Good morning, I'm Lao Yuan.
For a project, there are often three "scales" to look at. One is the scale of users of the project, the second is the budget of the project in charge, and the third is the number of people involved in the project.
If a person is responsible for a product with a large number of users, spends a large amount of budget, and coordinates a project with high complexity and many people involved, at least a preliminary judgment can be made that he has at least seen the world.
Of these three things, the one that requires the most hard skills and tool support is probably the last one, which is what we often call project management skills.
But in fact, many people who have just started to try project management, including Lao Yuan himself, have encountered such problems:
▪ I have no power or power, so why do people listen to me?
▪ Resources are limited, how to get more resources from the boss?
▪ How can multi-stakeholder missions be advanced and cross-departmental trust earned?
▪ Obviously everyone in the team is very good, why can't they work together?
In fact, to do a good job in project management, you have to learn "both hard and soft". Today, I will share with you 2 project management skills summarized by Lao Yuan after 7 years in the industry. For details, please refer to this mind map.
1. Clarify the five process groups and master project management tips
If you want to do a good job in project management, the first skill is to clarify the five process groups of project management.
The process of project management can be said to be composed of a series of sub-processes. It is a gradual process, so the intermediate management process group cannot be ignored or compressed in blind pursuit of results.
Generally speaking, project management includes five process groups: initiation, planning, implementation, monitoring and closing .
The process of project management is not an independent one-time event, they run through each stage of the project, occur in a certain order, and have overlapping activities.
The stages of the project life cycle can be regarded as a large management process, and different stages and processes are interrelated and restrict each other. Usually the output of one process is usually the input of the next process, or the deliverable of the project.
From the beginning of the project to the completion of the delivery, there are multiple process groups interacting, so project management is a comprehensive process, and it is necessary to coordinate the cooperation, connection and role of each process with other processes.
2. Learn to communicate, you are the pioneer
The core of project manager management is to cultivate people through troubles. Among them, "things" are projects, but the end point is to enhance people's leadership. To put it more bluntly, project management skills are to help you "make everyone do it" and help you accomplish things.
Among all project management skills, communication is the most important. Communication is the effective transmission and reception of information. If you can realize this earlier than others, you are already ahead of many people.
The main job of a project manager is to communicate with project stakeholders. To some extent, the success or failure of a project depends on the effectiveness of communication between project stakeholders.
In actual project management, a phenomenon called "communication funnel" often occurs in the transmission of information . Due to various factors, the final effective information is very little.
It is almost impossible to completely eliminate the "communication funnel" in communication, so communication skills are particularly important in order to maintain the effectiveness of project communication.
Skill ① Clarify the purpose of communication.
Different communication measures are used to achieve different project management objectives. Many managers think that only action is the most important thing, and they seldom define the purpose of action carefully before taking action.
Another misunderstanding is to equate action with purpose. "Plan slowly, act fast" is an important and often forgotten mantra.
Skill ② Clear communication object.
To give the right information to the right people , it is necessary to know who the right people are.
The value of information varies from person to person. Communication loses its meaning if we cannot identify and define who we are communicating with.
Skill ③ Determine the communication content.
The determination of communication content needs to include the following principles.
(1) The information should be concise, clear in focus, and accurate in expression . In a communication process, it should not contain too much information, and generally do not involve more than three issues, otherwise it will be difficult for the person receiving the information to grasp the key of the information, or the key they think is inconsistent with the key we hope he thinks.
(2) Information should be honest . The content of the information must be reliable enough.
(3) Information should be standardized. Standardized information not only makes people look clear and easy to understand, but also gives people a good feeling, because the degree of standardization is the reflection of the degree of management.
Skill ④ Determine the communication method and time.
Choose an appropriate way of communication, whether it is oral or written communication, can help you improve communication efficiency in a short period of time, and display it in a way that is most suitable for the role characteristics and personality characteristics of project stakeholders.
The timing and nodes of communication are very important. For information, communication must be timely, because outdated information is of no value.
Regarding communication nodes, generally speaking, it is necessary to strengthen project communication during the transition period of each stage of the project life cycle, milestone nodes, and when the project changes.
Skill ⑤ Establish an effective feedback mechanism.
The feedback mechanism is mainly to solve three problems: Has the information been received? Has the message been understood? Has the communication achieved its purpose?
If there is a lack of effective feedback, problems such as inconsistencies in information understanding in communication cannot be corrected in a timely manner, and "negative feedback" will also be generated, which will exacerbate misunderstandings among project stakeholders.
At the beginning of the project, the project communication method must be formulated, and it must be confirmed by stakeholders at the project kick-off meeting.
In many cases, technical accumulation alone cannot do one thing well. Only by walking on two legs can we walk fast and steadily.
Accumulating technology is like doing addition, while understanding project management while doing technology is like doing multiplication .
How far you can go on this road does not depend on your starting point, nor on your current position, but whether you have continuous enthusiasm and enough focus to support you to really take action .
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I am Lao Yuan, welcome to follow my official account [ Project Manager Lao Yuan], every day there will be dry goods sharing of project management cases .