People make Project Management an art!

What should a “good” project manager be able to do?

Posted: October 8th, 2008 | Tags: | 4 Comments »

Based on this article, I started to ask myself what makes a “good” project manager?  What are the 10 things that a “good” project manager must be able to do?

I think it goes a lot further that pure technical capabilities of project management (Deliver as per PMBok).  This makes you a project manager not a “good” project manager.  I believe the person should a least be able to:

  1. Say “No” appropriately (when required)
  2. Be able to “make a deal” not simply negotiate
  3. Convey bad news effectively
  4. Be able to articulate the project’s current status well
  5. Articulate the project’s benefit in a very clear and concise way to business
  6. Relate to the current technical issues of the proposed solution
  7. Present  – not simply read of a deck of slides
  8. Deal with conflict
  9. Work with people
  10. Focus (especially when things get rough!)

I will expand my thoughts on each of these in future posts.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

4 Comments on “What should a “good” project manager be able to do?”

  1. 1: Are You a Good Project Manager? « The Smooth Project Manager said at 6:38 pm on October 11th, 2008:

    [...] good project manager, project management, project manager, saying no I’ve just read this post about what a good Project Manager should be able to do: The Project Manager should be able to say [...]

  2. 2: Alexander Arendar said at 11:57 pm on October 11th, 2008:

    Good list :)
    I think there hardly will be anybody from PM world arguing with these points.

  3. 3: Good PM 1 - Say No when needed « My opinion on things that interest me! said at 10:08 am on October 13th, 2008:

    [...] No when needed Filed under: Project Management — sklee @ 10:08 am Continuing from my previous [...]

  4. 4: What is good for a project manager is also good for any manager | Projects with People | People Project Management said at 7:55 am on September 16th, 2009:

    [...] just finished my series on what a good project manager should be able to do, it was reassuring for me to see the same points [...]

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.