20 key skills for project management

Approximately, every country of the world is observing lockdown and we are supposed to perform our duties from home instead of offices and institutes. So, here we need to show more proactive behavior to beat this pathetic condition and understand our roles and responsibilities. 

Project management is not an easy task as it usually seems to people. Most of us think that a project manager just has to give orders to the employees working under his observation and demand the results. It is a wrong concept. Have you ever imagined that if you just ask the software to do work, without giving any instruction or putting wrong instructions, will it deliver you the right output? Never, ever. 

Being a project manager, you should be most responsible first of all. Then give the right instructions to your team members if you want the desired result. As per the conditions, we need to work on our project management skills smartly. 

Project management is an easy job when you learn to manage your tasks and keep their record to trace your level of work accomplishment. So, here are 20 Key Skills For Project Management that you should consider and use smartly to make remarkable achievements even during this pandemic because you have not to stop but to keep moving on.

List of 20 Key Skills For Project Management:

Below is the list of List of 20 Key Skills For Project Management.

1. Knowledge about company’s policy

If you are hired recently in a company or an organization, you do not know about their terms and policies. You do not know what is the motto behind running this company and which style does the owner of this company like to adopt to create a productive environment with his employees while working. This never goes in your favor if you do not seek to learn and dig out the minor information about the policies of the company.

You should ask the company owner or his personal secretory to provide you a written document in which the policies of the company are completely defined in detail. You will be able to find the right direction to work on the project of that particular company. 

2. Have  the company’s and personal mission statement 

The second more important thing that you should consider while accepting a project management proposal to have access to the company’s mission statement. Most companies have written their mission statement very clearly and boldly, most probably on the entrance of their property but some are still having it in just their documents. 

You should go to find it out and read it carefully. Develop an understanding of the words written over the page, a wall, flax, or a digital screen, grab the meaning behind the words and discuss with the owner about what is the purpose of this mission statement. It will create a good impact and help you to make your personal mission statement to complete the project successfully even during this pandemic. 

Write your mission statement on a page clearly and paste it on the wall of the table of your workplace to make it visible as a reminder. It will help you to stick to your target and do what is necessary to achieve it.

3. Set your goals according to the company's mission statement

Now, it is time to start work professionally. Set your goals related to the company's mission statement. You can write your goals roughly on a page and define the strategies to achieve them. Your goal may make the project 100% successful but you need to define the strategies that define your success towards your goal quantitatively. 

4. Develop a plan roughly before execution

Before you go ahead with the practical execution of your project plan, have a visual meeting with all team members and the owner of the company and consider their suggestions. There are possibilities to get a maximum and more effective suggestion you find. Define the duty or role of every team member and discuss it individually with them.

• You are responsible to make your team aware of their role and responsibilities and clear all the ambiguities they feel. 
• Have a healthy conversation with your colleagues and discuss the plan with them either belonging to scheduling time or risk management.
• Keep your imaginations high by imagining the problems you and your team may face during project completion. 

If you predict the problem that may appear during project completion, you will find the solutions as well. So, planning the steps to achieve your project goal is necessary. It makes you understand on which wall you should put your ladder to get it instead of leaning along the wrong wall. Without a plan, you waste your energy on doing the things that are not required and prove useless. So, develop an effective plan before starting a project.

5. Work on the things that are in your circle of control

During this pandemic situation, you are not supposed to think about this critical condition, be in trauma, or get panic of thinking wrong and negative things that you cannot control but waste energy by thinking over those circumstances. You should think about the things you can control and make them aligned in a better way.  

You should be on the point of how you can achieve your target even during this pandemic situation staying at home. Make a list of the things you and your team can do by putting your all energy effectively on the spot where you can get fruitful results. Promote these thoughts in your team and make them independent of the circumstances, they will do their best whatever the pathetic condition is. 

6. Enhance communication by using technology

As discussed above, we are not in our routine work like we daily attend our offices and perform our duties in the form of a team physically. Most people are working as it is not possible for all to do appear physically and have a crowd around him/her. There appears a challenging situation, that how will your teamwork effectively and how will you keep track of their performance. 

