Which role you are performing more as a PM? Is it Project Management or People Management?
If your answer is Project Management then probably you may face more challenges, fire-fighting, and issues among the team in your project. But if your answer is People Management, most probably you are on track to complete your project with less or manageable issues. The project team respects you and the stakeholders admire your ability.
Are you surprised? It’s true that Project Management can be interpreted as People Management as well as Project Management, but for some project managers – the “people management” part gets lost.
A project manager has to manage, communicate with, and connect with lots of people during the entire project duration and get them involved in completing project activities and moving the project forward. The success of the project lies in the hands of these people, how they execute/carry out their respective project activities and how they interact with each other and the stakeholders on the project.
Only strong “people management” skills will help to establish good rapport with all individuals on the project and ensure they are working effectively and efficiently to deliver the project tasks. A good people manager always stands up for his/her team, will win their hearts and makes them want to follow him/her. Undoubtedly, “people management” is the key factor in project management. Strong project managers pay close attention to the “people management” part of managing projects.
But let’s not forget about strong project management skills too!
Bottom line – a blend of project management with people management is the secret of a successful project and a successful project manager.
Copyright © 2010 Dhanasekaran Sivaraj
If you people manage more than you project manage, it’s time to fire and hire.
Hi Ravi,
Glad you found Dhana’s article of value. For every project I have been involved in – the people management skills have been more important than the technical project management skills (not saying technical skills aren’t important, but the people skills can make or break a project). Thanks for reading!
Best,
Gina
Completely agree with the article. I am working currently on middle east projects and here its more true. You can even say ‘People Management is Project Management’ when it comes to projects here. In fact I reached this blog because I was searching for good resources on ‘People Management’.
In reply to the first reply, to be a succesful project manager, you need to be a good people manager, without the people on your side and without their respect, a project will almost never be succesful.
From a customer perspective a good project people manager has more chance of repeat business.
Rgds
Pete Welham (currently unemployed)
Are you saying that Project Management and People Management are two different stream. To be more precise, are you saying that Project Management doesn’t include People management? I am refering this from your concluding statement – “Bottom line – a blend of project management with people management is the secret of a successful project and a successful project manager.”
Regards
Prateek