The Successful Project Manager: A Balance of Hard and Soft Skills
The Successful Project Manager: A Balance of Hard and Soft Skills
By Brandeis University
Everyone wishes they could be better at their work, even if they are Fortune 500 CEOs. No matter how far up the management ladder you have climbed, there are always means of improvement. What separates the good from the bad in terms of leadership?
Why It Fails
Projects fail for a vast number of reasons. The most common reasons, however, are largely management-based. These include:
- Poor (or no) planning
- Inflexibility
- Lack of communication
- Zero accountability for success and failure
Soft Skills
While there are many formula you can put into a database and crank out numbers, ultimately the calculations of efficiency are not what make good managers. Rather, a number of soft skills determine much of what is good and bad in the management world. These skills are communication driven, since a manager spends nearly nine out of ten working hours communicating with members of their team. Soft skills include:
- Organization
- Articulation
- Influence
- Empathy
Hard Skills
At the same time that soft skills are valuable, they are more difficult to quantify. Harder skills are needed for the corporate ladder. Managing time and money are two of the most valuable, and the budget will occupy much of a manager’s time. Other hard skills include:
- Project issues
- Metrics of success
- Risk factoring
- Planning
Mixing The Two
Over nineteen of every twenty project managers will say that hard skills are easier to teach than soft skills, but both are quite important. A prospective manager can work on both simultaneously to improve their capabilities.
To learn more about the hard and soft skills required for successful project management, take a look at the infographic below created by Brandeis University.
This post was written by professors at the Brandeis University’s Masters in Project and Program Management program. An elaborate post on the subject can be found here.
