"Interpersonal skills of a Project Manager"

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.

Introduction

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

Interpersonal 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 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.

Trust building is the process of building a willingness in others to put them self in risk based on the project managers action. To create an environment where persons trust each other requires that the project manager promote shared values, openness and align own actions with the collective values, encourage by recognition of achievements and showing appreciation.

Conflict management is the ability to handle conflicts when they arise. Conflicts are near to inevitable, and the project manager must address them before they become crises and must be able to identify both verbal and non-verbal cues that indicate anger or frustration. The project manager must convene meetings with parties in conflict, contribute to solutions and formulate agreements, and enforce sanctions for noncompliance to agreements, and be willing to modify behavior.

Coaching is helping persons to a higher level of competencies by contributing with aids to let them recognize their potential. Training can be mean to enhance and develop team members performance in both technical and interpersonal manner.

Psychometric test

The main types of psychometric tests are:

A personality test is designed to measure psychological characteristics behavior and tendencies that are relatively consistent over time. An example of a personality item question could be: “I am good at helping people work well together the respondent is given choices like; (1) Strongly agree (2) Agree (3) Neutral (4)Disagree (5) strongly disagree. Which together with other question looks for an underlying tendency towards leading.

Ability test is designed to measure specific abilities such as intelligence and talents; an example could be: The sun is for the day as the moon is for the? Given choices could be; (1) Dawn (2) Night (3) Nothing (4) Eastern (5) Summer.

Motivation and attitude test are constructed to measure particular beliefs towards something, for instance, work, an example could be: The work I do are for the company are; (1) Very Important (2) Important (3) Moderately Important(4) Of Little Importance (5) Unimportant.

Choosing a test

If trying to measure interpersonal skills, a psychometric test that measures personality would be the right to administer. The next step is to choose a test. There are several different tests to choose among; some tests are theory-based some are empiric and derives from analyzing data. The test is often selected based on test house advertise or recommendation from a professional network. Human relation departments rarely check a personality test for reliability and validity As an example, the HR department of Berkeley University of California uses Myers-Briggs® as a tool offered for personal development despite psychologist disregard the Myers-Briggs® in contemporary research. At Berkeley Institute of personality and social research, no research paper was found. Research papers on Big Five were found.