Skills needed in successful project leaders

The project man­age­ment indus­try is beset by a skills short­age. The prob­lem is twofold. On one hand not enough stu­dents are tak­ing sub­jects that imbue them with tech­ni­cal nous – the so called STEM sub­jects of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing and maths.

On the oth­er is the issue that peo­ple attract­ed to these sub­jects, and there­fore careers asso­ci­at­ed with project man­age­ment, do not nec­es­sar­i­ly make the best lead­ers. They are prob­lem-solvers, puz­zlers and tech­ni­cal obses­sives, often lack­ing the skills required to man­age large groups of peo­ple.

“Lead­er­ship is the attribute most lack­ing in project man­agers,” says Craig Stephens, vice pres­i­dent of inter­na­tion­al con­sult­ing at Epi­cor. “Typ­i­cal­ly, project man­agers come from a tech­ni­cal back­ground and have pro­gressed to posi­tions of senior­i­ty based on atten­tion to detail, but as projects become larg­er or more com­plex, oth­er skills become more impor­tant.

A new breed of project man­ag­er needs to emerge with­in the indus­try – the high­ly dri­ven project leader

“A project leader must inspire, moti­vate, nego­ti­ate and com­mu­ni­cate. These behav­iours are typ­i­cal­ly promi­nent in less tech­ni­cal peo­ple and less tech­ni­cal pro­fes­sions. There­fore, a new breed of project man­ag­er needs to emerge with­in the indus­try – the high­ly dri­ven project leader.”

Project man­age­ment is both an art and a sci­ence, accord­ing to Phil Dun­more, head of con­sult­ing UK at Cog­nizant, but too often peo­ple become project man­agers by default, mov­ing from oper­a­tions roles to project man­age­ment posi­tions with­out the req­ui­site train­ing. This is bad for busi­ness, he says.

“In order to tack­le this issue, busi­ness­es can look to accred­it­ed organ­i­sa­tions that for­mal­ly recog­nise train­ing pro­grammes for project man­age­ment. In addi­tion, it’s now more com­mon­ly recog­nised that project man­age­ment is a valid career and requires a skillset that has to be acquired,” says Mr Dun­more.

“Pleas­ing­ly, more stu­dents are being exposed to it at school and col­lege. What’s more, a STEM back­ground sup­ports ana­lyt­i­cal think­ing, artic­u­late issues and numer­a­cy to han­dle the finan­cial aspect of the project. How­ev­er, while all project man­agers need to be able to think ana­lyt­i­cal­ly, be able to artic­u­late ideas and have a good degree of numer­a­cy, learn­ing on the job is what rounds it all off.”

Accord­ing to Mr Stephens, to cre­ate bril­liant lead­ers of the future we need to invest in tal­ent now and not by recruit­ing a load of wet blan­kets with no idea of how tech­ni­cal things come togeth­er, but by upgrad­ing the cur­rent crop with mul­ti-dimen­sion­al skills.

He believes there are four watch words that will help the sec­tor reach this hap­py sit­u­a­tion. The first is edu­ca­tion. The nature of project man­age­ment means it is always chang­ing, so lead­ers need to evolve lead­er­ship styles to suit each new per­mu­ta­tion.

Empow­er­ment is the sec­ond impor­tant word. Project lead­ers adhere to indus­try stan­dards and sys­tems, but in addi­tion to sim­ply “get­ting on with it” they must cre­ate a shared vision of suc­cess for the whole organ­i­sa­tion.

Mr Stephens says this implies the free­dom to “inspire, pri­ori­tise, direct, sup­port, chal­lenge, del­e­gate, nego­ti­ate, encour­age and reward the project team”, all geared towards umbrel­la goals and with one eye on the bot­tom line.

It is a seri­ous amount of respon­si­bil­i­ty, but it’s nec­es­sary to cre­ate trust in the process and in the leader. Chief exec­u­tives, assum­ing they are not also the project leader, must fos­ter this envi­ron­ment where peo­ple are encour­aged to be totem bear­ers for the busi­ness.

The third word is knowl­edge. A respect­ed leader is one who can bring expe­ri­ence to a project and breed con­fi­dence through his or her wis­dom. This comes from expe­ri­ence, of course, backed up by the­o­ry and up-to-date qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

Last­ly mon­i­tor­ing is a cru­cial com­po­nent. Lead­ers must be able to con­trol projects and keep spe­cif­ic parts in check, as well as rais­ing con­struc­tive chal­lenges to oper­a­tions if progress slows or plans start to lose rel­e­vance.

Peo­ple skills are high on the agen­da for Claire Arnold, founder and chief exec­u­tive of Maxxim Con­sult­ing. She argues that project man­age­ment is as sim­ple as get­ting peo­ple to work togeth­er to deliv­er a pre­de­fined out­come, so a leader’s abil­i­ty to ral­ly peo­ple is cen­tral to the job.

For her, the con­stituent parts of a great project leader include being able to devel­op a shared pur­pose that runs the length of the team, as well as know­ing when and how to sign­post what has been achieved and what remains to be done.

Lead­ers must be pre­pared to “devi­ate from the script” and not stick rigid­ly to tem­plates if cir­cum­stances change. They should know how to make work enjoy­able and com­mu­ni­cate on mul­ti­ple stages, from top-lev­el state­ments to one-to-one con­ver­sa­tions in plain Eng­lish.

“Good project man­age­ment allows you to have clear roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties that ensure con­ti­nu­ity even if per­son­nel change,” says Ms Arnold.

This assess­ment is echoed by Julie Wood, head of the glob­al project man­age­ment team at engi­neer­ing and design con­sul­tan­cy Arup. She says project man­agers have to com­mu­ni­cate suc­cinct­ly and get straight to the point, but they must also be bril­liant lis­ten­ers.

“Good lis­ten­ing skills are often over­looked, but it’s an essen­tial part of suc­cess­ful project man­age­ment,” she says. “Many peo­ple hear what clients say, but nev­er tru­ly lis­ten. You learn so much from your client by lis­ten­ing to their thoughts and pri­or­i­ties, so devel­op­ing your skillset in this area is time well spent. Few peo­ple are nat­ur­al ‘lis­ten­ers’, so many can ben­e­fit from train­ing in this area.”

Great lead­ers, there­fore, must be com­mu­ni­ca­tors and ingra­ti­aters, but they must also make quick and clear-mind­ed deci­sions in the mid­dle of tur­bu­lent envi­ron­ments. The world in which project lead­ers oper­ate is increas­ing­ly “agile”, and the forces of change are pro­lif­er­at­ing and get­ting stronger by the day.

From new tech­nol­o­gy to glob­al­i­sa­tion, con­sumer behav­iour to cit­i­zen jour­nal­ism, projects must cope with more influ­ences than ever before and, accord­ing to Richard Goold, part­ner at busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion con­sul­tan­cy Moor­house, the abil­i­ty to antic­i­pate, iden­ti­fy and react pos­i­tive­ly are increas­ing­ly sought-after qual­i­ties.

“There is an increas­ing need to man­age projects and pro­grammes in a way that departs from a lin­ear approach to deliv­ery,” he con­cludes. “We are see­ing a greater depen­den­cy on agili­ty, and the need to respond extreme­ly quick­ly to com­pe­ti­tion, cus­tomers and mar­ket dynam­ics.”