"Interpersonal skills of a Project Manager"

Revision as of 20:10, 21 September 2017

When company's recruits project managers human resource departments often emphasize on the project managers educational background and experience as project manager. Experience as a project manager and an education that matches the projects technical aspects does not necessarily mean that the candidate is the right person. Even a track record of many completed projects are not a guarantee that the project manager will not wreck the organization or be the cause of losing customers. The project manager performs through others such as stakeholders, project team, own organization therefore apart from technical and conceptual skill Project Managers must possess Interpersonal skills. When recruiting a project manager, apart from ability test, motivation, and aptitude test, the recruiter can issue a personality test emphasizing on interpersonal competencies.

There are many different personality tests, and to find the one that will test for the interpersonal skills required of a project manager can be difficult. Many of the tests are generic and are not be constructed with the purpose to test specifically for the sought skills. For instance Gehring, D. R. (2007). Applying traits theory of leadership to project management. Project Management Journal, 38(1), 44–55. Found that six different Myers-Briggs® types supported project leadership competencies.

This article will address interpersonal skills of a project manager and psychometric test for personality types to match these skills.

The (PMBOK® Guide) – Fifth Edition describes the essential interpersonal skills as:

• Leadership
• Teambuilding
• Motivation
• Communication
• Influencing
• Decision-making
• Political and cultural awareness
• Negotiation
• Trust building
• Conflict management
• Coaching.

Leadership is the ability to envision a direction and lead a group of people towards a common goal and realize the result through others. The key elements of leadership are respect for others and a sincere belief that people attend their job with the purpose of doing their best every day.

Team building is creating a goal for a group of individuals and make them work together as a group to achieve the objective. In addition to creating goals, the project manager must set the scene for the group; who got the roles, what the responsibilities are, how to communicate internally and externality, how to handle problems, create an environment of trust and mutual respect. Most of all team building is about creating an identity for the team and a collective understanding of purpose.

Motivation is to give positive stimulus that aligns a person's intrinsic motivation such as desires to explore new things, to seek boundaries for one's capabilities, to obtain new knowledge. Some of the best motivators are; recognition for participation and achievement, give responsibility, the opportunity to personal growth, a possibility for advancement.

Communication with others is essential in projects. Project managers must; be able to effectively communicate at all levels from project sponsors to secretaries, communicate in a straightforward language and communicate concisely, build relationships based on trust and respect, actively listen to avoid misunderstandings and ensure a shared understanding of deliverables and common goals, promote cross-cultural understanding.

Influence is getting people to cooperate and work towards common goals by; fulfill commitments, lead by example, share and clarify how to make decisions, letting group members take part in decision-making when applicable, working for long-term collaboration, adjust own behavior according to different situations, influence instead of persuading persons.

Decision-making is an important skill to master, in projects, decisions are made daily and often without having the full picture of a problem. Project managers must be able to; focus on the project goals, analyze information, use and follow a decision-making process, involve team members in the decision-making process or make decisions single-handed.

Political and cultural awareness are skills that often come into play as projects group members and stakeholders may come from different cultures and may originate from cultures with work and communications pattern that differs from own norms. A project manager must be able to understand and embrace cultural diversity and be able to communicate and promote a mutual understanding and a set of standards in the group to achieve goals.

Negotiation is a process between parties, trying to seek common ground despite each party having own needs and aims, and agrees to a settlement where both sides leave the negotiation with a perceived sense of being a winner. Sometimes one of the sides leaves with a poorly negotiated result, the importance here is that the loser does not leave with a feeling of being exploited.