Skills for a PM

[oscarose]

IMVHO only, a PM needs to be a good blagger and have the ability to stay calm when challenged my senior management.

[mudskipper]

Luckily the PM providing these services 5 feet from my desk has recently been moved to another floor.

I reckon we'd still be able to hear her...

[eek]

If they are anything like current clientco the ability it obviously

alongside stupid hours is important...

[Troll]

Talk loudly on the phone all day. Ensure the whole office can hear you, or how else are they supposed to know just how important you are?

Throw in words like "challenge" and "skills for the task" at least once every 60 seconds.
Make sure you spell out in detail every action you've taken and emphasise the actions that others have failed to complete.

Do not pause for breath - if you do the other party may be able to get their point across.

Anything I've missed?

"Traction" appears to be a new buzzword

[mudskipper]

"Traction" appears to be a new buzzword

God help us all.

[TestMangler]

Don't forget that essential PM skill of being able to maintain a simple list of tulip that needs done

[suityou01]

I am absolutely expert in dealing with tulipe PMs now. It's easy to whip them into a frenzy and put the living fear of Christ up 'em.

As you may recall I fell foul of a rookie PM some years back, so I have really looked into this.

On the subject of missed deadlines and them getting all shouty :

Ask what contingency they put in the plan. Ask what capacity the resources are working at. If it's 8 hrs per day mutter this is not realistic and it should be 6 hrs per day as with interuptions, phonecalls answering emails etc a full 8hrs work is unrealistic.

Ask them if they track estimates vs actuals and what loading factor they use per resource.

Ask them if you could review the RAID log.

Ask them if you could see the project log.

Suggest that as deadlines are being consistently missed it might be time to send the project for an audit.

I have more but need specific scenarios.

[doodab]

Don't forget that essential PM skill of being able to maintain a simple list of tulip that needs done

Most of them seem to lack that one...

[Project Monkey]

Don't forget that essential PM skill of being able to maintain a simple list of tulip that needs done

Sadly, these days, most PMs don't even do that!

[oscarose]

Don't forget that essential PM skill of being able to maintain a simple list of tulip that needs done

I have said list. It's a very long list, broken down by the MoSCoW approach. Usually I 'manage' the PM.