4 Ways to Improve Project Management Quality

One of the most important characteristics that you can have as a project manager is a deep understanding of the fact that you can always be doing more. You can always adjust your leadership techniques to make communication easier, for example, or to help things go along faster or more efficiently in the future than it was in the past.

The minute that you think “I’ve done all there is I can do and I’m the best I can be, without question” is the minute that you stop excelling at such an important job. If you want to improve the quality of your overall project management skills, there are four key things that you want to keep in mind.

Planning

One of the most important ways that you can always improve the quality of your project management has to do with one of the earliest phases – planning. Planning is hugely important, as it helps the project get off on the “right foot” so to speak and makes sure that you’re moving on time, on scope and within the confines of your budget as soon as possible. Focus on getting better at estimates and things of that nature to help with execution later on.

Scope

Another one of the ways that you can improve your project management quality is to get better at properly defining the scope of the project. Scope is one of the most important things that you should be focusing on at any given time – it helps you define your business case, it helps you understand which people are required and most importantly it helps eliminate ambiguity.

Team Design

One of the best ways to get better at project management is to focus not on yourself but on the people you’re working with. If you get better at placing the right people in the right positions, you’ll quickly find that a large part of the “hard work” that you’re responsible is already done.

Giving People Space

One trap that many people fall into in project management is that they are unable to resist the urge to micro manage. Remember that you picked these team members for a reason – they’re the best they are at what they do and they can always contribute to the project as a whole. Get better at giving them the space they need to really excel. Project management is all about collaboration and collaboration cannot happen if you’re micro managing every last element of a person’s tasks for the day.

These are just a few of the things that you can do to start improving your project management quality today. By understanding that you can always push yourself a little harder and by truly believing that you’re playing the “long game” and that significant change doesn’t necessarily happen over night, you will get better, little by little, before you know it.

Key Takeaways:

• Project management is something that you can always improve at, regardless of how far you’ve come or how well you think things are currently operating.
• Remember that you’re not looking for radical changes to your technique – you’re looking for small, incremental adjustments that you can make now that will make a significant difference later on.