It is recognized by academics and the community of practice that the management of people plays an important role in project management. Recent people skills research expresses the need to develop a better understanding of what good people management is. This paper proposes what project management practitioners consider to be skills and behaviours of an effective people project manager. A combination of literature review, face to face interviews and focus group meetings was applied to complete the research objective. Six specific skills and associated behaviours were identified and considered as being important. The results suggest that project managers would benefit from adopting these skills and behaviours to strengthen their managing people skills and behaviours to improve the successful delivery of projects. The findings also suggest that some skill sets and behaviours may be more appropriate for application in certain project environments such as IT or the Construction Industry.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Literature Review
1.3 Main Research Questions
2. Research Methodology
2.1 Method
2.2 Data Analysis
3. Results
3.1 Face to Face Interviews
3.2 Focus Group Meetings
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Objectives & Topics
This paper aims to identify and define the specific people skills and associated behaviours that project management practitioners consider essential for an effective project manager. It bridges the gap between academic theory and practical application by evaluating how these competencies contribute to successful project delivery in diverse professional environments.
- Identification of critical people management skills for project managers.
- Definition of associated behaviours required to make skills effective.
- Examination of the interplay between cultural awareness and project success.
- The importance of moving beyond technical skills toward people-oriented leadership.
- Practical insights from cross-industry expert interviews and focus groups.
Excerpt from the book
3.2 Focus Group Meetings
The focus group made a major contribution to validate and to check the reliability of the research data from the literature review and the face to face interviews to suggest what makes an effective people project manager. The face to face meetings per se did not elicit this new valuable knowledge on their own. The group confirmed, through in depth discussions based on their combined years of practical experience, what they consider the skills and behaviours of an effective people project manager are. The focus group members identified associated behaviours for each of the competences they considered project managers need to apply to make these work for them, applying their own experiences to consider how these could be applied. This is crucial. Knowing about and acquiring competences, in itself, is no guarantee for success. Project managers need to apply these, observe the outcomes and likely changes the application has on people and then consider whether to modify them to make them work even better. This is a continuous process that the focus group recognised as being important: 'Project managers need to be seen to be leading the project team through an appropriate manner and self-confidence (the how is important, not going over the top)' (Melissa).
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: Outlines the increasing importance of project management and the research necessity for understanding effective people-management skills.
2. Research Methodology: Describes the constructivist interpretivist approach, utilizing literature review, interviews, and focus groups to gather practitioner-based evidence.
3. Results: Details the specific findings from interviews and focus groups regarding essential skills like conflict management, cultural awareness, and emotional intelligence.
4. Discussion: Analyzes the research limitations and the crucial finding that behaviors are the primary drivers for making people skills effective.
5. Conclusions: Summarizes that people management is critical and presents a set of six specific skills and behaviors for effective project leadership.
Keywords
Project Management, People Skills, Behaviours, Effective Management, Leadership, Conflict Management, Cultural Awareness, Team Building, Authentizotic Behaviour, Emotional Intelligence, Practitioner Research, Project Teams.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core focus of this research paper?
The paper explores the people management skills and specific associated behaviors that practitioners identify as essential for an effective project manager.
What are the primary thematic areas covered?
The central themes include people management, leadership styles, communication, conflict resolution, cultural awareness, and the behavioral attributes that underpin technical project management.
What is the main objective of this study?
The primary goal is to suggest which people skills are most important for project managers and to define the specific behaviors that practitioners associate with those skills to drive project success.
Which scientific methods are applied in this work?
The study employs a constructivist interpretivist research paradigm, utilizing a combination of literature reviews, individual face-to-face interviews, and focus group meetings with ten project management practitioners.
What does the main body of the text discuss?
It covers existing management theory, detailed practitioner insights regarding real-world experiences, and the analysis of how specific behavioral traits differentiate effective managers from others.
Which keywords best characterize this work?
Key terms include People Skills, Behaviours, Project Management, Leadership, Cultural Awareness, and Conflict Management.
Why is the distinction between 'skills' and 'associated behaviours' highlighted?
The research emphasizes that merely possessing a skill is insufficient; the specific "how" (the behavior) is the catalyst that makes a skill effective in real-world scenarios.
What role did the focus group play in the research outcome?
The focus group was crucial for validating the findings from the literature review and interviews, and for identifying the specific behaviors that practitioners found most effective through their combined practical experiences.
- Citar trabajo
- Dr Eddie Fisher (Autor), 2011, What practitioners consider to be the skills and behaviours of an effective people project manager, Múnich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/184084
