by Athrym Ong, PMP
Introduction
Apart from obtaining academic qualification, it is essential to a project manager to acquire and develop different skill sets in securing the success of a project. These skills could be grouped as management skills, people skills, leadership skills and of course, the subject matter related skills which are fundamental to a project.
Common Traits of Good Project Manager
In general, a good project manager shares some common traits as below:
- Visionary
A good project manager is visionary. They are future-oriented, who is able to gain a future and impending insights of a project by looking through the possible internal and external factors. They are able to establish and share a clear vision with project stakeholders, including project sponsor and project team. And, in order to engage the team to commit to the vision, the project manager should ensure that the vision is balanced with key actions. This requires the project managers to formulate the processes and mechanism to guide the team to achieve the shared vision. - Inspiration
In this context, the inspiration includes the powers of motivation and influence. A good project manager has the ability to inspire the team members and key stakeholders to achieve the project objectives. They have the skills to motivate and influence the team members to work as a cohesive unit and commit to the project achievement through different channels, including empowerment, rewards, supports, team building activities and so forth. Therefore, it is important to a project manager to understand and balance the need of a project, project team and key stakeholders so that each party would be bonded closely and become enthusiastic and passion to achieve the goals. - Organized and Systematic
A good project manager is organized and systematic. They are able to breakdown a project into actionable steps in a structured manner. Although the number of steps and processes may range from hundred to thousand, but they will stay tune to the project focus and able to prioritize the competing tasks to the right resources at the right time. All the project documents are well-organized and tracked as to allow the project manager to response timely when an issue is occurred. - Great communication
As project managers are required to communicate with different stakeholders and team members in different stages, therefore, a good project manager is deemed to have a great communication skills. They have the skills to negotiate, convince and persuade with different people from different levels. They are able to elicit, listen, transmit and deliver clear messages across the project team and key stakeholders, which are important to ensure that each party is informed and enhance the ownership towards the success of a project. Through effective communication skill, a project manager could reduce the risks of rework, team conflict, deviation and scope creep. Each individual is focus-oriented and understand well on what need and need not to be performed at a time. - Business acumen
A good project manager has great business acumen. Apart from the technical competence, project managers should embed themselves with business insights. A good project manager is able to understand the business needs and requirements, the potential business transformation and business opportunities which could be derived from a current project. Through a good understanding on the current and expected business needs, a project manager could recommend the best solution to a project accomplishment and maximize the potential economic benefits from a project to the organization. - Passion and enthusiasm
A good project manager is passion, enthusiasm and integrity towards his/her portfolio. They always show their commitment to a project consistently and responsible to the tasks that they performed. They are able to instill the power of enthusiasm to the team through day-to-day communication, as this is contagious when the team is developed and bonded. When the project team is passion and takes ownership to strive the project accomplishment, it marks a significant chance that the project would be able to meet its objectives ultimately within the project management plan. - Dynamic
A good project manager is able to react to changes throughout the project life cycle in a dynamic manner. Sometimes, a project could be span for several years. Therefore, a project manager should expect unpredictable changes to the project as the business environment may change from time to time to meet the market demand. A good project manager is able to response to these now-and-here opportunities and made a necessary trade-off as it is. Therefore, a project manager should learn to be dynamic, flexible, openness and ready to accept changes and pacify the project team especially to those unexpected changes.
Conclusions
A good project manager is important to secure the success of a project. In common, a good project manager demonstrates the characteristics of a leader. They are not only competence to their subject-matter; however, they acquire other skills as well in order to able to manage the project effectively and efficiency. And, these skills could not be developed within a day, but gained through experience and continuous training and development.
Athrym Ong has been working in the gaming industry for over 10 years, including in Malaysia, Macau and Singapore. During the recent years, she has had a key role in a project team tasked to manage a series of projects related to the set up and organization of the business unit, gaming machines, business processes, compliance audits, training and development for multi-national companies. 
Athrym graduated with a Master of Business Administration, with a major in Project Management, at the University of Queensland. She is also a qualified trainer and assessor with extensive training experiences. Currently Athrym lives and works in Singapore with the intention to further her career in Thailand.