… you possess fundamental skills for successful project management.
To be an excellent project manager, it takes more than having technical know-how. As the saying goes, it’s what inside that matters. Your innate skills in making judgement calls, working with people, ability to adjust to circumstances, and others are just as important. Some people may find themselves to be naturally equipped to lead, others may face a challenge. Nevertheless, the purpose of project management training is to help you become your best self as a project manager.
Foolproof Fundamental Skills
Cost Management
Here’s an insight on blown-out budget:
The average overrun was 27%—but that figure masks a far more alarming one. Graphing the projects’ budget overruns reveals a “fat tail”—a large number of gigantic overages. Fully one in six of the projects we studied was a black swan, with a cost overrun of 200%, on average, and a schedule overrun of almost 70%. This highlights the true pitfall of IT change initiatives: It’s not that they’re particularly prone to high cost overruns on average, as management consultants and academic studies have previously suggested. It’s that an unusually large proportion of them incur massive overages—that is, there are a disproportionate number of black swans. By focusing on averages instead of the more damaging outliers, most managers and consultants have been missing the real problem.Source
Cost management is arguably the most important aspect in project management. Any initiatives that results in excessive expenditure is a symptom of poor planning. Ultimately, it reflects project management team on the lack of foresight. A project manager plays an important role to keep cost in check and mitigate any unexpected expenditure.
Are you missing this unique accomplishment in your project management career?
Quality Management
The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.Benjamin Franklin
Consumers may tolerate the delayed release of product, and probably even a higher price bracket. However, what no sane consumers would accept is poor quality.
Once again, project managers is instrumental to ensure that quality control and management are in full force throughout development phase. Essentially, project manager oversees everything from start to finish.
Time Management
Time is of the essence for every endeavor – this is true even for project management. A timely delivery of tasks ensure all tasks are accomplished within acceptable timelines. To enforce a direction and urgency in a team, no other person can do it better than a project manager.
Communication Management
Surprisingly, 57% of projects fail due to communication breakdown. It is unfathomable that something we normally perceive as trivial would to failure of big budget projects. However, this the reality of project management in today’s corporations where people essentially don’t “talk”.
Project managers as a interlocutor, rectify this by enforcing better communication practices between employees, and perhaps most importantly, senior management to other departments of involved parties.
What Other Skills Are Equally Important?
- Risk Management
- Procurement Management
- Human Resource Management
- Scope Management
Evidently, ambitious plans spearheaded by a qualified project manager can make a difference and enterprises can avoid becoming a bad case study for others. Project managers who find themselves lacking of expertise in certain aspects can undergo training and have certification to back their newfound expertise.
