Project managers are critical to project success, from the first days of defining a project and choosing a team, through execution and to delivery. TeamFit will be having an open conversation with project managers based in Vancouver on April 9th, you can sign up here if you are interested.

Some of the themes for this round table are

• What challenges do IT, applications and digital project managers face?
• What roles do project managers play in building teams?
• How is a project manager’s career evolving?

As part of the career discussion, we are hoping to hear about the key skills that project managers need today. Is there a common set of skills? Can these be organized as technical skills, business skills and soft skills?

For one view of project management skills see the Project Management Skills site.

Role in Team Building

At TeamFit we are obsessed with teams – how to find the right people for a team, how team’s evolve, how to build a high performance team. The project manager can play a key role in this. We would like to understand how different project managers approach team building and how this differs with the type of team and organizational culture.

Leadership Styles

Project managers are leaders. There are many different leadership styles. How do project managers develop their leadership style and how do they adapt them to the projects at hand.

One of the best project managers I know is extremely humble. He would take his team out to understand what was happening with them at a personal level. He treated his team as his friends; and indeed, they were friends outside the office. Most of all, he is genuine in his empathy and desire to see everyone he was connected with succeed and be happy.

Project Management Discipline

Being able to create focus and help the team prioritize is an important aspect of project management. A popular quote in project management comes from Hemingway, “Never mistake motion for action.” In today’s highly competitive, outcome driven business world, project managers need to keep their teams focused on the actions that will produce a final result. As a project manager, how do you do this?

If you are a project manager and can make it to our Vancouver offices, we would love to have you at our session on April 9th. And in typical Vancouver tech style, beer and pizza will be served.

Please share your comments on what makes a great project manager.

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