• You are trained to communicate with teammates by having a physical meeting but now, you can fill this gap by having virtual meetings. 
• Technology has made it easier to access your team members within a minute and discuss as you do previously in physical meetings. 
• You can communicate your ideas and your vision by developing strong communication skills. You can do it by making slides, delivering a speech, or having a discussion session.

You can make calls, video calls, develop online spreadsheets or excel sheets, develop an online attendance system, and many other ways are there to engage your team and have healthy communication to fill the gaps. 

You can share the plans in the form of Google documents in different apps and websites and ask your team members to visit it, even if you can check who has followed your instructions and who is neglecting it by seeing the views option.

7. Empower your team

We cannot stay dependent on the circumstances, wait for what is going next to happen, and will it be in our favor. These thoughts make our thinking power paralyzed. Make your team a worthy and precious stone that is in demand and value high. You can make your team members' character strong that reflects honesty, hard work, and consistency.

Keep your team in contact with you by using social media apps like Whatsapp, Facebook, and telegram, etc. all your success depends on your team and they need to be more confident and independent by allowing them to take immediate decisions wherever required, giving them self-confidence. It will surely work and they will work willing on the project but not by force.  

You surely need to add this skill in List of 20 Key Skills For Project Management.

8. Time management to meet a deadline

Everything is organized in the universe and follows a specific time such as the sun and moon do, they never skip their schedule. We also need to follow this natural law. It can help us to achieve our targets timely and proceed them to achieve more. So, make a timetable of your and your team's working hours. 

If you want to complete your task effectively on time, you need to organize your time according to the importance and emergency nature of the task. First of all, take a paper and write your tasks you are going to do in a particular week. Highlight the big rocks among the list of tasks. You will better understand which task is most important and want our continuous attention.

Now draw four quadrants on the page and name them as

• Q1 this quadrant is fixed for the tasks that are important and urgent. These tasks need your immediate attention and need to be completed by the deadline. Like the owner of the company has called a meeting, you will be attending it on time as it is urgent and important as well. 
• Q2 this quadrant is fixed for the tasks that are most important but they do not need to be completed urgently. But they are important to achieve the high target to maintain the reputation of the company and keep its name high among the public. These are long-term goals.
• Q3 in this quadrant we can put the tasks that urgent but not important like if you are working in an office, dealing with important document and your phone is ringing continuously, it needs your attention immediately, it is not important as per the nature of your work but it is urgent as it can be about some emergency or anything like that.
• Q4 this quadrant belongs to the activities that are not important and not urgent as well. These activities do not need your attention but they waste your precious time. If you are free and think there is nothing to do, you can go ahead with such activities in search of entertainment. Such as watching TV intensively, using social media apps, and playing games on your phone. 

9. Risk assessment and management 

There is nothing perfect we are doing, we face several risks during a project. These risks may be financial, health-related, credit risk, market risk, or some other than these risks. Now, what you need to do as a project manager. A good project manager first identifies the risk, its nature, and level, then assesses it on different parameters. It may be related to the company's finance, its reputation, or the health of the workers. 

A manager needs to know what is going around during the work, are we doing up to the level to meet the market demands, are we keeping our budget on its limits, are the team members who are working in factories safe and enjoying their work. These all questions need your attention, if you feel something alarming, you should identify it, assess it and take necessary steps to meet and manage the risk initially to avoid more disturbance or loss. 

10. Be motivated and keep motivating your team

Another skill of a project manager is self-motivation that keeps you encouraging while doing your jobs willingly instead of taking it as a burden. When you start a new project, you should have the energy and motivation to take it to the heights of success. To keep yourself motivated, you should remember your motive, do not get panic, find ways to think out of the box, and keep your mind in a relaxed state. 

If you are motivated, you have the charm to motivate your team members by modeling a positive attitude, keeping consistency all the time, and keeping a huge smile on your face. These things matter a lot as it is human nature and psychology, we adopt the things we see not what we hear. So, be an example of motivation for your team, they will admire it and adopt this behavior as well. But if you panic and show an exhausted behavior, you will observe it in your team members as well. 

It is one of the most important skill when it comes to List of 20 Key Skills For Project Management In 2024:

11. Become a team player 

To make your project successful, you need to be a good team player. Find the previous record of your team members if you are new, and work on their skills they are lacking without letting it in their notice. Being a part of your team, feel their emotions, and give them a break where they want. 

