Project Manager Skills:

Project Managers are responsible for making great ideas happen. A great Project Manager makes excellent ideas happen and happens on time and within budget. Managing complicated projects requires a lot of skills.

Skill #1 Excellent Communicator 

A Project Manager needs excellent communication skills to make a project successful.

According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), Professional Project Managers spend almost 90% of their time communicating. The Project Manager is the connecting thread across all the people and tasks that make up a project. 

You could think of a Project Manager as its Chief Communicator. They’re expected to be in contact with team members, stakeholders, upper management, vendors, and any others involved in the project. Impeccable communication is critical to the success of a project. A PMI survey found that over 30% of projects fail because of poor communication. 

It is common practice for a Project Manager to draft a Project Communications Plan that establishes effective and expected communication streams during the project. For example, the Communications Plan might establish which communication modes will be used, such as Slack vs. email, and how often communications or check-ins are required. 

Skill #2 Leadership Skills

The Project Manager is a project leader and needs powerful leadership skills to see the project through. For example, a Software Project Manager must coach and motivate developers to work on a software project to ensure that task deadlines are met. While many assume that leaders are born, actively training in management principles and leadership skills can help you develop them. 

Decisiveness is a crucial quality needed by a Project Manager. They’ll make daily decisions affecting the project's success, such as scheduling, resources, risks, budget, and progress. To make good decisions, a Project Manager must analyze all available data, manage unexpected risks, consider all team members and resource limitations, and implement realistic expectations. 

Skill #3 Planning, Org, and Time Mgmt

Only 39% of projects started to meet their goals, and 74% of companies have failed a project in the past year. A Project Manager's job is project success, and excellent planning can help since the most common reason a project fails is poor planning.

Christopher Bolick, a Professor of Project Management at Northeastern University, says every project relies on excellent time management skills because “time is a Project Manager’s scarcest resource.” Bolick thinks that a project manager's best approach to time management is creating a solid project plan. 

These are just a few of the benefits that can occur with a concrete project plan: 

• Increases the chances of project success and reaching project goals on time and within budget
• Improves communication by clearly establishing expectations
• Creates more efficient tracking of tasks, goals, and progress
• Creates clear deadlines for team members and assists in task delegation
• Increases employee commitment, satisfaction, and retention

One of the most significant factors that can cause project delays is communication delays. For example, if the Project Manager hasn’t planned to communicate with their team about the progress, they might not have the information they need for upper management. Incorporating a communication plan into a project plan is a great way to avoid missed deadlines. 

Skill #4 Problem Solving

No amount of planning can ensure a project never has problems. More than likely, many problems you won’t expect will arise. A successful Project Manager will need strong problem-solving and conflict-resolution skills. 

According to Stephanie Jaeger, a Project Process Specialist, problem-solving skills in project management are people skills. Building strong team trust is the first step to effective problem-solving. It makes team members feel more comfortable alerting the Project Manager of issues and makes them comfortable enough to contribute to solutions. Having your team assist in identifying and solving problems also builds team commitment. 

Experts also recommend adopting a strategic approach to problem-solving. In project management, this typically consists of five steps:

1. Identifying the problem
2. Uncovering the cause of the problem
3. Developing ideas for solutions
4. Choosing the Best Solution from the Ideas
5. Executing the solution to solve the problems

Project Managers also need skills in conflict resolution. If conflicts are not resolved, a Project Manager may spend too much time on them and not enough on the project, causing important things to fall through the cracks. Team conflict can also delay a team’s progress. Like other leadership skills, Project Managers must develop conflict-resolution skills.

Skill #5 Budget/Financial Skills

Every project should have clearly defined costs and profit expectations, and it is the role of the Project Manager to implement them. For example, a project finished on time but vastly over budget has not met its goals. Neither has a project that finished under budget but was completed way too slowly. A Project Manager must have the skills to ensure the project succeeds and succeeds within budget and on time. 

In project management, the skill of overseeing a project’s costs is called “cost control” or “cost management.” This includes making a financial plan, executing it, and adjusting it when required. Like all project management skills, successful budgeting requires successful planning. A Project Manager will need to know how to forecast overtime hours, fees, equipment and supply costs, travel expenses, and any other costs that might arise during the project. 

One common approach to forecasting in project management is called “Earned Value Management,” a method for measuring work progress against predicted costs and planned schedules. It is often done during the Planning Stage of the Project Life Cycle but should be adjusted as the project is being executed. 

Skill #6 Project Management Methodology

According to Hubstaff, 39% of companies implement some type of project management methodology. Many companies implement a mixture of these methodologies, and a Project Manager will need skills in several to identify which methodology is best suited for a particular type of project. For example, Kanban is recommended for projects that fluctuate, while PRINCE2 is recommended for projects with more fixed requirements and deadlines. 

