just need to run some reports to gather the information you need.
Profitability & Cost Projection Basics
A few terms to know:
Schedule Of Values (SOV): A dollar breakdown of all the items of work that are expected to be performed in a contract. If the warehouse above costs the Owner $1 Million to build (Contract Value), the SOV might include one line for steel assembly worth $200,000, another for roofing worth $100,000, etc. All of these items to build the warehouse will add up to the $1 Million.
Fixed Costs, like subcontracts, material costs, equipment rental and professional services, can be ‘locked in’ and predicted early on in the project. These are costs that don’t change for the most part.
Variable Costs are those based on productivity (production rate), such as a labor cost to install a steel structure. The contract guarantees that the Owner will pay a fixed amount for your company to install it, but how much it ultimately costs your company will come down to installing it as efficiently as possible.
Production Rate: The rate at which a certain task is completed. In the warehouse, a Subcontractor is hired to pour the foundation. In their budget, they’re expecting to spend $1,000 total (labor, material, equipment) on every cubic yard (CY) of concrete poured. Their budget estimates that 5 cubic yards will be poured every 5-day week, for every worker they have onsite. The production rate is therefore 1 CY / Worker / Day.
Client Invoicing is the process of billing your customer to get revenue, or to be paid for what’s been done. This is typically done on a regular interval. In my experience, monthly. The amount that has not yet been billed is referred to as the Remaining Contract Value.
Projection: The amount of costs and revenue that are expected to finish the remainder of the project. If the $1M warehouse is 90% done and the Owner has paid the Contractor $900,000 so far, the Remaining Contract Value for the Contractor is $100,000. To finish the last 10%, they may project a cost of $75,000 based on fixed and variable costs that are left.
Change Orders, Back Charges & Credits: These are official changes to the contract Scope of Work and Contract Value:
- A Change Order (C.O.) is typically work that’s added to the contract Scope Of Work after the contract is signed. For example, if the Owner decides to paint the warehouse bright red instead of the standard grey it comes in, this might cost an extra, say, $50,000. The Owner and Contractor will sign a Change Order to officially make this $50,000 part of the Contract, and add that figure to the SOV. The Contractor will of course be in charge of paying for the warehouse to be painted. Note that C.O.’s can also include additional time, terms and conditions if warranted.
- Back Charges are literally charges that are issued back to a Contractor. Say the Contractor is required to have a driveway paved for the warehouse by a certain date, and for some reason they cannot perform this. The Owner may elect to pay a completely separate contractor to pave that driveway – the costs for which will be held back, or back charged, by the Owner against the Contractor. These are typically reactionary, rather than planned.
- Credits are basically reverse change orders. Similar to back charges, except they’re usually planned and anticipated, rather than executed in a reactionary manner. Say the Contractor was supposed to put in a special finished floor in the warehouse. The Owner then decides not to get this special floor after all. The Contractor was supposed to be paid $25,000 according to the contract’s S.O.V. The Contractor shall then issue a credit to the Owner, which is essentially a change order for ($25,000).
Accounting Period: most companies track costs on a monthly basis. Ideally, you will be invoicing the client on a monthly basis too, so bills can go hand-in-hand with your companies’ accounting periods. Meaning, what you are billing for the month is based on the accounting costs for the month and project progress.
Basic Cost To Complete Formulas
Easy Ways To Manage Budget, Costs & Profits
- Break down the value of your project into a Schedule of Values, so you know the individual value of all the different parts of the project, rather than one lump-sum number. Do this at the beginning of a project, and get the client to approve it!
- As the project gets underway, identify your fixed and variable costs ASAP. You’ll finalize the fixed costs of materials, subcontractors, and vendors early on in the project, and then plan the execution of the variable costs to minimize them.
- Keep your notes on bills to the client, costs and profitability updated regularly using the formulas above! This practice will keep you safe and avoid bad surprises.
Project Management Skill No. 3: Who, What, When & Where
One of the essential project manager skills is the ability to schedule. At the core of it, a schedule is just a series of events happening in a particular order to achieve an end result by a certain date.
