8 Attitudes Towards Success for Project Manager

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eric.shaw

For project manager, attitude is everything, to do the project well, in addition to master project management skills, the project manager should also have good attitudes, and followings are 8 attitudes towards the success for project manager:

1. Faith to Dream and Think Big
Successful people have deep faith, that strong belief of the possibility of their dreams to exist regardless of what the other people will say and the circumstances that they will face. You should have a strong ambition: to become the industry to the world's top goal.

2. No task is too small to do well
You never know when you are going to be noticed. That is one reason to take pride in your work -- all of it. One public relations executive in Chicago said that her first task in the PR department of a ballet company was reorganizing the supply closet. She tackled the project with gusto and was immediately noticed for her hard work and attention to detail. Remember this the next time you feel like slacking because you are working on a menial task.

3. To do things, not just think
Successful people willing to do the thing that general people are unwilling to do, successful people are willing to do the things that others did not dare to do, and successful people do the things that others cannot do.

4. Knows How to Prioritize
Successful people knows that time is their most important asset. For a time wasted is equivalent to a dime and life wasted.

And as such, they value knowing and doing what’s important. They do not try to accommodate everything; instead, they act on something that is included in their priorities and say no to those that are not as important.

5. To treat the problem positively
You have to understand to solve the problem, an attitude rather than skills, so you have to believe you can solve all problems.

6. Continues learning
Most of us stops learning after graduation from college. We tend to think we already have it all after getting our diplomas. However, life is constantly changing. Successful people crave to learn and learn more. They read books; attend seminars and etc to keep them updated with the changing world.

7. Do not make excuses
You should try your best to find successful methods, losers make excuses; to be successful, excuse should be killed; if you always excuse, it would be difficult to success; when you have no excuse for the moment, that is, you choose a successful start

8. Never give up
Winners never give up, as long as you persist, you must have chance to success.
claumcg
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Very true, I agree that attitude is a huge part. Thanks for sharing!
Project Management
satisfactionuk
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I could agree with what you are saying in principle but in the real world I can see that there are exceptions.

For instance:

The last part of Item 1, this smacks of the better mousetrap syndrome, which is not good strategic business sense. Who is to say what the worlds top goal is and would that goal be financially viable in your company’s present strategic situation. You should aim to become the top player in your industry according to your company’s strategic niche positioning e.g. lowest price producer, highest quality etc.

In item 2 I would modify this by adding ‘within your job remit’ and even then the most successful people are in fact successful because they very carefully select which task that they do and delegate or avoid doing task that have a high failure rate or little political value. You may not like it but it’s a fact of life.

Item 3 is covered adequately by the assertion above however; successful people are usually calculated risk takers so would naturally fulfil these criteria if the personal benefits for them exceed the cost. Also, truly successful people do think first, they ask a lot more questions, do a lot more research and spend a lot more time looking at the up and down side of a task or problem before acting quickly and decisively.

Item 4 I can see where you are coming from in this statement but it does seem to profess a little bit rigid mindset, in reality successful people multitask all the time, they may have an outline priority list of what they know needs to done but also have the flexibility to accommodate additional task even if on the face of it, it appears to be of a lesser priority. Example of this is total customer care in relation to the internal customer, is that piece of paper that you are working on in front of you more important than the time and feelings of the person waiting out side your door for a decision.

Item five is covered above in Item 3.

Item 6 I totally agree with and I have been doing this since 1989; lifelong learning is one of my base principles.

Item 7, children make excuses adults give reasons and accept responsibility. The thing here is knowing and being honest about your abilities, asking for help in good time when it is needed and keeping your superiors informed of your progress or lack of it.

Item 8, If winners never quit and quitters never win then if you know you are not winning and you never quit then you must be a fool.

The fact is that a good project manager must have the intelligence to know when a project is in trouble and is not going to attain the company strategic goal or business case. S/he must have the balls to shut it down before s/he waste money and resources that could be better used on other projects or initiatives.

Also, you might like to consider that a good project manager has to become an expert player in reading people, negotiating and company politics too.

In business everyone has bad days, everyone fails from time to time and seeing as risk is a fundamental part of business it goes without saying that the early reproting of problems is of paramount importance.

More people get disciplined not because somthing went wrong or a target was not met but because they did not report the problem early enough for corrective action to be taken and in doing so have wasted the companies time, money and other resources.
Kind regards

Stephan Toth
ti2uae
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Certainly, I agree with you guys. Project Manager is much much beyond just holding on to a 'higher position' in an organization. It requires lots of skills and expertsie to carry out smooth functioning through out the project life cycle. Some of the basic traits that a project manager should possess is honesty, crystal clear communication among the team members, problem solving solutions and timely decisions. This will ceratinly make a huge difference and help a project manager to enhance his or her personal as well as professional growth.
krnvs
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Very important point on quiting the project. Thanks, Stephen
alexhepgurn
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Dear Members,

It's my first visit at this forum and I couldn't stop myself. After reading such a great discussion about project manager, it's also my responsibilities to contribute something.

Erik has revealed the most important issues already and they are true but the issues that Stephan has pointed look more practical. Stephan looks to be a experienced project manager who has great skills and idea about project management.

I would like to add 1-2 more points. Actually, a project manager has lots of things to take care of, so he/she must be aware of many useful applications and tools. Using such management applications and tools will save time and give more accuracy to the work. As Stephan suggested, a project manager should take sufficient time to think positive and negative things about any decision. Take time and do the best and don't do the things quickly without thinking about the positive and negative things about them.

So, obviously, it will take a lot of time in making a decision. I would suggest to use some applications so that you can save your time. One the important application in my eye is TeamWox. You can go ahead and check this application. I use this and I save my time. It can be used in all kind of industries.
satisfaction_uk
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I would agree with everything from 1 to 7 but would have issues with numbr 8 'Never give up
Winners never give up, as long as you persist, you must have chance to success'.

A fundamental skill in strategic business management and indeed project management is knowing when to proceed with due dilligence and knowing when you are going to be flogging a dead horse and its time to cut your losses and save money for the business concerned.

In business, issues and priorities change all the time. What was once a viable propsition may very quickly become outdated, overly expensive or unpractical for a wide variety of reasons. A good project manager must have the ability to give honest feedback to the people who own the project and have responsibility for making strategic decisions. Expecially when it becomes evident that even though the project will come in on time and budget it will not achieve its strategic goals.

Consider the four box matrix where top left is 'efficient' top right is 'effective' bottom left is 'inefficient' and bottom right is 'ineffective'.

Its great to be 1) both efficient and effective. Its not so good to be either 2) effectively inefficient or 3) inefficiently effective. Where as being 4) inefficiently ineffective is a recipe for disaster.

Would soldiering on as in your section 8 be an appropriate course of action in examples 2,3 and 4 above,

I think not.

In the last case scenario
projectmanager
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Thanks for this teaching discussion. I want to contribute to this topic by pausing on "Communication", "Communication" and "Communication" not only between team members but with all participants that will be affected after the project go-live
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