Project management skills are crucial to delivering one’s tasks – not only for those with formal project management roles but for most professionals. This is a must-have skill for anyone who requires delivering tasks in an efficient and effective way. Here are three reasons why you need project management skills even if you are not a project manager:
We asked Herleen Mortera, subject matter expert of Inquirer Academy on project management, for her thoughts.
1. Effective Task and Time Management
Prioritizing urgent and crucial tasks are important to deliver all requirements as planned. Project management enables you to deliver complex requirements effectively by breaking these down into specific tasks. Being able to plan and allocate time effectively ensures that work is completed on schedule and in a structured manner.
For example, suppose you need to create an automated tool that involves multiple functions. By applying project management skills, such as creating a work breakdown structure, defining milestones, and setting realistic deadlines, you can manage these tasks effectively. This enables you to monitor the progress, identify challenges, and ensure timely completion of your assigned work.
2. Collaboration and Communication
Clear and concise communication ensures that team members understand project objectives, roles, and responsibilities. Project management tools cover how to create measurable baselines and goals and gauge progress or improvements. Aside from hard skills, soft skills play an important part in the progress of each task or project.
Knowing how to communicate effectively with your colleagues and stakeholders would help you get any required resources, making them work with you and for you. Collaboration skills enable individuals to work seamlessly and share knowledge with others, and leverage diverse perspectives.
For example, if you are a Human Resource Recruiter, you will collaborate with different departments or functions in which you need to meet their requirements for hiring. By employing project management skills, such as facilitating team meetings to understand requirements or change requests, defining communication channels, and establishing a shared project repository, you can enhance collaboration. This allows team members to address challenges collectively, and ensure that recruitment efforts align with the overall project goals.
3. Adaptability and Problem-Solving
Critical thinking is essential in problem-solving to create quality decisions for the successful implementation of tasks, from initiation to closure. Being able to assess risks and to be prepared for unforeseen obstacles are part of project management skills. These skills enable professionals to navigate uncertainties and deliver successful outcomes.
For example, suppose you are part of the finance department, and your organization decides to avail of a tool or a service. By applying project management skills, such as conducting a cost-benefit analysis, you can identify potential risks, and devise a mitigation plan, as you decide whether to invest in the tool or service. Additionally, having problem-solving skills allows you to troubleshoot any issues that arise during the implementation, ensuring a seamless transition for both the third party and your team.
4) A strategic way to meet deadlines
Regardless of the specific job role, everyone faces multiple tasks and deadlines. One of the crucial skills in project management is creating a framework and cadence on how each task can raise challenges, thus ensuring the support required to remove these roadblocks.
For example, if you are part of the quality department team implementing a process improvement; we all know that implementing change may cause resistance in the organization. Creating a framework on how to address these challenges in a strategic manner by promoting transparency and teamwork would help ensure that these changes are successful.
Project management can be defined as the application of hard skills and soft skills to execute projects efficiently and effectively, achieving desired outcomes. While project managers have dedicated responsibilities for overseeing projects, many managers, junior officers, and associates in different functions of the organization also need project management skills to successfully lead or contribute to their teams, promote proactiveness, and deliver results within time, scope, and budget constraints. These skills are transferable across various domains and can contribute to individual and organizational success.
Mortera will facilitate a live virtual workshop titled “Fundamentals of Project Management: Building Confidence in Applying Tools and Techniques” on July 11, 13, 14, 2023.
For more information, you may write to ask@inquireracademy.com, or send an SMS to these numbers 0919.3428667 and 0998.9641731.
For your other online learning needs, Inquirer Academy could assist you in designing and facilitating a virtual workshop, a webinar, or a self-paced online course for your organization.
The author is the Executive Director of the Inquirer Academy.