Principles of Project Management: Project Manager Skills and Selection

This discussion post addresses the essential personal traits of a successful project manager, emphasizing communication, empathy, enthusiasm, and the ability to understand team member capabilities. It highlights the importance of handling pressure, fostering teamwork, and active listening. The post then provides a real-world example of an Enterprise Risk Management system project, illustrating the complexities involved in software development and environmental challenges. It further explores various project selection methods such as cost-benefit analysis and economic models, outlining the typical selection process which includes project description, selection criteria, customer relationships, and strategic planning. The discussion draws on several academic references to support its points.

Discussion
Part 1: The personal traits that are crucial for the success of a project manager, primarily revolve
around the communication skills that he/she might have. With exceptional communication skills,
project managers carry the ability to mold the team members in accordance with the expectations of
the company and the projects with ease. Apart from this, a project manager must also carry empathy
and enthusiasm. Understanding the problems of the team members and offering empathy enables the
establishment of a positive environment. If a project manager is positive and showcases enthusiasm
in approach of handling projects, the team members tend to reflect the same emotion and offer
exceptional results (Bakhsheshi and Najed, 2011).
In addition, project managers must understand the capabilities of their team members with perfection
so as to allocate tasks based on the ability of the team members rather than his/her convenience. This
not only establishes a positive environment, but produces high quality results on part of the team
members and they tend to respect their project manager for his/her capabilities. A project manager
must also be able to tackle pressure and work effectively when put under pressure. Many project
managers are often noted to showcase anger and frustration in pressure which leads to a negative
working environment. Lastly, a project manager must understand the need for team work and team
members to understand each other for every project to be a success. Good listening capabilities
allows the project manager to identify the problems that might be personal in nature and affect the
project as a whole (Riaz, Tahir and Noor, 2013).
Part 2: A project that I am aware of was worked on by a friend who was working in a software
company that was assigned to device an Enterprise Risk Management system for a retail company.
The project included a vast number of aspects that ranged from risk identification, assessment and
management. The entire project included diverse factors that had to be manually included as well.
Devising of that Enterprise Risk Management system was very complex and I understood the need
for all the components to be bound together for the Management System to work efficiently for a
retail company. The project not only educates an individual on the software development but also
about the internal and external environmental challenges that a company has to typically deal with.
Based upon the research that was done on the subject of Project Selection methods and their
processes, it was identified that a large number of methods exist from which a project manager must
pick the one that best suits the needs of the project in a perfect manner. Some of the leading types of
project selection methods include cost benefit ratio, economic model, discounted cash flow, payback
period, net present value, constrained optimization methods etc. (Kumar, Antony and Cho, 2009).

The usual process that is involved in project selection includes steps such as understanding of the
description of the project, examination of the selection criteria, relationship with the customer,
formation of a strategic plan etc. (Kononenko and Kharazii, 2014).
References
Bakhsheshi, A. H. and Nejad, S. R. (2011). Impact of Project Manager’s Personalities on Project
Success in Four Types of Project. 2nd International Conference on Construction and Project
Management. Vol 15.
Kononenko, I. and Kharazii, A. (2014). The Methods of Selection of the Project Management
Methodology. International Journal of Computing. Vol 13(4). pp 240-247.
Kumar, M., Antony, J. and Cho, B. R. (2009). Project Selection and Its Impact on the Successful
Deployment of Six Sigma. Business Process Management Journal. Vol 15(5). pp 669-686.
Riaz, A., Tahir, M. M. and Noor, A. (2013). Leadership is Vital for Project Managers to Achieve
Project Efficacy. Research Journal of Recent Sciences. Vol 2(6). pp 99-102.