10 Essential Skills for Project Managers

The field of project management is changing.  Fast.  New technologies and new ways of working are demanding new skills for the traditional role of PM. In fact, PMI has updated its requirements for project management certification as part of their new Talent Triangle, promoting new skills in business management and soft skills leadership, to name a few. Whether you're a certified PM or just someone running projects, here are the top 10 essential skills you need to succeed:

1. Change Management Should this really be first on the list? Absolutely!  Change is a constant, and having no process will result in chaos quickly. But we're not talking about clogging the pipeline with a process that can slow a project down. Set simple rules that define how changes are considered and acted upon, and you'll better manage your project's schedule and scope.

2. Planning A classic skill for all project managers, right? Well... depends on whether you are talking about planning for planning's sake, or planning for the best, most efficient project. Use the latter as your goal. Start with templates. Don't reinvent the wheel, and don't get stuck in the planning vortex.

3. Reporting Take reporting to the next level by using automated reports in your PM tool. Set a reporting schedule with your stakeholders so you aren't bombarded with last-minute requests. And insist your team keep their task updates and timesheets regularly updated.

4. Tracking You don't need to micromanage your team to track effectively. Insist your team update their tasks and timesheets into the PM tool as a routine, daily task, so you always know the real-time status of the project. Then, you'll be better armed with the information to address any delays before they derail the project.

5. Strategy Isn't this the job of the sponsor? Perhaps in the days of yore. Today's project manager needs to think like a CEO and regularly make sure their project is aligning with the core strategy of the organization. It's a requirement in today's business culture, not a nice to have.

6. Communicating Are you good at communicating? How do you know? You measure your project, so why not measure your own effectiveness? Reflect on your performance. Study good communicators and learn from the best. At a minimum, find 3 ways you can improve your communication - and tackle those today.

7. Collaborating In today's workplace, failing to collaborate is failing to communicate. Bring your team in to help plan and collectively manage the project. They should be bought in to the project at every level; you certainly can't do it all alone.

8. Workload Management With diverse, global and remote teams, it's more important than ever to carefully manage resource availability and performance capabilities. Make sure the right people are doing the right job at times that work for them, wherever in the world they are.

9. Stakeholder Engagement Notice we didn't say stakeholder "management." Gone are the days of top-down control. Engagement is the new normal with any key stakeholder group, be they end users, c-suite, or the public at large. Invite stakeholders in early and often to your project to get buy-in, minimize impacts and to deliver the best possible project or product.

And MOST importantly...

10. Project Management Software You can't afford to not be up-to-date on the best tools and technologies used in project management... and you can't just stick with the status quo. Why? Because your competitors and your peers are going to surpass you. You must become an expert in all the features of your PM tools, know which tools are the best for your team and effectively manage rolling out new tools and integrations on your project. In short, you must be the expert in the tools you use, and you must extend the tools to your team if you want to succeed. If your current tool isn't being used by your team, it's time to get a new one that does.