I have been in management and higher positions for many years and some of the better books I have listened or read on people management are:

·         The Situational Leader by Dr. Paul Hersey

·         Management of Organizational Behavior by Dr. Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard

·         How Organizations Work by Alan P. Brache

·         People Skills for Project Managers by Steven W. Flannes, PhD and Ginger Levin, DPA

·         Positive Words, Powerful Results by Hal Urban

The absolute best way to learn people management is through managing people.  When I look for good PM candidates, I look for good people, communications, time management, organization, financial, and prioritization skills.  Some of the best project managers who I have worked with or who have worked for me over the years were naturals.  They could walk into a situation of chaos and quickly sum up the situation and get people busy bringing things back into order. They didn’t need a scheduling tool to tell them they were behind schedule.  They didn’t need a BlackBerry to tell them they had a communication problem.  They didn’t need a spreadsheet to tell them they were out of whack with their budget, and they didn’t need a survey to tell them the project team was unhappy.  They were observant and their charisma made people want to follow them to get things done. 

I'd go one step further - I think project management is a wonderful training / proving ground for senior people leadership positions beyonf project management.  A project is in many ways a business in microcosm, and someone who has been managing projects for some time will be an experienced people manager in virtually all situations (as well as many other roles).  Add in the need to manage without authority and you have a manager that uses their skills and experience rather than their position.

When I am looking for people in senior positions, whether it is for a client or for myself, I will always look favourably at someone who has demonstrated the ability to lead project teams.  That's not necessarily the same as delivering projects on time - that can result in a lot of collateral damage - but someone who has developed teams across multiple projects, led and evolved a stable PMO, etc.

Andy Jordan, President, Roffensian Consulting Inc.

andy.jordan@roffensian.com

www.roffensian.com

Andy,

I would agree with you depending on how enlightened the Senior Management Team (SMT) is.  I have come into or consulted in companies where the PM was seen as nothing but a technical lead by the SMT and have spent a lot of time teaching and coaching the PMs to take on P&L responsibly for their project including managing:

1)      The Budget from a planned to an actual basis with Change Control factored in.  I expect them to perform like a line manager with a department budget. 

2)      Resource Management from requesting them, assigning them, tracking them, knowing/sharing their metrics, and finally giving them a mini-appraisal during their time on project to the resource manager.

3)      Quality Management by actually being responsible for the product their teams produce.  They are part of the QA process and take part in testing and reporting.

4)      Risk Management from identifying and quantifying the risk to creating a watchlist for triggers and management/mitigation plans.  This includes budgeting and managing their contingency.

5)      Issue Management, escalation and resolution.

6)      SMT-level Status Reporting teaching them complete staff work.  They have to organize and present SMT-level project briefings on a period basis.

7)      Project Peer Reviews helping/coaching/mentoring their fellow PMs through the project lifecycle. 

Once they have gone through this mini-certification, I can say they are ready for management or program management because they have demonstrated general management skills and demonstrated they can deliver in project management.