A good team develops when the team members share the problem they are facing and the whole team gets on the same platform to find the solution. Keep your doors open for a team member to contact you, share the problems they are facing during work and also take their suggestions seriously and do not forget to admire and appreciate if you find the suggestion helpful.

It will help you to boost their energy and they will try harder to find better ways for making the company's project successful. Do not forget to celebrate little achievements, they promote self-motivation and give a feel of integrity that leads to developing a strong bond and trust among you and your team members. 

12. Do market research 

Companies have adapted their work style and set a new example of success even during this pandemic situation. Some countries have raised their economy even during these pathetic days by taking the path to innovations and introducing new things to attract the public proving that it is of advantage for them. 

You should make detailed research in the market and online on famous and well-reputed companies and find the reasons behind their success and reputation. Do not copy others, just take an idea and execute your plan to put a new example in the market. A good project manager keeps a keen eye on the research, does a deep analysis of the market, and keeps a record in the form of an analytical report or record.

It helps you to take the right decision to keep your project on budget and make it successful soon.

13. Provide support to your team when needed

Management is the backbone of a team working behind it. Project managers are not supposed to a special task but they are hired to make a plan and execute it among the team members by providing them strong support to the team who is working on different tasks to achieve a specific goal. 

It is just like our brain, as it gives instructions to every part of the body and each part performs its task as per the requirement selected by the brain. It is our brain that makes us alert about the risks, asks us to take actions voluntary or involuntary. The same thing is about to reject management, you need to work with coordination to keep the balance among the team members with their work by avoiding them to get exhausted.

14. Manage the budget of the project

During planning the project, the owner of the company, CEO, company's financial manager, and project manager fix an estimation of the budget for the project that should not cross the limit as it can prove problematic for the company's financial condition. This estimated financial budget is fixed by keeping in mind the expenses of site visiting, construction material, transportation, or hiring a new team for a new project, etc. You should not miss this skill from the List of 20 Key Skills For Project Management In 2024.

A project manager is responsible to keep a record of every activity, cost per activity and it is written proves by the responsible person. To keep the project budget within limits, he keeps meeting the financial manager and takes suggestions.

15. Promote an empathic listening culture

If you are a person who believes in speaking, speaking, and speaking always but do not listen to others. Your team members will hesitate to share the mistake they have made, they will hide it, and hence prove a failure of the system. But if you do meet individually with your team members, your team will prefer to discuss the flaws and ambiguities instead of hiding them from you, it will provide a chance to deal with the mistakes and make them right at the right time. 

• Promote empathic listening, be patient and just listen to the person who wants to share something, do not judge him or quickly give your opinions. 
• Take a pause and show that person you feel his emotions and understand what he said, and then share your suggestions.

 It will promote a healthy culture to avoid the risks of being exhausted and loose working efficiency that ultimately, leads to failure.

16. Keep a record of accomplishment of goals

You should keep a record of the accomplishment of tasks of you and your team. You can calculate it by presenting it on a graph and drawing a comparison line to check where your project is going, upward or downward. You will find the areas where you should work more attentively. It helps you to find your big rocks and wildly important goals and shows you a path to achieve them.

17. Manage the stress 

Including your official duties, your personal life, your body, and your mind also demand your attention. You should grab some time for yourself and your family as it helps you to release the job stress from your nerves and keeps you fresh and motivated toward your goals.

18. Be  a leader, not a boss

If you want to achieve maximum and wonderful results of your project, you need to be a leader to show the right direction to your team members that are good from them and convince them you are doing this for their well-being, and then you are behaving like a leader as your team will observe you doing maximum for them. But if you show a bossy attitude, they won’t like you and do the acts that annoy you.

19. Report writing skill

Your writing skills should be developed. You should be able to write an effective and easily understandable report by using good English grammar, mathematical and analytical formulas to represent the success report.

20. Celebrate your personal and your team achievements

When you have completed the project successfully, you should celebrate it with your team by having a meeting either visual or physical, sharing the team journey of the project, and appreciating them.

Final Thoughts:

So, this was a complete List of 20 Key Skills For Project Management In 2024. You need to follow the above skill if you want to become good at project management in future.