There are growing numbers of competency models and such that attempt to identify the key skills required or suited to the role of being a successful project manager.
As with many topics relating to project management, there is a great diversity of opinions as to the skills that are most valuable to the role.
My question is: what do you think are the top three skills of a project manager?
What do you think?
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For more resources, see the Library topic Project Management.
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Passion for project’s success but detachment from an independent progress status report is a must because cases of late appropriate corrective measures and later, expensive retrofitting caused by managers massaging progress data are just too many and costly.
The three most important skills are in my opinion 1) Flexibility: things will change along the way, the ability to adjust is crucial. 2) Emotional control: patience when things look bad and controlled exuberance on positive news, again change is inevitable along the way and guiding that change requires a level head. 3) People/leadership skills: the ability to inspire others to pull a little harder on the rope is an intangible that is hard to value on the ledger but carries substantial value to the final bottom line. PMs don’t usually do all the work themselves, they work through others.
For a short diversion check out the Project Management Game at thatPMGame.com. Its fun!