Have you ever wondered what project manager characteristics makes a good project manager
versus a bad one? Well, in this video, I'm going to share with you some of those characteristics
that you can kind of analyze yourself to see where you or potentially your project manager is at.
And if you want to be a project slayer, stick around to the end of this video because I'm
going to share with you how you get your hands on my top 10 project mistake checklist.
Hi, if you're new here, welcome. My name is Adriana Girdler and you've landed on
the best practical project management channel in the universe! At least my universe. On that note,
I would hope that you would subscribe so that you can join this awesome community. Now,
if you are excited to learn about project manager characteristics, let's get to it.
Good characteristics, constant learning and continuous improvement. Now,
why is this so important for a project manager as a characteristics? Because as you progress
in your project manager and management journey, you're constantly learning from past projects. You
don't want to be repeating the same mistake over and over again. That's actually the definition of
crazy, when you keep on doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. So a
really good characteristic of a project manager is knowing it's about continuous improvement.
It's about learning from the past so that you can be better in the future.
Now, there tons of ways you can go about doing this. It's just taking your after action reviews
at the end of projects. Or I'm going to do a shameless plug, do an online course. I have one,
SLAY project manager, practical project management course. It's going to give you what you need.
But that's really important characteristic, is a project manager who's always
willing to learn and get better to ensure that next project goes from good to great.
As being a project manager of constant learning, underneath this video, I'm going to give you
a free link to a free webinar on five fab fundamentals of project management that I
created just for you. And it's free, because this is so important. I want you to learn.
Bad characteristic, poor time management. Now, I just want to clarify something because
I talk about good and bad. And I don't want to make it this definitive line that, "Oh,
if you have these bad characteristics, then you're a bad project manager." Think of it
more along the lines of, there are some really good characteristics that really help a project
manager excel. And then, there's other ones that if you have these type of characteristics,
I highly recommend you focus on them to enhance them to become better at it because it just makes
your life better. So I just want to clarify that. I know for YouTube, we talk about good
and bad, and it's just makes it easier to disseminate information. So that's the only
reason why I'm doing it. It's not that it's bad. But a characteristic to enhance, it definitely is
poor time management. If you're not good with time management, project managing and being a project
manager is all about time, schedule, managing it, ensuring that you're organized. But not only you,
your team, everybody around you who you're guiding in this process. You are the leader.
You are the manager of this project for it to ensure it comes to fruition. So you having really
good time management skills becomes critical because you have to be on top of everything,
macro view. And you have to understand the micro view, so that you can lead people correctly. And
having really good time management skills is just critical and an important characteristic.
Good characteristic, integrity and trustworthiness.
I really believe, this is my personal belief, that your project manager, you're in charge of
ensuring the wellbeing of your team and that they have everything they need at their fingertips
to successfully execute their tasks. Because when your team is successful, the project's successful.
And when the project's successful, ultimately as a project manager, you are successful. You
can't be successful without your team. Now, why integrity and trustworthiness?
I just find over the years, maybe this is my age, playing games gets you nowhere.
So be honest, have integrity, have really be clear with what you expect from everybody. That
you expect them to be open and honest and transparent. If things aren't going well,
don't hide it, okay? It doesn't mean that you are not doing your job. In actuality, when you are
transparent and you have integrity, and you share things the way they are, and you say, "Hey, we are
hitting a roadblock," that just means you're on top of stuff. That's a real positive thing.
But not only that, the way you do it is you're not finger-pointing. You have your teams back.
You do it collectively. And if you do all the due diligence that you're supposed to do through the
phases of project management and you've planned, and you have everything tight and
you're constantly on top of stuff, as you should be, because you're a project manager. Remember,
it is a fundamental skillset. Then, this integrity and trustworthiness is just
another layer that is going to bond your team and actually allow you to, what I call, move
mountains. Not literal mountains, but figurative mountains in projects that definitely exist.
Bad characteristic, forgetfulness. Okay. Just like time management, forgetfulness,
you just can't be forgetful. You really need to be on top of everything. You need to
understand all the little moving parts, which is why your documentation becomes really important.
But forgetting what's going on, or conversations are not being on top of stuff, is actually going
to hurt you, not help you. There's so many little moving parts. And depending on the complexity of
your project, you are kind of the... Well, not you are kind of. You are the glue, you are the glue.
And so in my projects, a lot of times it's because of my sharp mind and my wit, but my sharp mind
of not forgetting that I can take conversations that are potentially derailing and remind
people by going to my minute summaries, pulling up agreements, and really right away laser beaming on
what we have to talk to because people forgotten what everyone's agreed to. So it's your job not to
forget. It's your job to remind people. Because it's really easy for individuals when they're
focused to not think of the bigger picture, and that's your job as a project manager. So
you cannot be forgetful. You really have to be on top of things. And the best way
to do that so you're not stressed out because it's in your head is to have it written down
on paper through your documentation. Good characteristic, excellent organization. Now,
you probably would've guessed that already based on some of the comments I made in the previous
tips. But you being organized is critical, and that organization comes through not only in your
documentation, but it's how you set things up. And it really helps not only you as a project
manager, but it guides the duration of the project really smoothly. And it helps your team as well.
Now, I know I [inaudible 00:06:47] talked about this, and I do have that course, SLAY project
management. And I do recommend you check it out. It's actually underneath the link.
I actually have you covered. I have templates, everything you need that you don't have to think
about anything. It just guides you in the process. And I just find over the years of
everything that I've been doing, which has been 20 plus years, it is all about having everything
at your fingertips. And if it's already set up for you, as I've already done for you,
then I'm telling you, it makes your life so much easier in organizing. And it's
really just like a checklist. You're just checking things off. But having excellent
organization as project management is a critical, critical project characteristic.
Here's a bad, bad, bad, bad project characteristic. Being individually focused. All
right, there is no I in team. And with projects, it's all about the team. And as a project manager,
it's all about what are you doing to help your team succeed. Because again, their success
is a project success, is your success. So if you're individually focused, only worried about
how things are working out for you and how things look for you, and not thinking about
the project as a whole. If anything, one thing I find is really good project characteristics
is they're not thinking of themselves. They're thinking of the collective group.
So being individually focused is a really bad characteristic, because you're not going to really
do anything else that's needed to set your team up for success, which is ultimately what we all
want to do. Remove those roadblocks, get to our deliverable where everyone feels like they did
it together collectively. And that really is huge. Now that you know all about the good and the bad
regarding project characteristics, don't forget about this. Remember what I told you earlier on?
You need to understand those 10 top project mistakes. And for you it's free. Oh my goodness,
free, free, free, free, free. Under this video, there's a link I did just for you. Check it out.