Some Popular Project Management Methodologies

• Agile: collaborating to deliver whatever works
• Scrum: using a small cross-functional team to deliver quickly
• Kanban: limiting multi-tasking and using a visual approach to create consistent feedback on progress
• Scrumban: limiting multi-tasking like in Kanban, but with daily stand-up meetings like in Scrum
• Lean: streamlining to deliver more efficiently
• Waterfall: detailed planning then executing through phases
• PRINCE2: highly controlled management 

Methodologies may also vary by industry. For example, the Waterfall framework for Project Management is more common in the Manufacturing and Construction industry, while experienced Software Development teams more commonly use Scrum. It is because specific industries had developed their own project management methodologies before project management became more recognized as a job field. However, some of these methodologies, such as Agile, have gained popularity in industries beyond the one in which they were initially designed. 

Skill #7 Project Management Tools

Project management is a hands-on career that requires interacting with teams, upper management, vendors, and potentially visiting job sites. However, most planning, communication, reporting, and team management will happen digitally. 

Project Managers need to be familiar with project mmanagement software tools. PricewaterhouseCoopers reports that 77% of companies use Project Management software linked to higher-performing projects. Their report shows a strong correlation between successful projects and projects on Project Management software.

The most commonly required skill on Project Manager job listings is proficiency in Microsoft Office. Professional Project Managers must have advanced Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint skills. For example, a Project Manager may use Excel for budgeting a project and PowerPoint for reporting to stakeholders. Many companies also use Microsoft Office programs, such as Outlook for email and the Tasks program. 

Microsoft Project Management Software, commonly called Microsoft Project, is the most widely used Project Management software. It is recommended that professional Project Managers have at least some familiarity with the program is recommended for professional Project Managers. It was designed to assist Project Managers in creating a schedule, assigning tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and administrative tasks. One advantage of Microsoft Project is its full integration with Microsoft Office.

Popular Project Management Software Programs:

• Trello: an online Kanban-style list-making software 

• JIRA: customized project and workflow design

• Primavera: enterprise-level project management that includes risk analysis and resource management

• Monday.com: Cloud-based project management and workflow 

• Asana: web-based organization and team management 

There may also be industry-specific software programs required for Project Managers. For example, a Construction Project Manager may also be required to know AutoCAD. Or, a Software Project Manager may need to be familiar with their team's programming languages.

Where Can You Learn Skills to Become a Project Manager?

If you want to become a professional Project Manager, then you will need to develop your skillset. One way to accomplish this is to train in project management. One of the unique aspects of project management as a field is that it prioritizes training and certifications over degrees. 

Noble Desktop is a coding, design, and business school based in New York City. They offer courses taught by instructors who are experts in their industry, both at their state-of-the-art campus in Midtown Manhattan or live online, including courses, bootcamps, and Certificate Programs in project management. Noble Desktop is dedicated to providing practical training and real-world skills with their unique approach to education: instructors teach a “micro-lecture” on a topic and then immediately guide students in applying the knowledge with hands-on, real-world projects. This unique approach means that you'll get hands-on experience in project management while training. 

In Project Management Level I, students learn by guiding a project through the Project Life Cycle. Students learn project management theories, concepts, and methodologies and gain hands-on practice in effectively communicating with stakeholders, time management, cost control, and the daily tasks of a Project Manager. Graduates earn a Certificate of Completion. 

Project Management Level II teaches advanced project management skills, including planning and timelines, task analysis, Critical Path Method, workflows and work breakdown structure (WBS), and monitoring. This course is intended for Project Management Level I graduates or people who already have project management experience but want to learn more advanced skills or work toward certification. Graduates earn a Certificate of Completion that is shareable on Linkedin. 

You can take Level I and Level II as the Project Management Bootcamp to save 15%. Both Levels are highly recommended for people who are pursuing a PMP Certification. 

Noble Desktop offers bootcamps designed to train students for professional project management certification. In the CAPM Certification Bootcamp, students are prepared to pass the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) exam, which PMI designed for aspiring and new Project Managers. This bootcamp provides students with a comprehensive exam prep guide, video curriculum, and lectures taught by a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). 

The 4-day PMP Certification Bootcamp prepares students to pass the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, the most prestigious professional certification a Project Manager can earn. In addition to comprehensive exam prep, this bootcamp also guides students through the complete PMP application process. PMI reports that Project Managers who are PMP-certified earn 25% more than their uncertified counterparts. You’ll also study alongside experienced Project Managers who can assist you in building a network.