8 essential elements for excellent project managers

Good project managers should be responsible, be good at communication, be good at guiding customers, be able to predict risks, be good at summing up, respond on demand, be good at motivating teams, and understand technology at the same time.

Responsibility

As a project manager, you must have a sense of responsibility first. With a sense of responsibility, you will regard projects as your own children and devote all your efforts to them. Responsibility will drive you to focus on the progress of the project, do everything possible to find various resources, and push the project forward. Even eating, sleeping, walking, or taking a bus, all of them are thinking about the entire project team and thinking that they are working overtime. You may naturally bring them some supper, coffee, and treat their employees.

With the help of the project manager, the entire team will be fully supportive of the work, the morale is very high, and technical problems are solved. The project will develop in the desired direction with the praise of the leaders and the confirmation of the customer.

Many developers complain that the project manager does not do much in a day, and the salary is quite high. In fact, the project manager was not idle for a moment. He was always thinking about how to better execute the project plan, adjust the project progress, and so on, and his mind kept running, so the project manager was tired.

Good at communication

PMBOK (Project Management Knowledge System) points out that the project manager is 75% ~ 90% of the time is spent on communication. Communication is everywhere. project managers must have good communication skills. For example, report the progress of the work with the lead, introduce the product to the customer and explain the work results, explain the work to the project member, seek support from other personnel in the company, and coordinate and cooperate with the partner manufacturer. For the project manager, most of the time every day is to communicate with people. The project manager has a boss, a customer, and a project member, which belongs to the splint layer. The communication is poor and prone to accidents.

The key to communication is: at what time, how, and to whom? In particular, we must make a good communication plan. At the same time, you must master the communication needs of stakeholders to meet their expectations!

Of course, there are many formal and informal communication methods. Formal activities include various review meetings, weekly meetings, project kickoff meetings, project summary meetings, etc. Informal Activities include personal conversations, chats on the table, and MSN chats. It is necessary to combine various communication skills. Sometimes, informal communication can obtain actual project information, especially developers' expectations, ideas, and ideas about the project.

Guide customers

"The customer is God", but the customer is not always right, and sometimes it is wrong, especially when the project has not yet developed a model, the customer sometimes does not know what they need. Therefore, after the project kickoff meeting, both parties should "put the ugly words in front" to clarify their responsibilities.

The project manager must stand on the customer's standpoint and strive to meet the customer's business requirements so that the software can truly create value for the customer. However, if the project manager is always held by the customer, it is easy to fall into a passive situation. As a result, the customer's needs are constantly changing, resulting inProgramThe project is always in the same place, and it is difficult to push forward. Over time, everyone is exhausted and their enthusiasm is severely frustrated. Finally, the project was quite confused!

The developer and the user must pay attention to "equivalent positions". To find customers who have the right to speak and can make decisions, unify the interface staff, and change the demand, to implement proper change control, the author has always suggested that the change should be "put on paper", and sometimes the customer needs to sign for confirmation.

For customer requirements, the project manager must quickly estimate the amount of development work required for demand changes based on excellent technical skills and abundant business knowledge. Is there a better solution. The ideal situation is that the program is basically not modified and can meet the customer's needs. However, I often use a different method to meet the customer's needs. In this case, the project manager needs to have a global understanding of the system structure, and the size must be accurate.

The project manager is sometimes white-faced and sometimes black-faced, but in any case, it is necessary to protect the interests of the team members. I often see many project managers intentionally or unintentionally say in front of customers that developers are not, if the customer is dissatisfied, the developer is accused. This method is not suitable. I usually make a statement to the customer to acknowledge the "error" to the customer, and then find the developer to make a reasonable explanation, so as to "solve internal problems ".

However, I have worked on many projects over the years, many of which are large projects. As a project manager, the relationship between the author and the customer is handled very well, and the two parties have a great deal of cooperation. Finally, the customer became friends. To be honest and honest, "win-win" is the direction and goal of the project manager.

Risk Prediction

Risks throughout the project. As a project manager, you must have the ability to predict risks, for example, whether the technical reserve meets the project requirements, whether there are sufficient personnel, and whether the project budget is sufficient.

As the project progresses, the project manager must predict which stage has risks and take preventive measures as soon as possible. Many risks can be obtained only when they are in private contact with customers and bosses. For example, leaders may change across the year. The current budget of state-owned enterprises must be used in the current year, and the cross-Year Plan will be voided.

If the project manager is as busy as a programmer with programming all day without paying attention to changes in project risks, it will be very passive and even unprepared. Remember, risks are everywhere. as a project manager, you must pay enough attention to them, be aware of risks, be able to predict risks, and control risks.

Good at summing up

I often say, "the conclusion is to improve, and the thinking is to do better ". Especially for young project managers who have little experience, they can only summarize and move forward in the summary. Experience is not equal to experience. After experience is summarized and accumulated, you can become your own experience. Confucius said that "my health in my three provinces" is mainly focused on how hard it is to ask experienced predecessors.

Many project managers, especially the project managers who are responsible for the project at the beginning, always blame some of the project's mistakes on external factors. Sometimes they think they are correct. In fact, they often make preconceived mistakes. In fact, we need to find reasons from ourselves and be brave in self-criticism. Many links can be better done.

On Demand

"Everything should be done in advance, and nothing should be done in advance." To do anything, you must have clear goals and plans and be goal-oriented. With the plan, the project members can see the direction of their efforts, with "head-to-head" and enthusiasm, arousing the enthusiasm of employees, and the morale of the entire team is very high.

Of course, the software industry, especially for domestic projects, needs to mobilize various resources due to market, customer, software improvement, and other needs. Even if a large professional software company, there is no static plan. Although "the plan cannot keep up with changes", the project manager should not use this as an excuse to ignore the consistency of the plan. Make a plan to leave a proper buffer space, so it is tight and responsive as needed!

The market leads R & D and promotes the market. The three driving carriages of the project: technology, business, and management. The three elements of a Project: progress, quality, and cost. The project manager must strictly implement them. Some project managers do not have the concept of "cost". They blindly pursue perfection, are obsessed with technology, and forget to deliver in time. This is a common problem for software developers.

Incentive team

A project team is a team. As a team leader, the project manager must first recognize his/her roles, clarify his/her responsibilities, gradually strengthen the relationship with team members, and be good at motivating others, establish a friendly relationship, deal with different people in different ways, and help people with poor performance. Therefore, the project manager should not just focus on technical research, but more importantly, drive the entire team and ignite the passion of the team. As the saying goes, "the soldiers will be in a nest ".

Second, it is necessary to clarify the team goals, develop team code, enhance the trust relationship between team members, give employees challenging work, make the team dynamic and dynamic, give praise, and coordinate interpersonal conflicts, handle crisis.

Finally, the project manager should be good at evaluating performance, so that rewards and punishments are clearly defined, so that bad tendencies and behavioral habits can be killed in the initial stage.

Understanding Technology

Only by understanding the technology can the Project Manager estimate the workload and make the plan relatively feasible. Second, only by understanding the technology can we communicate with others, especially with customers, so that customers can trust you. In the field of software development, it is unrealistic to be an expert in the field of "external leaders. The most important thing is that even if the main technical staff leave, the Project Manager can fill in the gaps at any time, so as not to paralyze the project!