What Makes a “Great” Project Manager

In this episode, Ricardo talks about the skills of great project managers: having a track record, a history of challenges, failures, and successes throughout his/her career and having a great ability to communicate. He ends up answering the controversial question that always arises: is it a mandatory condition for the project success that the manager holds the technical knowledge, the expertise, about the product to be developed?

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Episode transcript

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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the five minute BM podcast today. I'd like to talk about the great Project. Manager why I'm saying that because or people send me emails or talk to me and say, Ricardo what makes it great, I'm not saying that food, but a great and outstanding Project Manager there. And I tried to revisit this and I'm trying today to share this with you. So the first thing is that a lot of people understand the concept of credential, professional credential or MBA, or a degree in the project management field.

These are excellent starting points, but the way you are not the only thing you need to become a Great. It's very important to understand that one of the main things do you do when I'm looking for a Project Manager is the track record. What does a track record be? Which kind of projects have you already participant wait, which kind of real challenges, not real questions that you answer correctly in an exam life questions, which kind of challenges, which kind of projects did you manage, or did you support which kind of challenges or failures?

So when I'm reading a CV, Sol, this, this is my quick advice. If you're preparing your CV, don't be so concerned about this just in your professional credentials. So, of course, they are Great they're Great and they are the starting point means you have a credential that supports technically in terms of your, your knowledge on the subject. Right? But you need to explain, okay, which projects you took care of, we're talking about What kind of challenges have you faced in different sectors in this is what makes a great Project.

Manager. When I say about track record, please say it all age or EE or self-experience, if they are not in the right thing. So it's not because you have grey hair that you will have a track record, track record. We are talking about success cases. And of course, it's more time challenging if you are 20 to have a lot of track records, but it doesn't mean that if you were 55 that do you already have a track record.

So it's very, very important that you need to build that So Mike Sanders, many people will ask me, how do I build this track record? How I'm 21 years old and I want, I'm starting my career. You are in a one to build a track record. So first, when you select the job, you don't select the job only because of salary. I'm not saying salary, it's not relevant. Of course, everybody needs money to leave. But the track record, which of experience that job I will provide to you, which kind of real estate experience you will have with that.

And this will make a huge difference. The second characteristic of a great project manager is their ability to communicate. It's your ability to relate to people. It's what I call soft skills. It's the ability to motivate the team, to select the right people, to create a winning team, a winning culture. It's not only the technical side. So it's all the softer skills. So the Great Project managers.

I know they have an outstanding ability to communicate, to create empathy, to be together with people, to create this bonding. And this drives me to the third aspect of a great project manager is to understand that it's not the technical expertise that will make you a great Viana. Let me explain this. It will be a paradise. If you are a project manager of a project, where do you know technically everything about the project?

Absolutely everything on the technical aspect, but don't forget that if you have, yeah, only the technical abilities only outstanding degree, an outstanding qualification and it that you will, it would be automatically M Great it Project Manager does this not through this is not true. It's like saying that the best coach of a football team is a word.

We need a former winning player. This is not necessarily true. Think about that because most of the Great BMS, I know they know how to adapt their skills to the different topics. Of course, they are surrounded by outstanding technical people, of course, but it's not this the main requirement. So we've you want to become a great Project Manager remember beaut your track record beaut real experience on your life.

Second, understand the aspects of soft-skills human resource handling with people called troll change or motivation communication in terms of understanding that it's not the same thing. You can call expertise that will guide you in an exclusive way towards success. And finally, remember credential is only valid when supported by real field experience.

Feel the light infield is not just a travel field. Is that experience? I'm not saying that, Oh, doing this. So because I have marginal experience in one project, I became a great Project Manager but it's the different sets of experience. So for example, in my career, when I'm thinking about my experience in project management, I love to take undertake different kinds of projects because they all built different skills. And at the end, I become more fulfilled professionally that I can adapt my project management knowledge to improve different kinds of organizations.

And this is what the market is looking for. So think about that and see you next week with another five minutes to be on podcasts.

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