Part 96: Interpersonal & Team Skills
(Project Integration Management: Develop Project Charter)
(Project Integration Management: Develop Project Management Plan)
(Project Integration Management: Manage Project Knowledge)
(Project Scope Management: Collect Requirements)
(Project Scope Management: Define Scope)
(Project Resource Management: Acquire Resources)
(Project Resource Management: Develop Team)
(Project Resource Management: Control Resources)
(Project Communications Management: Plan Communications Management)
(Project Communications Management: Manage Communications)
(Project Communications Management: Monitor Communications)
(Project Risk Management: Identify Risks)
(Project Risk Management: Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis)
(Project Risk Management: Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis)
(Project Risk Management: Plan Risk Responses)
(Project Risk Management: Implement Risk Responses)
(Project Procurement Management: Conduct Procurements)
(Project Stakeholder Management: Manage Stakeholder Management)
(Project Stakeholder Management: Monitor Stakeholder Engagement)

  • Interpersonal Skills are also known as “soft skills”
  • Includes communication, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, negotiation, influence, team building, building trust, active listening, and overcoming resistance to change
  • Interpersonal skills are used to increase cooperation and reduce tension among team members
  • Examples include
    • Active Listening
      • Paying attention to what the other person is saying, and asking questions when you don’t understand
      • This helps reduce misunderstandings
    • Communication Styles Assessment
      • Ability to identify the best communication method for communicating
      • When we have unsupportive stakeholders or gaps in stakeholder engagement, we can tailor our communication to them
    • Conflict Management
      • We always have conflict
      • Why do we have conflict? Limited resources, personal work styles, disagreements on project objectives, different opinions, etc.
      • Sometimes stakeholders or team members will not agree on the different parts of the project charter, such as success criteria, objectives, and phases
      • Conflict Management allows you, as a Project Manager, to help them reach a consensus
      • You can take those differences in opinion and change them from conflict into creativity
  • Cultural Awareness
    • Understanding the difference between groups and organizations
    • Adapt your communications to each group in order to reduce misunderstandings
    • Effective Decision Making
      • Ability to negotiate and influence the organization
      • Decisions should focus on goals, follow a decision-making process, study environmental factors, analyse information, stimulate team creativity, and manage risk
    • Emotional Intelligence
      • Ability to identify/manage your personal emotions and those of others
      • You can reduce tension and increase cooperation when you can identify and react to other people’s emotions
    • Facilitation
      • Ability to guide a group of people to a successful conclusion
      • As a facilitator, you make sure that all the participants contribute, and that all the participants agree with the final result
      • Facilitation is used with
        • Joint Application Design/Development (JAD)
          • Used in software development
          • Business experts and Software developers work together to improve the software application
        • Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
          • Used in manufacturing
          • Before designing a product, we collect the customer needs, which are known as the Voice of the Customer (VOC)
          • We prioritize the needs and set goals for achieving them
        • User Stories
          • Short description of required functionality
          • The stakeholder uses the story to explain how he will benefit from the feature, and what goal he wants to accomplish
    • Influencing
      • Project managers may not have direct authority over all members/stakeholders in a matrix
      • They must therefore influence stakeholders
      • Project managers must be persuasive and articulate their positions, have good listening skills, and consider other perspectives
      • Project managers must be able to gather relevant information and reach agreements while maintaining trust
    • Leadership
      • Leadership is important throughout the entire project
      • There are many types of leadership styles and the correct one depends on the team
    • Meeting Management
      • Managing a meeting involves creating an agenda, recording minutes, and sending follow-up minutes at the conclusion of the meeting
      • Key tasks include
        • Preparing the agenda, which states the objective of the meeting
        • Make sure that the meeting starts and finishes at the correct time
        • Make sure that the correct people attend the meeting
        • Keep the meeting on topic
        • Manage conflicts that arise during the meeting
        • Record meeting minutes
    • Motivation
      • Encourage people to act
      • Team members are motivated when they understand the big picture, can make decisions, and are able to work independently
    • Negotiation
      • People you need to negotiate with
        • Functional Managers
          • Ensure they provide you with enough resources
        • Other Project Management Teams
          • Sometimes we must share resources with other project teams
        • External Organizations & Suppliers
          • We need resources from our suppliers within our budget and schedule
    • Networking
      • Informal connections between project stakeholders to share knowledge
    • Nominal Group Technique
      • Form of brainstorming, with four steps and a moderator
        • We ask the group a question
        • Each member comes up with ideas and writes them down
        • The moderator gathers all the ideas
        • The entire group discusses each idea one-by-one until all members understand all ideas
        • The members vote to prioritize the ideas
        • The group selects the highest scoring ideas
    • Observation/Conversation
      • Watching somebody do their job
      • Sometimes it is easier to learn some thing by seeing it done instead of just reading about it
      • Known as “job shadowing”
    • Political Awareness
      • Politics can exist in governments and in large organizations
      • Politics means recognizing formal and informal power relationships and influence
      • When a Project Manager is aware of the politics, he can plan communications to avoid conflict
    • Team Building
      • Activities that increase social relations between team members
      • Allows the team members to work together effectively
      • Team Building activities can be short and simple or long and complicated
      • Team building should be continuous throughout the project; the project manager should monitor the project team to determine whether additional activities are required