Interpersonal Skills for Portfolio, Program, and Project Managers

Decision-Making

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The project manager is responsible for resource allocation and use, as well as cost and schedule tradeoffs and changes in terms of the project‧s scope, direction, or characteristics (Adams, Barndt, and Martin 1979). These responsibilities obviously require strong decision-making skills. Though decision-making is not the domain of the project manager alone, it is certainly an important role because each decision has consequences that affect the overall direction of the project. Project managers must work constantly to build consensus or confidence in decisions about critical aspects of the project (PMI 1987).

PMI (2008a) describes four common decision-making styles: command, consultation, consensus, and coin flip (random). Each ...