How to Improve Your Project Management Skills: 15 Best Tips
Having someone responsible for managing companies’ projects helps businesses grow and meet the expected goals and deadlines.
Project managers are usually a desired position by many companies that regularly have projects such as expanding a product line to building a new app. So, if you’re a project manager or aspire to be one, it’s super important to have a strong set of skills and some qualities to help you handle your responsibilities.
Free eBook: The Project Manager’s Handbook on Time Tracking
Get your step-by-step guide to master time tracking as a Project Manager
Project management skills are important because they help you direct projects in the most productive way for both your company and the team supporting the project. Your skills can help your team be accountable, motivated, productive, resourceful, and proud of their work.
However, to be as successful as possible, you must learn how to improve your project management skills.
15 tips on how to improve your project management skills
- Track your time with time-tracking software
- Have clear communication
- Have empathy
- Take training courses
- Ask for feedback regularly
- Use project management methodologies
- Follow other project managers’ work
- Incorporate team-building exercises
- Follow other project managers’ work
- Use templates to support your work
- Set realistic expectations
- Emphasize accountability
- Be highly organized
- Keep it calm
- Be a great leader (whatever that means)
1. Track your time with a time-tracking software
Tracking your time contributes to better time management of your project.
By using time-tracking software, you can come to realize where you spend your time, and you’ll probably be better able to analyze your and your team’s workday and discover where you can adjust your time.
Exploring your time management can help you manage the time of others during a project and realize if a project isn’t following an established schedule.
We strongly suggest you use an easy and user-friendly time tracker such as Timeular. Besides making it easy for the individual, the Timeular app lets you track time-based on activities and tags shared by the team. Create reports from all your team’s time records, customize them, or export your data.
Keep your projects’ time and budgets safe with the most accurate time tracking solution
2. Have clear communication
As a project manager, you’ll probably have to deal with many different people: team members, people from other departments, leadership, clients, and so on.
Most projects have a long list of stakeholders that you need to keep aligned and up to every step of the way. Communication is key to working smoothly when you have so many people to manage.
For work to flow, you need to make sure that everyone is on the same page, working towards the same goals, and all are kept in the loop about any changes or issues. However, that’s easier said than done, especially when your job is to interact with people at all different levels.
This means that you must consistently tailor your communication style and content to the right audience.
Do you need help to tailor your communication? Get the best tips to improve your communication skills.
The most important is always to listen (and ask questions). Whether you’re in a client meeting or an employee one-on-one, simply listening is one of the most powerful things you can do. And with a better understanding of the situations at hand and how the team feels about their work, you’re better positioned to understand their struggles more.
For this, try using a team management tool to help give one central place for all your essential discussions and updates at both the task and project levels. It will be super handy for you and your team.
Improve your communication by adopting and using the best team communication apps.
3. Have empathy
This has to be on top of the essential skills a project manager can have. Sadly, we probably have all come across many project managers who seem they couldn’t care less about you and have zero empathy towards you and your issues. And it feels terrible.
Therefore, as a project manager, empathy empowers you to engage with everyone you work with more compassionately and productively, improving everything.
Free eBook: The Project Manager’s Handbook on Time Tracking
Get your step-by-step guide to master time tracking as a Project Manager
Being empathetic helps you to be a more insightful leader and create a more motivational, rewarding business environment for your team.
Everyone will feel much more motivated and therefore be much more productive in their work because you’re better positioned to understand what drives each individual. At the same time, you’re also better equipped to help them develop their skills and reach their goals.
Empathy is also super important in conflict resolution, mainly when used alongside excellent communication skills. Empathy will make you a much better mediator and help your team members feel more respected and valued.
4. Take training courses
This is a “mandatory” step on how to improve project management skills: keeping updated.
One good thing you can do to understand what project management is and what you need to know about it is to sign up for training classes, such as seminars, webinars, and conferences, to enhance your project management abilities.
Look for online project management courses or top PMP certifications that focus on various aspects of project management or offer training in a particular skill you need help developing.
- Read more about PMP certification
5. Ask for feedback regularly
Remaining open to feedback from your team is extremely important so that you can improve your project management skills. This is one of the essential qualities you should have as a team leader.
Since you’re responsible for delegating tasks, explaining the project terms, and keeping the team on schedule, you must do so in a way that your team responds to.
You can ask for their feedback once the projects are completed, but you may also consider asking from time to time. It can also be super beneficial if you ask for feedback from your clients so you know what to perfect.
6. Use project management methodologies
There are over eight thousand project management methodologies to choose from. Whether you have a formal project management certification or you’re learning to become a project manager from experience, there’s an absolute variety of project methodologies to choose from.
Depending on your skills, the structure of the workplace, and the project teams you’ll work with, there are many options for you to choose from.
Explore them to choose one that will support your current skills and allow you to build new ones!
Get to know how the waterfall method can help with project management.
7. Follow other project managers’ work
A good way to improve project management skills: learning with others. If there are project managers you work with, ask if you can see what they do in a day and take some notes.
You can also watch YouTube project management channels or join professional groups for project managers where you connect with others and share some ideas.
