By Lonnie Pacelli -

Recently I did an interview talking about the most important attributes of an effective project manager and those attributes which undermine a person's ability to manage projects well. It was fun putting together the list and I thought I would share my raw bullets with you, as follows:

Attributes of an effective project manager:

  • Skill in negotiating win-win solutions between stakeholders and the project team;
  • Ability to understand the needs of the stakeholder organization and take those into account when making day to day project decisions;
  • Ability to objectively present decision alternatives and consequences and drive to a rational decision based on the alternatives;
  • Staying calm particularly during turbulent times;
  • Avoiding showing biases toward any team member or stakeholder organization;
  • Skill in clearly articulating a project workplan, its dependencies, and the resulting deliverables;
  • Desire to hold the team accountable for deliverables;
  • Ability to clearly articulate and communicate the mission of the project and continually remind the project team of the business purpose behind the project;
  • Ability to earn the respect of the team regardless of reporting relationships;
  • Willingness to be held accountable for results and not deflect blame when things don’t go well;
  • Ability to effectively leverage a project sponsor to get him/her to help the project manager through difficult issues;
  • Skill in managing virtual teams.

Things which undermine a PM’s ability to manage effectively:

  • Inability to stay calm when problems arise;
  • Blame-shifting when things go wrong;
  • Poor articulation of work assignments and deliverables;
  • Biases towards team members or stakeholder organizations;
  • Political or hidden agendas which influence project decisions;
  • Inability to compromise or negotiate win-win solutions.

Lonnie Pacelli is an internationally recognized project management author, consultant and speaker. You can see more about Lonnie at http://www.projectmanagementadvisor.com.