As indicated in previous newsletters and as you probably know from your own experience, Project Management is a multi-faceted endeavor. You need to be many things to many people. Let's review some of the skills, personality traits, experience, education needed to fill a Project Manager position. I will preface this information by saying that you don't need to be an expert or exceptionally strong in every one of these areas. Basically the relative strengths and weaknesses in these areas will to some degree define your style as a PM. I will say that you need to have some degree of talent in most of these areas if you expect to have some success as a PM. Anyway, let's review a potential list...

Planning and Organizing
You should be able to provide some level of organization to your team. This starts with yourself. If you are totally disorganized as a person living your own life then you will encounter some difficulties in orgainizing a team of people to align with potentially complex goals. If you find it annoying to plan in detail or if you like to "wing it" most of the time, then the constant planning and details of Project Management will tend to stress you out or bore you. If you are the type of person that by nature likes to organize and plan, maybe you are a list maker or maybe you like to document your vacation plans, maybe you make an itemized "things to do" list on a regular basis, then you will find the planning and organizing that goes along with Project Management as second nature.

People
People who need people...ah, you're so lucky! Seriously, as a Project Manager you will be working with people a lot. All kinds of people. Positive people, negative people, people that get sick, talented and dedicated people, people that talk a lot, quiet and withdrawn people, nice people, not so nice people...you get the idea. So far this is no different than life in general. Here's the difference though...if you are in a restaurant and the waitress has a bad attitude, you finish your meal, hope she didn't spit in your food, and walk away with the hopes of never seeing her again. But if one day your team member has a bad attitude, you need to deal with it and quick since it affects the outcome of the project. As the team members on your projects their successes will be your successes and their failures will be your failures. And they are going to look to you to be their leader. Sometimes that may not be obvious but it's true. You have an obligation to provide leadership, mentoring, guidance and consideration for your team members. In general, if you are not a people oriented person, then you will likely find Project Management as a stressfull situation because of the large amount of people interactions and dependencies that come with the job. If you enjoy different types of personalities, if you enjoy working with and listening to people, if you are understanding and patient but know when to be firm and assertive, then the people interactions of Project Management will actually give you energy and make it a fulfilling job for you.

Leadership and Ownership
If you tend to rely on others to finish up a job, if you are hesitant to volunteer to take ownership and provide leadership, then Project Management is definitely not for you. Most of the time it is going to be up to you to follow-up, make sure a job gets completed and pitch in where needed. For sure you will need to kick off most tasks that need to get started on your projects. You will be the overall owner for the project. You will also need to delegate tasks and responsibilities to others as well. Ultimately you will be responsible for the success of the project.
Much has been written about the importance of leadership. It is very true when it comes to Project Management. If your team does not view you as a leader there will be cracks in the foundation and you, as a PM, will find it difficult to get your team to accomplish their project assignments. I recommend getting some good books on leadership and start practicing what you learn. As you will find in your investigations, leaders are not born, they are made through experience and learning.

Experience in Technical Areas, Project Management Skills
It really really helps if you understand and have experience in the technical area that you are managing. Very importantly, team members will have more confidence in your decision making abilities. Along with that, you will be able to contribute to a greater extent to the project by contributing meaningful decisions and direction.
As mentioned in a previous newsletter, you will definitely want to employ established Project Management processes, tools and templates. These tried and true approaches will definitely assist you with the complex job of managing people and tasks.