The Most Important Project Management Skills for Project Success

Adriana Girdler

Wondering what goes into being a great project manager? Here are the answers! Whether you’re a newbie project manager or an experienced one, we could …

Wondering what goes into being a great project manager? Here are the answers!

Whether you’re a newbie project manager or an experienced one, we could all use a little brushing up of our skills every now and then. Even as someone who has been in the business for 20+ years, I know that there are always improvements that can be made to my skills as a PM.

But what exactly are the skills that we should be focusing on? There’s so much that goes into great project management, it’s hard to know where to start.

Here are a few critical skills every project manager needs to have to see consistent project success.

1 – Leadership and coaching

Being a great leader doesn’t mean being a dictator. You want to coach and understand people. Ensure everything is inclusive and encourage positive team dynamics. This means you need to have great listening skills, and you need to be as neutral as possible in all situations. Take all points of view equally. Obviously, you will ultimately have to make decisions and be the tiebreaker. But a good project manager is one who considers various viewpoints and truly listens to the subject matter experts on their team before coming to a decision.

2 – Time & Task Management

Understand the bigger picture and break things down into smaller tasks. As a project manager, you need to be able to distinguish what is high priority and what is low priority. So often, things are labelled ‘urgent’ when they’re not truly urgent. You need to be able to identify what is truly urgent for the project so that you can enable those on your team to execute the tasks they need to accomplish for the success of the project.

3 – Planning Skills

Planning skills are different from time management skills, but still go hand in hand. Planning takes into account not just timelines, but everything else associated with the project. This can be anything from small scale to large scale elements and tasks.

Other Critical Project Management Skills

This isn’t all you need to know about project management skills. There are other additional skills that are critical to know in order to be a great project manager that leads the project team to success. I’ve already created a video where I talk about all the project management skills that I’ve found to be instrumental as a project manager.

Join me over on YouTube so we can dive into these a little deeper together. See you there!


I really hope that you found this helpful – and if you did, it would mean so much to me if you would share it on your social media.

Meanwhile, if you really are committed to mastering your next project, do consider taking my SLAY Project Management online course where I show you step-by-step how to successfully manage a project, plus you get access to every template you will need, along with detailed video instructions on how to fill them out.

-Adriana

Thanks For Sharing!

Photo of author

Adriana Girdler is a project manager, productivity specialist, entrepreneur, professional speaker, facilitator, visioning wizard, and author. As President of CornerStone Dynamics, Adriana is one of Canada’s prominent business productivity and project management specialists—helping both individuals and businesses do what they do, only better. She is a certified master black belt lean six sigma with over 20 years’ experience improving how companies work.

She also holds both PMP (project management professional) and CET (certified engineering technologist) designations. She’s a Tedx speaker, as well as a HuffPost and Thrive Global contributor. She has been interviewed on Global, CBC, CTV, CHCH, 680News Radio, Newstalk 1010, Sirius XM and published in the Globe and Mail and numerous industry magazines. WANT ADRIANA'S FREE ONLINE TRAINING? In 45 min, learn Adriana's 5 project management secrets she use on EVERY project. Sign up for the Free Webinar here: THE FAB FIVE FUNDAMENTALS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

SLAY Project Management

Online Course

5 Sections and 24 step-by-step HOW TO Videos! The only 5-hour on-line course that teaches you the PRACTICAL side of project management. This course will guide you step-by-step on HOW to successfully run a project and provides you with all the templates and tips you need to be successful.

Fab 5 Fundamentals

Free Training

Are you striving for successful projects, but get overwhelmed figuring out what elements of project management to focus on for the best results? In the Fab Five Fundamentals of Project Management, you’ll learn the five things you need to do on EVERY project to bring it to success.

Why Projects Fail?

Free Download

If you're new to projects or need a refresher, here's a guide of all the things I learned during my journey. Project success is about knowing how to navigate and stay clear of roadblocks, issues and problems. Understand the top 10 reasons why projects fail and how to avoid them.

Interested In Working Together?

We are business productivity experts. Contact us to learn how we can help your business become more efficient and increase profitability.

Join Our Newsletter

Join over 30,000 subscribers. Get the latest and the best in project management information delivered straight to your inbox.

Follow Us