When working with projects, project managers often focus so much on getting the deliverables completed on time and budget and within the project scope. Without sound and proper decision-making skills, the project manager risks making hushed decisions that can be far away from delivering the strategic objectives. A team led by a skillful project manager should portray a well cultivated culture of non compromising on integrity and ethics. Some of the skills that the project manager should possess include:
Integrity: Seldomly are decisions made with certainty, because the future is always uncertain. A project manager can easily make decisions that
borders between right and wrong. It is therefore imperative that a project manager should adapt the right skills to make decisions and entrench the same in their team. When integrity is compromised to deliver values, it may work temporarily but in the long run will hurt business and reduce their effectiveness as a leader. An easily compromised project manager, risks setting the team on the wrong path and should likewise not expect his team to be integral. Maintaining integrity by setting clear operational principles for the team at the beginning of the project and consistently acting within those principles throughout the course of the project despite the difficult experiences lays a solid foundation for the whole team.
Adaptability: PMBOK defines strong methodologies and standards that drive planning, implementation and review processes for project management. At times following these best practices and methodologies can be so exhausting, that it ends up hampering flexibility. As a project manager, knowing the methodologies is a great asset that should be enhanced and combined with proper knowledge on decision making. This should be coupled with flexibility on the course of the project to ensure that the deliverable is on course to deliver values and help achieve benefits. This dynamism enfolds along the way during project execution both when there are limited resources after allocation and when a major stakeholder reviews their demands. In such scenarios a solid knowledge on decision making becomes an asset on whether a project should be terminated or not based on how well they suit the organizational strategic goals.
Judgment: In project management, project managers are conveyors of information between their teams and the other stakeholders. This communication are useful and should be used by the project manager confidently to make reasonable judgements. The decisions made affect all the other stakeholders and the organization’s overall performance. Some of the important aspects to consider include: patience and trust. It is only seldom that big decisions have to be made, and they need time and proper inception before making any action. The possibility to correct decisions may be costly and at times the decisions may be irreversible. It is therefore important that decisions are allowed to take time before they are made. This creates room for judgements based on facts and proper weighting of the aspects at hand. Trust is also an important factor to consider and requires time to be built within the organization. Project managers who are trusted to make the right judgements have a history of getting facts right and consolidating unbiased information from the organization. The learning curve isn’t a straight line, and there is need to support the sponsors and senior management to acquire the necessary knowledge that aids decision making. After all, making the correct judgement is backed by a solid experience.
By applying these 3 core skills in leadership development, a project manager earns team confidence and stakeholders trust in working towards a successful conclusion.
Project Management 