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Free of charge: How to Choose the Right Project Manager

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Companies often lack internal staff capacity, expert knowledge or project management experience, so hiring a freelance project manager makes sense. In this exclusive article, project manager Adrian Neumeyer describes the professional and personal qualities that a project manager for your project should have and how to best select the candidate. (PDF, 4 pages, 311 kB)

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Unformated preview of the document: 'How to Choose the Right Project Manager' (Part 2):

questions.
On the other hand, there are some who are just waiting to be allowed to continue talking and
who are unable to listen to others. Such people are unsuitable for a demanding project
manager position.
Talk to the candidate about your project and ask them how they would organize the project
from beginning to end. Concrete answers show that the person can actively listen, memorize
important points, and then use them to create suitable measures.
In addition to oral communication, email communication also plays an important role in
modern business. By exchanging ideas with potential candidates in advance by email, you
will be able to quickly assess their communication skills.
A good project manager writes emails that are:
● Limited to the essentials
● Easy to understand
● Built around a clear call to action or question.
There is nothing worse than people who in an email name a problem ("the room is
unfortunately occupied"), but have no concrete idea or proposed solution. This is
unconstructive and doesn’t help your business at all.
Methodical Tools That Every Project Leader Must Master
A solid foundation of methodological knowledge should be brought to each and every task.
Organization, coordination and problem solving are core skills you must find.
An example of a technique that we all know is moderated workshops. By using this approach
a team develops new product ideas, procedures or other applicable ideas.
Effectively moderating such a group activity with flipcharts, moderation cards, etc. should be
a matter of course for a proficient project leader.
Other tools a project leader must master include: structuring a project into meaningful work
packages and identifying those responsible; the creation of a realistic timetable (project
plan); the consistent follow-up of open points via an appropriate tracking list; and the
creation of succinct status reports. Furthermore, appointments must be planned and
coordinated with the participants so that everyone is kept accountable and informed.
When discussing these core competencies with the right candidate you should find that you
are speaking their language. If they appear to be hearing them for the first time then alarm
bells should be ringing.
Whether your project manager can actually apply what they’ve learned will become clear
during the discussion of your project. Take the time to introduce your project, take a look at
the objectives, the framework conditions, and the difficulties you foresee.
A good candidate asks intelligent questions and in the ideal case gives concrete
recommendations for progressing things. Do not be put off by general statements, but
instead insist on specific tips that give expansive detail.
What You Must Not Forget
When choosing a candidate you should trust your gut instincts and make sure the chemistry
between both of you is right. After all, the partnership should be a pleasant experience for all
concerned and not something that becomes a daily chore.
As far as their fee is concerned, as is generally the case with experts: quality comes at a
price, although an expensive project manager is not necessarily the better choice. But if the
higher price brings with it significantly more experience and industry knowledge, it offers
clear added value compared to a less experienced and cheaper candidate.
The author Adrian Neumeyer works as a freelance IT project manager. He also teaches
project management through his blog TacticalProjectManager.com.



Unformated preview of the document: 'How to Choose the Right Project Manager':  Part 1, Part 2

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