Ingredients For A Schedule
Keeping with our warehouse example, let’s look at each of these schedule ingredients:
- Series of Events In A Particular Order: Obviously, you can’t put on the roof before you’ve poured a foundation. You can’t build anything until you have a foundation. What’s it going to take to get that foundation in? You’ll need to excavate. What needs to happen before you excavate? You’ll need to know what type of foundation needs to be built. How do you know which type of foundation to build? An engineer needs to design it. You get the idea. Just to get the foundation in, according to our list, an engineer will need to design it based on what the client wants, and the client must approve it. Then, someone must excavate and prep the land for the foundation. Someone else will need to build the foundation, and so forth. These are all the critical steps needed to make the project of from an idea, to having a foundation. In fact, this is referred to as the ‘critical path‘ of the schedule.
- To Achieve An End Result: This applies to the entire project, as well as to achieving certain milestones along the way. Examples of milestones are: having a fully approved design, having a foundation poured, having all structural steel installed, having the roof done, having the building be air- and water-tight, having utilities turned on, and being ready to occupy (aka actually done).
- By A Certain Date: This is a matter of knowing all of the critical steps, what needs to happen to get each step done, and how long each part of every step is going to take.
On a regular basis, you will get the question of when certain things are going to be done, both from the client and from internal management. This is another wave that’s best to be out ahead of at all times.
Firstly, develop a schedule and critical path series of events at the beginning of the project with input from all parties who will be involved. Questions to ask are:
- Which items within each specific scope of work have a long lead time, or take a while to get? For example, our warehouse may be a pre-fabricated system of structural steel, metal walls and a roof that takes 12 weeks from the time you order it, until the time it shows up onsite ready to go. This means the ‘warehouse kit’ must be ordered way ahead of time.
- Which items need to be done in order to start others? These are ‘predecessors‘. For example, the manufacturer of the warehouse kit from above might need custom dimensions to make everything. How do you get those? An Architect and Engineer will need to work together to figure these dimensions out for the client. Or, you as a contractor may need to hire someone to figure this out. In this scenario, an approved set of plans is the predecessor to placing the warehouse order. Other tasks can only start when a specific task is done first. For example, you won’t start putting up drywall and painting if the building is still getting rain inside. Therefore, drywall and painting are ‘successor‘ tasks to getting the building water tight. You can work your way through the entire scope of work in this fashion and figure out the exact order all of the critical path steps will need to happen. These steps on the critical path are the building blocks of the schedule.
- Once you have your critical path laid out, how long are these critical tasks going to take? Figuring this out will require input from everyone involved. The Architect or Engineer must give a timeframe for their design (foundation included). The excavator will need to spell out how quickly they can have the foundation hole dug out. The foundation company will specify how long their task is going to take, and so on. These are ‘durations’. If critical steps are the building blocks of a schedule, durations are the size of each building block.
- Now that you know which items are critical, and how long they’re going to take, you know how long the baseline schedule will be and which items are the top priority. What about those items that aren’t as much of a priority and have a little wiggle room? Those are non-critical path items, and they have some time before they need to start. This time is referred to as ‘float‘. In our warehouse, let’s say exterior waterproofing/caulking and interior insulation need to be done by the same milestone date to maintain schedule. The waterproofing and caulking will take two weeks from one subcontractor, and the insulation will only take one week from another subcontractor. Therefore, you could start the insulation a week after the waterproofing and still finish both at the same time. The insulation work in this scenario has one week of float; time it can be put off before it has to start to maintain the schedule.
Having everyone involved keeps everything as transparent as possible up front between all parties, and minimizes surprises between parties when the work is going.
A regular practice to get into is putting together mini schedules called ‘look aheads‘, based on the baseline schedule you made at the start. This can be two weeks, one month or three months depending on the project size. The smaller the window of time, the more detailed you can get. Doing this regularly helps make sure that all the small tasks day-to-day and week-to-week are accounted for along the way, and helps you anticipate what will be going on and when, on a tangible “tomorrow, this Friday, next Monday” level. Plus, it means others involved will know that you’re serious about keeping schedule!
Scheduling Made Simple: What You Need
- Identify all major milestones for the project.
- Figure out the critical path and the order in which things need to happen. Then, assign durations. Get input from all parties early on.