In either case, you can adopt the methods and skills you notice from these project managers and apply them to your own everyday work.
8. Sign up for content from other professionals
There are many project management blogs, articles, podcasts, and other forms of content that successful project managers produce.
We suggest you take a look at these podcasts about project management that are very well-known: The Digital Project Manager Podcast hosted by Galen Low, PM Point Of View hosted by Kendall Lott, PMO Strategies hosted by Laura Barnard, or Project Management Happy Hour hosted by Kim Essendrup and Kate Anderson.
The more you read and listen to this kind of content, the more you may be able to keep up with the trends in project management that can make you more successful. You can also develop your critical thinking and problem-solving abilities by varying points of view.
9. Incorporate team-building exercises
Team-building exercises are critical to improving professional relationships between co-workers, which can help you improve your work as a project manager.
When individuals on your team naturally get along and understand each other, they are more likely to collaborate, develop creative solutions, and support your work as a project manager.
Did you know that team-building activities are one of the best ways to keep your employees motivated?
10. Use templates to support your work
You can probably find many templates for project managers that you can use for your work.
Try to find a template or a project management checklist that might support your work in any way and make your job a lot easier.
This template can work as a guide to help you spend less time on a specific task, for example, and allow you to optimize time.
11. Set realistic expectations
Setting realistic goals and expectations is critical for both your team and your clients. Good planning, great communication, staying on budget, clear objectives, and increased employee productivity are powered by realistic expectations.
A good project manager knows you can’t set your team up for success without setting realistic expectations with everyone involved. You can’t provide excellent customer service if customers don’t know what to expect from you.
12. Emphasize accountability
Project management thrives on everyone performing their roles and delivering their portion of work on time. As you divide the work among your employees, it quickly becomes clear that everyone must be accountable for their share.
Accountability doesn’t mean reporting on other employees for lack of progress. It also means identifying where they may be struggling and how and when to step in.
The most important is always to listen (and ask questions). Whether you’re in a client meeting or an employee one-to-one, simply listening is one of the most powerful things you can do. And with a better understanding of the situations at hand and how the team feels about the work they’re doing, you’re better positioned to be understanding of their struggles.
Try using a team management tool to help give one central place for all your important discussions and updates at both the task and project levels. It will be super handy for you and your team.
Read our guide if you need help on how to lead a meeting.
13. Be highly organized
Even though it’s super cliché, there’s no getting around it: organization is one of the most important skills needed to be a project manager. Truly, it’s one of the most valuable and easiest skills to practice and develop.
From planning out the project in detail to everyday things like personal time management that allow you to get your day-to-day work done and be in the right place at the right time, everything must be as structured as possible to work efficiently.
As a project manager, you’re not just responsible for keeping yourself organized and managing your own work, as everyone else is relying on you. So, it’s easy to see why being organized is one of the most important strengths of a project manager.
Learn how to use a planner to get organized at work.
14. Keep it calm
The ability to stay calm under pressure is not an easy job. As a project manager, you’ll find yourself in many high-pressure situations, and how you manage those situations will make a massive difference in the end.
Deadlines closing in, difficult client conversations, things not going as planned, and so on. Many things can (and probably will) go wrong.
As a project manager, you can’t just survive the chaos; you need to be able to thrive in it, especially in fast-paced work environments. You need to be able to keep a level head and make good judgment calls under pressure. Remember, it’s important to keep the team feeling positive, not panicked.
Free eBook: The Project Manager’s Handbook on Time Tracking
Get your step-by-step guide to master time tracking as a Project Manager
15. Be a great leader (whatever that means)
Yes, we know. How vague can this be? The thing is, outstanding leadership will look different to different people. It’s not something that fits all people the same way. What it means to be a good leader can vary depending on the industry, team, individual team members, and the person itself.
In our opinion, to be a good leader, you need to incorporate many of the project management skills on this list.
You need to be able to communicate the project goal, relate to your team with empathy, and steer the project through rocky patches. Still, you also need that extra thing that not many people have, that spark of something that can ignite inspiration in the rest of the team: leadership.
That’s precisely what we mean by “being a great leader.” These are the “ingredients” to build a high-performing team.
Even though it sounds heroic, don’t think it’s something impossible to achieve. It’s something that grows in you as you develop your project management experience with enough time and dedication.
We believe that being a good leader means understanding what it takes to motivate and drive your team in your way, using your unique project manager skills and competencies, by being yourself.
Conclusion
There you go; here are several ways to improve your project management skills. As a project manager, you need the help of a trusted team and the right project management tools and software to succeed in your projects!
Undoubtedly, project management is one of the most challenging and rewarding career paths one can take. A good project manager can help a business clarify project management goals, streamline processes, and increase revenue. Unsurprisingly, project managers are highly sought after in many industries.
But no matter where you take your project management skills, you must hang on to the core skills that will make you “good.”
To be a better project manager, you must be highly organized and process-driven while being an easy-going, adaptable person who genuinely likes a good challenge. It’s not easy, but it can be highly fulfilling.
We hope that with this article, you can learn more about some of the best practices and tips for being a successful project manager!
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