7 habits of highly effective project managers

The project management job opportunities as well as the scope of the project manager’s job description are on the rise. Project manager’s job description goes beyond the triple constraints of time, cost and scope. The new project manager’s job description covers the achievement of the business case of the project as well. This makes the new project manager’s role more strategic. In this changed scenario, Have you ever wondered why some really climb up the professional ladder where as many do not, despite having the same credentials and opportunities? When we studied the careers of very successful project professionals, we could identify the following 7 habits common across the achievers.

  1. Good foundation – Most of them had good grades in their academics and they pursued their project career in the areas related to their field of study.
  2. Application of Project Management – They had clarity on their academic and professional goals and they applied project management to achieve them.
  3. Focus on long term rewards – Their focus is on long term rewards than on the short term benefits.
  4. Continuous on the job learning – The first ten years of their career was dedicated to gaining hands on experience and learning new things.
  5. Strategic Credential enhancement – They continuously improved their knowledge and authenticity through globally accepted qualifications.
  6. Networking – They are good in networking with others in the profession.
  7. Pro-activeness – They are pro-active in sensing opportunities ahead and pursued them before others.

What is the Opportunity awaiting Capable Project Professionals?

By 2027, employers will need 87.7 million individuals working in project management oriented roles. The talent gap could result in a potential loss of some US$207.9 billion in GDP through 2027 for the 11 countries analyzed (China, India, USA, Japan, Brazil, Germany, UK, Canada, Australia and the Middle East region). PMI (2017). Project Management Job Growth and Talent Gap 2017–2027. Even though the pandemic might have negatively impacted these projections, this is good time to get ready to leverage the opportunities ahead.

How to leverage these 7 habits to advance your profession?

If you want to understand how to systematically plan your project management career goals proactively, and to achieve them at the appropriate time, then read ahead;

What is PMg-CMM?. How will it help career progression?

The objective of the Project Manager’s Capability Maturity Model is to provide a professional ecosystem comprising of aspiring professionals, mentors, trainers, organizations and recruiters collaborating around a structured road map for meticulous planning and progression of project management as a profession.

The diagram below depicts the five levels of project management professional maturity.

Level#1 – Beginner

At Level#1

  • Because you are technically good, you are asked to manage teams
  • You are not aware of the basic project management tools and techniques and their application
  • You think project management is about just getting things done at any cost
  • Success is inconsistent and short lived
  • In the longer run, You and the team members fail to perform as a single unit due to internal conflicts
  • Though you have technology mentors, you do not have mentors to guide you on the management side to the right degree

Level#2 – Professionally qualified

At Level#2

  • You get certified in one of the popular project management certifications, hoping to improve your job prospects.
  • You are aware of the globally accepted project management best practices.
  • You would have realized how the application of these best practices would have helped you to prevent some of the challenges you faced before.
  • You start applying and leveraging some of the project management core practices
  • As and when challenges arise, you leverage the models, methods & artifacts recommended by global standards
  • You have good mentors who can guide you professionally

Level#3 – Professionally proven

At Level#3

  • You have proven yourself as a dependable project manager who can manage small to medium complexity projects
  • You are highly respected within the project organization
  • You are considered to manage prestigious projects
  • You become a role model for other budding project managers within the organization
  • You are good at nurturing your professional networks
  • You have good mentors and you start mentoring others

Level#4 Strategic Role

At Level#4

  • You are invited to strategic project portfolio meetings
  • In some cases your expert advise is sought to improve the project management capability of the organization (PMO)
  • You will be asked to manage programs or very large projects
  • You leverage your professional networks to great advantage
  • You have mentors and you yourself is a highly sought after mentor

Level#5 Leadership Role

At Level#5

  • You are considered as an expert authority in project management
  • You contribute to the project management community by way of research and knowledge sharing
  • Great deal of you time is spent in mentoring individuals, teams, organizations and communities

How quickly one traverse through these levels depends on their ambition, commitment, mentoring and the ability to pivot according to the market trends. Instead of growing vertically through the five maturity levels, one has the opportunity to grow horizontally as ‘T’ skilled professionals who have in-depth domain expertise in a particular trade supported by good project management capability as well.

How to proceed?

If you are interested to have a mentor who can guide you, please provide us some details about your present career position

Watch the mentor talk videos

Ethics & Career Success

Adherence to the Professional ethics for project managers is a question of short term success Vs long term success in the project management profession.

David B. Fein, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and Joanne Yarbrough, Special Agent in Charge of the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, Major Fraud Investigations Division, announced that ROBERT GIULIETTI, 55, a resident of Cheshire and an employee of the U.S. Postal Service, was arrested today on a federal criminal complaint charging him with bribery, conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering. In association with today’s arrest, the government also executed seizure warrants on three bank accounts controlled by GIULIETTI and seized $630,731.40 in proceeds allegedly involved in the commission of those offenses.

