Knowing what you don't know makes a difference

Typically, project managers and project leads are compared using their project management qualifications, technical skills and previous project experience. Whilst important, these are not the skills I would use to define how average project managers differ to my experience of good project people.

Or should I say, they do not directly describe the best people I have worked with on projects.

When considering how what makes the difference, I found an article on the PMI website - it’s nearly 20 years old but still stands up, the author notes the traits of the best project managers to be:

• Understanding the Art of Asking Questions

• Seeing the Big Picture

• Getting Buy-In

• Knows They Do Not Know Everything

• Has an Informal Network

• Second Guessing Themselves (Re-evaluating)

These all resonate with me and describe the approach of the best project leads I have worked with.

Basing decisions and opinions on project progress on what is truly going on is critical to successful delivery. Overall, really good project delivery people are constantly trying to answer, ‘what am I missing here?'.

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Read the full article here: https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/what-makes-project-manager-successful-99