Recently, I talked with a project manager who has over 6 years project management experience in big organizations. I asked him that what is the most important skills about managing projects, and his answer was as simple as concentration on solving team members’ problems. He was absolutely right!

If a project goes on exactly as planned, there is no need for managing at all. So, management is all about managing exceptions (i.e. solve problems). Responsibility is all about solving problems, cooperating is all about solving problems, and even resource allocation is all about solving problems. Additionally, the roles themselves in a team will determine what problems the person need to solve.

Meanwhile, the overall performance of a team, in some way, can be measured as its ability to solve problems and the average time length to close them. For the small projects which normally done within 2 weeks, it is easy for the project manager to identify and extinguish problems while for medium to big sized projects, it is getting harder to find out the problems. Therefore, a good project manager has to encourage the team members to tell you all their concerns throughout the entire project life cycle. In that case, you don’t have to dig into each area to drag out the bugs yourself. Moreover, your team members are well motivated and take the ownership of their tasks as well.

It is no need to be panic if you are managing some projects which you don’t understand inside out, coz your team members can support you if you try your best to solve their problems and eliminate their concerns.