How do you find the right project manager?
Would you need a miracle to complete your project? Is the cost/quality/deadline triangle a challenge to geometry? You don't know which project manager to entrust it to? Don't panic, I suggest you call in an ANGE. ANGE is both a skills assessment method and a grid for reading your project needs.
New valuation method
The ANGE method is a simple mnemonic for listing the four fundamental qualities of a project manager:
- A for Animation
- N for Negotiation
- G for Manager
- E for Expert
Animation to energize project teams
The first quality is not always the one that spontaneously springs to mind. Yet there can be no project without a team, and no team without a captain. And if your project team is large in scale, leadership skills will be essential. The diversity of skills, the plurality of cultures, the differences in experience, the geographical configuration, are all variables that will make team building paramount. A project manager needs tobe a good facilitator. Knowing how to "make things happen" is an invaluable asset. It's worth noting that Agile methods structurally integrate this animation axis. It's one of the reasons for their success.
Negotiation to adapt the contract the project
Whatever the initial roadmap, your project will have to adjust its course... And so, whether it's resources, scope or deadlines, the project manager will have to negotiate his or her "project contract". This is also a very useful quality for projects involving external resources, and a managerial skill that can prove useful in internal relations within the project team.
Manager to allocate resources and apply methods
A project manager is accountable for the resources and their proper use. This also applies to deadline management. Rigor, method, internal rules, legal requirements, a project manager must master all the tools of management. This quality is all the more important for companies such as service companies where the project is the primary source of revenue. Profitability imperatives come on top of project contract monitoring.
Also read: How to choose the right project manager?
Expert decision-making
"He knows his stuff..." We've all heard this introductory phrase for a project manager. And it is indeed key to have all the technical knowledge required for a project. While some projects - though not many in the final analysis - completely break new ground in a given subject, they always start from a base of knowledge. This quality is key to identifying what needs to be done on a project (WBS), challenging the teams, and informing decisions on the scope and quality of the project.
Does our project manager look like a " superhero "? A good project manager is a key player who contributes directly to the success of projects. Not everyone can be a "project manager", and a minimum level of competence in the four areas described above is required. A project manager is a person with a wide range of skills, some of which may be incompatible. Just as a sprinter can hardly run a marathon, a good manager will generally have lesser leadership skills. There is no such thing as an ideal Project Manager. But there are project managers with the right qualities for each type of project.
It's up to you to find the ANGE in you or for your project!
In this article, I explain how to integrate the ANGE method into the process of appointing a project manager.