A Guide to Project Management Skills for Beginners

Let’s understand first what it is? Project management is the use of skills, knowledge, techniques and tools to accomplish specific project goals according to the project acceptance criteria within defined parameters. Project management has final results that are constrained to a fixed budget and timescale.

A major factor that differentiates project management from management is that it has this final deliverables and a fixed time span, unlike management which is a continuing process and because of this a project professional or manager requires a broad-spectrum of skills, more often technical skills with good business awareness and definitely people management skills.
 

Some of the popular project management methodologies in brief:

Project management methodologies are a set of principles, techniques and tools focused on effective planning, execution and project management.

• Agile methodology:  In agile development methodology, an iterative approach or continuous improvement is used. This means repeating a process until the desired result is achieved and is commonly used in software development.
• Kanban methodology: Developed in Japan by Toyota, Kanban methodology rotates around a number of core practices which are visualizing the workflow, limiting the work in progress, optimizing the flow and continuous improvement.
• Waterfall methodology:  Waterfall methodology also refers to a sequential product life cycle model and it is very simple to understand and use. In this approach, each phase must be completed completely before the next phase can begin i.e. one step has to be completed before the next can begin.
• Scrum methodology: “Scrum” comes from Rugby when a team is working together for a common goal. Under Scrum, product development process emerges from the constant interaction of selected, teams whose members work together from start to finish for the product development; it has been used in the fields of software development, sales, research, marketing and advanced technologies.

The 5 Most Important Skills for a Project Manager:

So if you are going for a PMI – Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) course, then let’s see what a project manager does and what skills you will need to become a good project manager. A Project Manager is the person who is directly liable for delivering project in a specified timeframe and on a predefined financial plan. So, to be a good project manager you will need to be an expert planner, with a right set of skills for organizing resources and people. So, all of the business partners or project’s stakeholders will look up to you, to make sure what was assured is in fact delivered in a timely and economical manner. Now let’s look at the top 5 skills that are must to have, for a good project manager:

1. Risk Management: A project manager at times may face certain difficulties where projects become more compound and complex, and at that time risk management is a solution to tackle, with these difficulties and controlling the risk. A good knowledge of statistical and data analysis can be of vital aspect, for a project manager to foresee, and in due course mitigate, certain risks.

2. Leadership: Holding a managerial position kneads well developed leadership skills and practices, which gives you the ability to take a project from its hardships to its triumphant success. Additionally, you may want to demonstrate your mediating and motivating abilities to relate with your team members through empathy and to converse the project objectives effectively.

3. Communication: It is important to show effective communication as project manager, to connect with stakeholders and team members. As the majority of a project managers’ time is spent communicating, you need to learn how to encourage teamwork. This can be done by means of file sharing or verbal communication with stakeholders, vendors, customers and contractors, by using appropriate reporting software’s and systems in place.

4. Organizational skills: The key skill for project management are linked with organization, which consists of scheduling and time management, as they both help deliver projects most efficiently. To be prompt and taking immediate decisions can be the distinction between a successful project and or its failure.

5. Critical Thinking: Project managers furthermore have to meet the increasing demand for critical thinking and troubleshooting the problems, so being decisive and analytical is also of great importance. This skill comes with experience, and a good project manager will be able to manage an entire project without prejudice and make decisions based on judgment, not sentiment.
 

Conclusion:

The Importance of Project Management in Any Industry…
 

Well most projects are complex and versatile, requiring watchful planning, monitoring and organizing. Only by having a structured approach, sustaining processes, and clearly defined functions and responsibilities for project managers, they can deliver excellent results while staying within the project parameters.

Every business/company has some goals. Project management makes sure that these goals are achieved and value is delivered to the clients. The planned frameworks created are in alignment with the objectives to get the revenue on investment (ROI). The business strategy can change during the course of a project. This is the part where project management is vital, as it allows the adaptation of projects with business necessities.

Companies cannot just go about setting up impractical objectives and worrying about not getting them achieved. With project management, you can set practical objectives for the outputs, budget and timeline. Skilled project managers can efficiently deal with all the tasks making the project outcomes met within a specified time period. For even better results and experience, the businesses can integrate project management software that works best with the system; this will help them to work within reasonable and achievable targets.

One of the best courses from Mindcypress on Project Management the course name is “PMI – Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)” course. The course is in 3 modes live virtual classroom (LVC), e-learning/self-learning and physical classroom training.  Here I will suggest e-learning course due to its easiness of completing the certification, as you can start and stop the course on your own will anytime and from anywhere all you need is a internet access. Secondly the course structure is very informative and up to the mark with latest topics, it has modules starting from basics and then gradually moving on to advance ones followed by objective type quizzes. Thirdly the course comes at a very nominal fee for both students and professionals. So my final verdict, if you want to achieve desired result and advancement in the following fields:

Time – start and end, dependencies, task durations, etc.

Money – costs, profit and contingencies.

Resources – staff, material, equipment.

Scope – size, requirements, goals then Start Project Management now!!!