- Identify items with long lead times and their predecessors to get these in motion.
- Make mini schedules regularly. This will help keep people on track, identify delays and make completing steps manageable.
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Project Management Skill No. 4: For Your Next Trick, Making Miracles Appear
We’ve all been there at some point. Your to do list is a mile long, everything is urgent, and now you need to make an unrealistic deadline happen. Yes, it’s unfair. Yes it could be due to someone else’s oversight or a pass-the-buck promise. But some way or another, you get some added expectation plopped on your shoulders. Luckily, there are ways you can spring into action quickly and make a lot of things come together quickly.
Make Things Happen Quickly
First of all, there are some deadlines that simply can’t happen. For example, if the warehouse kit mentioned earlier takes 12 weeks and your boss promises 10 weeks, there’s no guarantee it can happen. If there’s something that you’re asked to do that contradicts a contract, schedule or previous conversation, there’s nothing wrong with professionally pushing back. You can offer to call the warehouse company and see what they can do, but that’s about it. We are not literal miracle workers.
Say it’s something unavoidable like having a preliminary schedule submitted by the end of the week (it’s Tuesday afternoon). You basically have three days to put it together. It will take input of a few subcontractors and vendors, an engineer and a few of your teammates, plus some time to put it all together. See below for a few tips:
Steps To Make Things Happen Fast:
- Identify Exactly What You Need & From Who: In this case, it would be durations from each party for all of their steps. It helps to at least list everything you can think they’ll need to give you. For an engineer, this could be the amount of time to draft initial drawings and calculations, submit them, and the time it’ll take to make two rounds of revisions.
- Get Stuff Into Other People’s Hands Right Away: Since it’s Tuesday afternoon, get this list of what you need out to all parties in a group email, if possible. Make sure to copy your teammates. Let each party know what you need, and that you’ll need to have all the information finalized by Thursday afternoon. Let them know you’ll call them in the morning to discuss. Once you’ve put the ball in others’ court, you can work on your stuff as they work on theirs. This form of delegating is one of the project manager skills that just takes practice.
- Follow Up As Soon As Possible: People may dodge emails but they respond to phone calls, and unfortunately, the squeakiest wheel gets the grease. You can call subcontractors and other parties to rehash the list of what you need and see if they have any questions. Once you’ve reached out to external parties, circle up with your teammates on what you need.
- Follow Up (Again) As Soon As Possible: No need to annoy, but healthy persistence is in the heart of every great PM. I had a CEO tells us all that if we aren’t annoying people, we aren’t doing our jobs. Take that as you see fit. Assuming that getting this information back by Thursday afternoon was agreed to, follow up again Thursday morning to make sure there aren’t any questions or hold ups. Remember – as the Project Manager, your phone will ring when that schedule is past due. Its your responsibility to make sure it all comes together on time. Taking the initiative will pay dividends.
- Putting It Together: Ideally, you can get this information back on time, and will have some of Thursday plus Friday morning to put it together. Note that you’ve requested all information needed from others to be turned in Thursday, not Friday! You need time, too. Consider whether or not any cushion needs to be added to durations, or if there are unknowns. If needed, you’ll still have a part of Friday to send the schedule out to your team for review, and chase them down before they turn into a ghost on Friday afternoon.
- Being Honest: It’s better to turn in a schedule on time and clarify items that are still unknown / up in the air. A reasonable client will appreciate that you met the date promised to them, and that you’re being transparent with them about unknowns. You can indicate what you’ve assumed too, such as review/approval time on the client’s end, if weather could affect the dates, etc. Honest is one of the project manager skills that’s not spoken about enough.
Project Management Skill No. 5: Writing & Records Are Your Friends
Do you hate writing? Does paperwork put you to sleep? Unfortunately in Project Management, you’ll either hate a lot of your job, or you’ll be sleeping.
Some Examples Of Not Having Proper Documentation
- You talk to a subcontractor on the phone about sending you key information. They verbally give you answers over the phone and you relay them to the client. Next week, you’re in a meeting with the client and subcontractor. The client brings up the information, and the subcontractor backpedals with an “I never said that!”.
