Project Management Skills for the modern economy

Skills we need to work on
In the new world of project management, the below skills are becoming ever more important—and we really need to hone them:

• Chairing virtual meetings – It will become the norm that one or more team members are remote and participate in the project virtually. This requires special team skills.
• Communication – Communication in virtual meetings and multicultural environments takes a whole different level of skill. You need to communicate without seeing the participants or without really knowing the different cultures. And you need to be able to pick up cues without having the advantage of seeing body language. Language barriers may become real, and if you have several people participating in a language not in their mother tongue, they may have problems understanding difficult concepts.
• People skills – With the new developments, we will need to be ever more sensitive to how we treat people, how we keep them motivated and how we defuse critical situations. Emotional intelligence will gain ever more importance
• Conflict resolution – The more different cultures involved and the more complex projects become, the more likely conflicts can arise. Leadership skills in this area will help prevent and defuse conflicts.
• Working in multicultural environments – You need to be extra considerate with how you talk. You need to try and understand what is acceptable in different cultures even in terms of dress code, work arrangements, resource pairing, etc. Different cultures keep different holidays and eat different food. (Yes, these things are important in your team management.) Read my article Finding success in multicultural teams for more.
• Emotional intelligence – This has two parts:
  • understanding yourself, and how you react in good times and in conflict
  • understanding others in the same way
• Team-building skills – Project teams will be ever more complex—and therefore have ever more subject matter experts from all different industries involved. It will be up to the project manager to pull these diverse individuals together to form a cohesive team that can perform at its best.
• True leadership – Bringing out the best in each team member. As projects become more complex, it will be more and more important to bring out the best in your team. As project manager, you need to spend ample time with each team member to nurture them to their best performance.
• Adapting processes to the project need – As we move away from fixed project processes, project managers will need to learn how to adapt processes to each project’s needs while remaining in the framework of the company.
• Digital skills – Don’t wait for anyone to teach you. Embrace the digital tools you are given; learn as much about them as possible, and learn to use them to your advantage. Most software has learning videos, and you find a host of videos on YouTube. Teach yourself. You will be the champion of these tools for your team. Show it how it can use the tool to its advantage.
• Agile methodologies – These will become part of your life. In the project economy, you will find more and more hybrid project in which parts are done/have to be done with an agile approach. You need to prepare yourself and be ready for it.
• Be a role model. Show team members what you expect from them in terms of commitment and time keeping, etc.
• Encourage a shared vision for the project to get complete buy-in and commitment from all.
• Challenge the process and find the most effective process for the project (PMI calls it “from frameworks to whatever works”)
• Enable your team; ensure that all the resources and machinery they need is there in the required quality.
• Encourage the heart. Be sure your team members know that you appreciate them. Let your superiors know who excelled and take responsibility for any failure. Look for a budget to celebrate small victories. It does not need to be expensive; even a cup of tea and a bag of potato chips together can do the trick if shared together with the right spirit.

Every project manager will need to be a very flexible “people’s person” who can think on their feet—and be willing to really get involved with their team by shaping, encouraging and motivating them.

Content taken from a projectmanagement.com article.