5 Ways to Stand Out as a PM When You’re an Introvert
Project managers have the uncanny knack of being able to hide in plain site. A lot of clients will know a bad project from a good one without knowing the powerhouse behind the success or failure. Over the years I’ve found subtle ways to stand out despite being an introvert. I struggled with learning how to stand out without sticking out or feeling awkward. It’s perfectly fine to own your awkward, but the key is that being able to hone in that “youness” in such a way without making a client feel uncomfortable.
1. Conversation Skills & Active Listening
Small talk kills me. I dislike talking about the weather, but sometimes when my brain goes to idle that’s where it goes. Breaking ice for me is more like jumping into a cold winter lake. It’s tough. Here were some ways I’ve learned to balance out having that conversational side with clients or your team. Active listening. I note what people may share about their lives, for example, hobbies, shows they enjoy, guilty pleasures, favorite restaurants or food, pets. I try to find a common interest and share news or ask questions. “Hi! I couldn’t help but notice the other day you mentioned you love space. Are you a theoretical physics kinda person or just all things space? What about it drew you to this subject?” Finding common ground is a great way to have a wonderful conversation that is beyond talking about the weather. Active listening lets me discover those common interests we might share or something that maybe I want to learn more about. The key is to be authentic in that shared space.
2. Partnerships
I point to partnerships as opposed to collaboration — though people may think it’s the same thing. When I work with a team member, we are in fact collaborating, but we’re investing in one another’s success beyond the current project. An example would be preparing a new proposed strategy. It requires data modeling and methodology or processes that teams will execute against. While doing this work, we are striving towards a common goal but we’re also build upon each others progression in other aspects be it new skills, career path progression and so on. We’ll take note of areas we may both have weaknesses in and carve out time to focus on improving that skill. When working with someone, we often will split the work based on strengths. Other times if we aren’t in a time crunch I ask to be shown how to perform the work. That way we can diversify our skills and have overlap when issues arise and both of us can resolve the issue. This is great for changing up the workflow and not always doing the same thing just because you’re good at it. Eventually this type of sharing allows you both to be proficient. As an introvert, I often prefer to work alone. However, in a partnership you timebox an hour to do this type of partnership work. It allows me to prepare for that hour and have key areas to focus my brain and not overthink the interaction between others.
3. Graphics
Over the years, I’ve found that leadership loves graphics. They like a quick digestible way to understand information in 10 seconds or less. Brushing up on your graphics skills is a great way to do that. If you don’t have the capacity to create your own graphics, I find tools like Canva and even PowerPoint Smart art are significant assets. Something to note, keep your graphics consistent. Don’t swap color palettes mid presentation or use shadow inconsistently. Create a style guide or look at your company style guide to help. Sometimes more is less when creating an image. Taking some time to learn some basic graphics skills not only makes anything you present look professional but it can be a real timesaver.
4. Analytics
Diversifying your skills beyond the core skills of a project manager is an excellent way of having a good command of your project and the data behind it. Analytics can be as simple as a showing an infographic that describes the project’s health and any interesting trends that provide business value to the business. Excel or Google Sheets has an option to recommend charts. There are some things I do regularly as a habit. Read articles about how data is presented and current trends of how businesses make data-driven decisions. Start with something small like taking a class on linked in learning to get your analytics skills up. Make it an annual goal and build up on a basic skill and work on mastering it. Keeping current and improving on a skill allows me to know a project on a deeper level. Sometimes in my career an employer didn’t feel it was necessary for me to learn a tool or a skill the rest of the organization may have been pivoting to. Don’t let this stop you from picking up the skill. Data is a huge part of projects. You shouldn’t have to rely on someone else to produce your reports. Make the justification for yourself if this is an area you should shine in. Personally, I find it crucial to understand what goes on underneath it all. Take control over how you own this skill. There were times I’d self study, borrow books or YouTube. Use that as your stepping point.
5. Project Plans w/ Options — Happy path, Realistic plan, and Chaos plan
Being able to plan a project is the base expectation of a project manager. You gather information from your team and you build a project plan. It sounds easy enough. During the initial scope of a project, you should be provided at least 3 options to the schedule: Happy path, realistic, or chaos plan. Happy path is not based on any data due dates are aligned based on the client’s wishes and desires. They might align it to a launch of a major initiative. When you create this plan, you must provide caveats on how to achieve this happy path. For example, a project with an aggressive timeline may require project crashing (all hands on deck, you pull in all available resources or contractors), parallel track deliverables. Call a team meeting and brainstorm with the team on options to reach this goal. Provide the level of detail that shows what is necessary to execute on a Happy path plan. I base realistic plans on being able to create a project plan on a reasonable schedule with the right amount of resources and funding. You may be lucky to have this. However, even when you have the ideal, planning a happy path and a chaos plan will help you in the end. Why? Because there are times there are unseen situations that may put several wrinkles in your plan. Chaos plan: this is the plan you have when you look at the potential for many critical issues that can arise in a project. You account for potential delays in delivery (controlled or not within your control). To make a Chaos plan, look at the risks to your project and prioritize the ones that will have major affects to schedule, resourcing, funding and so on. Each plan will take time to work through. However, if you start with these 3 plans, it will help you account for several likely outcomes. It also provides a way for your client to understand the cost and risk associated with each.
Final Thoughts
The PM life is always about being prepared. When you want to stand out but aren’t the type of person to shout it on the hilltops. Then it’s about how to make your work represent you without having to say a word. That comes as quality and presence of your work. It also means looking at your own work critically and asking yourself if this is the best work put forward. Anything I present I stand by, it has to look beautiful; it has to have business value for my clients. Overtime as I work towards improving my soft skills and my introverted spots. I hone these 5 ways to make my work shine when I prefer to hide in the shade.
