As a qualification that builds on previous ones, a postgraduate diploma verifies that a student has completed additional intensive courses in their field of study. As a consequence, the student gets a one-of-a-kind opportunity to gain the necessary skills and experience to grow in their respective fields. What is a project management postgraduate diploma? MANCOSA designed the program’s curriculum, which aims to teach students how to integrate management principles and technology to their current and future occupations in a variety of fields.
As a result, obtaining a postgraduate diploma in project management can provide a number of advantages, including effective communication, efficient time management skills, and learning how to apply more advanced project management tools and techniques to work environments, all of which are valuable advantages for postgraduate students looking to advance in their careers.
Characteristics of a good project manager
The success or failure of many initiatives may be ascribed to a variety of factors. Find out why Project Management is so crucial in today’s business world. Professionals who finish Postgraduate Programs gain critical skills that equip them for strategic success. One of the most important factors in a project’s success is the project manager’s ability to thrive in this job, project managers must have a range of soft and technical skills due to the nature and complexity of their work. To be a successful project manager, it’s advisable to hold a suitable qualification like a diploma in project management or even an advanced diploma in project management. You must have the following skills and abilities:
Planning and Forecasting: Any managerial position includes a range of planning duties, and project management is no exception. Planning and forecasting may be tough in an ever-changing project environment, where managers must make complex forecasts and calculations about project costs, timelines, and required resources. Competent project managers use a range of methods and ways to gather relevant data and crucial information for planning and project forecasting.
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Since the project environment is so dynamic, project managers must use critical thinking and problem-solving abilities to deal with day-to-day challenges. Critical thinking allows a manager to spot issues early, analyse project obstacles objectively, and make fair decisions. This ensures that the project managers’ decisions are unbiased and directed by the project’s best interests.
Team Management and Leadership: The project manager is in charge of rallying the team behind the project’s objectives, arranging tasks, and resolving conflicts. Project managers will be able to get work done through others if they have team management and leadership abilities. They will be in an excellent position to motivate and empower the team to work together to achieve the project’s goals.
Interpersonal Skills: According to the literature, a project manager must be able to communicate with others since they spend so much time talking with internal and external stakeholders. As a result, one must be able to successfully interact, network with other professionals, negotiate with various parties, allocate resources correctly, persuade stakeholders to support the project, and execute overall project leadership tasks.
General Management Skills: Project managers must be multi-skilled since they execute a range of management tasks, such as financial management, human resources management, operations management, strategic management, and procurement. Project managers with general management abilities are better equipped to make suitable and informed decisions in the project’s and organization’s best interests.
Time Management Skills: To be successful, a project must be finished on time and on budget. This necessitates project managers being highly organized, able to prioritize, and assign project operations wisely to guarantee that all tasks are done on time. As a result, project managers must be well-organized in order to effectively manage their own time as well as the time of important stakeholders.
Risk Management: Since project managers deal with uncertainty on a daily basis, risk management skills are essential. These abilities will enable those with a diploma in project management to anticipate potential hazards and maneuver around them, or perhaps totally avoid them. Unexpected hazards may develop during the project, and project managers will need to use their risk management abilities to address these concerns as they arise.
IT and Project Management Methodologies: Finally, technological advancements are continually changing the way projects are managed. Managers must be able to employ a variety of project management techniques and systems. A skilled project manager can identify systems that are appropriate for their projects and teams, as well as how to leverage various IT systems and project management techniques to effectively manage a project.
A Postgraduate Diploma in Project Management will allow you to gain essential abilities for dealing with current project management challenges as well as obtain the most important strategic leadership qualities.
8 Things every Project Manager needs to know
- Learn to communicate effectively at all levels
Project managers spend the majority of their time interacting with team members and other project stakeholders, both internally (at all levels of the company) Effective communication creates a bridge between varied stakeholders with varying degrees of knowledge, views, and interests, as well as distinct cultural and organizational backgrounds. Communication skills needed to keep all stakeholders abreast with keeping up progress of the various stages of the projects and adhering to modalities of achieving the desired goals and objectives. - Improve your public speaking and presenting abilities.
In order for communication to occur at an interpersonal level, there must be some form of successful contact between individuals so we suggest brushing up on your public speaking abilities or even investing in a course. - Make the most of the resources, tools, and opportunities available to you.
Electronic mails and memos are also used in formal communication to distribute information both internally and publicly. It contains all pertinent information in text format, and response is anticipated via the same route and format. Become a solution-driven problem-solver:- The failure to comprehend and respond to stakeholder requirements and expectations from the project causes project problems. To be a successful issue solver, the Project Manager has to have the following problem-solving abilities, Active listening skills to guarantee successful information exchange, stay engaged with the speaker and summarize dialogues.
- The ability to understand cultural and personal differences to prevent misconceptions and improve communication, the team’s knowledge of cultural and personal differences should be developed.
- Able to recognise and manage stakeholder expectations
- Negotiation skills, especially with stakeholders
- The ability to mentor team members so they can take on some responsibilities.
- Persuasion skills Coaching skills to improve performance and achieve desired results
- Conflict resolution skills to avoid disruption or delays
- Learn how to accept and channel constructive criticism
As a project manager, constructive criticism may help you develop your working abilities so that you can minimize the likelihood of errors in the future and boost efficiency. Constructive criticism lays the groundwork for future project planning, since the lessons learnt will lead to better decision-making and planning. - Take note of your accomplishments
As a project manager, achieving goals implies that the tasks you performed were done appropriately. As a result, it’s critical to recognize such accomplishments so that the method can be replicated in the future. - Don’t be afraid to delegate
A well-planned project uses tools like a work breakdown structure to divide down project tasks into many distinct chunks. This attitude allows the project manager to assign tasks to other members of the project or stakeholders. Different activities can be carried out at the same time if there are no preceding activities.
How to further your career with a Postgraduate Diploma in Project Management
Find out how to become a Project Manager. The advanced diploma in project management includes technical project management skills, which are necessary for successful project management in a complicated and competitive context like our contemporary economic environment. It aids in the development of strategic project management abilities that are applicable both locally and internationally. It is also a criterion for advancing to a higher level of study. For this certificate, MANCOSA has developed a curriculum that is befitting of its status.
Start a Postgraduate Diploma in Project Management with MANCOSA
Every industry currently has come to understand project management as a strategic way of conducting business, as a result, knowledge thereof is considered a scarce skill in South Africa and globally. The MANCOSA qualification allows students the ability to work in a variety of private and public companies. Discover more about this qualification and register your interest for an advanced diploma.
By: Martin Motene, MANCOSA Academic