What makes for a great project manager: one sought out for projects, one teams want to have in charge, one known for handling difficult projects with panache? What are the traits, actions, or capabilities that create pervasive success in the project manager role?
If you’re a new project manager, do you know for sure what will make execs and team members think you’re doing a great job? How do brand new project managers know not just the tasks related to their job, but what it means to really excel and succeed on the toughest projects? And what might they have to do to get there and be highly valued as a PM?
My perception of what a project manager is and how to be a great PM varied greatly over time, because I got incredibly mixed signals all along the way. Fortunately I eventually became very clear on what mattered most. I want to trace the somewhat wacky evolution of my understanding of the PM job to those conclusions-through the lens of my career-because I think it’s fairly typical, but something we really shouldn’t be putting new project managers through!
* My first job was as an engineer on a large government-related electronics project. I was handed down specs and schedules from a pretty much unseen (at my level) program manager. I had to fill out a schedule status sheet once a week, and was asked to provide status slides for VERY SERIOUS STATUS MEETINGS with the customer. That was my only contact. Thus:
(PM = keeper of the schedules and reporter to the feared Customer.)
* Next in that company, I was a group leader for a new development effort, now responsible for setting my group’s schedules in the context of the program, working with the program manager.
(PM = integrator of the schedule puzzle and sync-meister of a very complex set of stuff going on all over the place.)
(OK, I was starting to get a little of the value that could be part of that job…)
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