- There’s an important meeting coming up that you hope will answer some pressing questions on your project. You show up with your list of questions, and right out the gate, you get a bunch of “we’ll get back to you’s” but no real answers. Now you need to wait until *whenever*.
- You have a great meeting with your client, their Architect and your own engineer. Everyone has a list of homework to do before the next meeting. Five seconds later, it’s next week and everyone’s together again. While some stuff got done, you know there’s a lot of things that fell off the radar.
Becoming A Documentation Wizard
Let’s get it out of the way – in this day in age, it is assumed that you’re proficient with Microsoft Office products, Outlook/similar email services, a computer and a smart phone. You’ll need at least two of these at any given time to properly document anything. While tedious, documentation is actually pretty easy. If you’re diligent about doing these 3 things, keeping the project on track will be a piece of cake:
- Summarize Conversations Or Phone Calls With A Quick Email: This can be a straightforward recap of what was discussed, along with what you’re expecting the other person to do, and also what you will do for them. Copy whoever is directly related to this tasks, just don’t go overboard. This can make the other person feel as though they’re put on the spot, possibly respond in a more defensive manner and weaken trust. You can let the person know on the phone that you’ll send this recap email ahead of time to keep trust in tact.
- Send An Agenda At Least One Day Before A Meeting: This can include any questions you have, what you’d like to discuss, and open items that require a status update. This gives everyone the chance to be prepared, and eliminate those ‘we’ll get back to you’s’. Side note: set up regularly recurring meetings or conference calls from the start!
- Send Meeting Minutes The Same Day A Meeting Happens: I heard the corny expression before that puts it best: “If you don’t have meeting minutes, you didn’t have a meeting”. Meeting minutes can be written during or immediately after a meeting, and should include each task discussed, who will do it, what they will specifically do, and when it’ll be done by.
- BONUS: A picture is worth 1,000 words. This could also apply to a sample, sketch, or mockup. Having these put together to accompany emails, agendas or meeting minutes are a great way to make people easily understand a concept, or at least have a starting point.
Project Management Skill No. 6: Being The One With ‘All The Answers’
This one is the most important. As the Project Manager, people will come to you with questions, with concerns and for answers. You might not have them sometimes and that’s OK, but you are expected use your project manager skills to get them.
If there was only a way to always have up to date information, to have other people’s input, to get information quickly…how do you make sure you have all the answers!? Stay consistent on steps 1 through 5.
Being a Project Manager can be a difficult adjustment for this reason alone – sometimes as knowledgeable as we are, as good at our jobs as we might be, we just won’t be 100% comfortable being the go-to person right away as a new PM, and this can feel like everything crumbling around you when the phone won’t stop ringing. But having good habits and staying consistent will go a very long way.
Let’s recap. If you are diligent about steps 1 through 5 above, you will be:
- Well-versed on the contract requirements.
- Know what’s in your scope of work, and what is not.
- Holding everyone to the same contract requirements.
- On the ball with the help of lawyers and legal professionals.
- Knowledgable on what’s in the budget.
- Locking in fixed costs and controlling variable costs.
- Tracking profitability, bills & costs.
- Aware of project milestones.
- Aware of what needs to happen and when, plus the time it will take.
- Prepared to get long lead items in motion early on.
- Breaking the schedule into small, manageable tasks & tracking them.
- Cognizant of what you need from parties involved with the project.
- Getting requests, questions & requirements into other people’s court.
- Following up diligently with parties involved.
- Allowing for time to get your own work done, too.
- Meeting reasonable deadlines & being transparent with the client.
- Proficient with Microsoft programs, email, computers & smartphones.
- Keeping record of conversations and looping key team members in.
- Sending agendas before meetings to maintain momentum.
- Sending minutes after meetings, specifying requirements & deadlines.
- Providing samples, sketches, photos & mockups whenever possible.
In Conclusion…
While Project Management is a game that takes a lifetime to master (I’m far from it), gaining a strong understanding in the areas above will absolutely level up your Project Manager skills, and you’ll be a lean, mean PM in no time! Please feel free to email me any time with questions or if you have a topic you’d like to hear more about.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article “Basic Project Manager Skills For Success”, I hope you found this helpful and informative!