Three senior bureaucrats have been arrested in Assam on corruption charges. Two of the arrests were made by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), officials said in Guwahati on Thursday. “There were lots of irregularities in road construction works carried out by the NBCC in Guwahati and we hope the CBI investigations would be able to unravel the scam and help in punishing the guilty,” said Robin Bordoloi, ruling Congress party legislator representing Guwahati. CBI officials said they have got more leads into the scam and could possibly arrest a few more people.

Asem Elgawhary, the former principal vice president of Bechtel Corporation and general manager of the Power Generation Engineering and Services Company (PGESCo), was indicted by a grand jury in Maryland on charges that he defrauded his former employers, laundered the proceeds of the fraudulent scheme and violated federal tax laws.

In Jharkhand, Prashant Kumar Bajpai, General Manager of Central Coalfields Limited (CCL), Barka Sayal, Ramgarh project located in Patratu block of Ramgarh district and his Personal Assistant Aparna Sengupta were arrested by CBI team late last night for seeking bribe of Rupees Twenty Six thousand for sanctioning of tender for construction of roads.

The Serious Fraud Office has brought charges against GPT Special Project Management Ltd and three individuals in connection with its investigation into allegations concerning the conduct of GPT’s business in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. GPT, Jeffrey Cook, former Managing Director of GPT, and John Mason, the financial officer and part owner of the foreign-registered companies Simec and Duranton, subcontractors to GPT, have been charged with corruption between January 2007 and December 2012 in relation to contracts awarded to GPT in respect of work carried out for the Saudi Arabian National Guard.  Jeffrey Cook has also been charged with misconduct in public office between September 2004 and November 2008 in relation to commission paid to him on contracts he placed with ME Consultants Ltd for the Ministry of Defence by which he was employed.  Terence Dorothy has been charged with aiding and abetting that offence.

These are the first few cases surfaced out of about 6,28,00,000 results (0.59 seconds) while googling for ‘Project managers who got arrested for corruption’. That shows that corruption is rampant in projects and the key question is whether one should be a corrupt project manager or not. Like hatred cannot be resolved by hatred, corruption can be overcome only by honesty, ethics and professionalism. That is where the significance of professional ethics for project managers become very relevant for project managers to succeed in the longer run.

Related posts

Professional Ethics of Project Managers

Mind map of Professional Ethics of Project Managers

Emergence of the Project Leader Role

From project manager to project leader, may sound crazy for at least some of my fellow professionals from the I.T industry where a Project manager role is considered as hierarchically above the project leader role. One first become a project leader, before becoming a project manager. The paradox is that Leaders are always considered at a higher level than managers in management literature and till now there is no project leader role in any other domain except I.T. Even though I got confused about this conflict between I.T management and the mainstream management, I kept quiet because I thought the Industry must be right over an individual.

Fortunately, while performing research to understand the global trends in EPC project management to design a course for Wrench Academy, it became clearer of the emergence of the role ‘Project Leader’.

Top 7 emerging global project management trends

  1. The project’s success criteria will be determined by ROI, ROCE than the traditional triple constraints of Time, Cost and scope.
  2. Projects will be executed through distributed teams, collaborating with each other over cloud based platforms performing concurrent development.
  3. Project planning will be decentralized and will rely on tailoring best practices from all streams of project management (traditional, agile) for the benefit of the project, than relying on any one method.
  4. Project requirements will be evolving and flexible
  5. Work breakdown structures will evolve bottom up
  6. Assumptions and constraints will be re-validated and revised throughout the project
  7. Activity workflows will become parallel

Out of these, the biggest paradigm shift is the shift in project’s success criteria from delivering on time to the return on investment (ROI) or the return on capital deployed (ROCE).

This change in project management canvas, called as Project Management 2.0 , and now followed by renowned industry bodies like Construction Industry Institute (CII) and Project Management Institute calls for enhancement of project manager’s skill set from tactical to strategic or it justifies the emergence of the ‘Project Leader’ role across all significant projects, whose primary role will be enhancing value to the owner by focusing on benefits management.

When the teams are no more collocated, motivational aspects of the team which drives them to accomplish the project goals are very important. While managing ROI, principle centered decision making is important to create an open and trustworthy environment to facilitate open communication and collaboration across all stakeholders. That is the reason why so much emphasis is given to principle driven project management over process driven project management. Without trust, there is no collaboration across distributed teams.

Carrying stones Vs Building the Cathedral

One day in 1671, Christopher Wren observed three bricklayers on a scaffold, one crouched, one half-standing and one standing tall, working very hard and fast. To the first bricklayer, Christopher Wren asked the question, “What are you doing?” to which the bricklayer replied, “I’m a bricklayer. I’m working hard laying bricks to feed my family.” The second bricklayer, responded, “I’m a builder. I’m building a wall.” But the third brick layer, the most productive of the three and the future leader of the group, when asked the question, “What are you doing?” replied with a gleam in his eye, “I’m a cathedral builder. I’m building a great cathedral to The Almighty.”

Delivering value by continuously portraying the larger picture of the project and it’s benefits to every stakeholder in a trustworthy manner consistently is the new emerging role of true Project Leaders. In other words, project Leaders are the new CEO of the projects.