9 Effective Ways To Stand Out As a Rookie Project Manager

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Congratulation, you started your first job as a junior project manager, and now you are wondering how to become successful at this job? There is no better way to learn than from someone who has been a project manager for years and is willing to share his experience with you—being a rookie at something can be scary as you feel like an outsider trying to fit in. But it should not be this way, and I will show you how.

To stand out as a rookie project manager, you need to spend most of your time learning how to manage projects effectively through asking questions and communicating with your senior project managers. Rookies usually find success if they can form relationships with their colleagues and other professional people they meet in the industry. The more you do something, the better you will get at it.

Before we can dive into the effective ways to stand out, you need to get over the feeling of being an outsider. People can overcome those uneasy feelings if they understand more about what they are doing. For that, we have written a detailed article about the core responsibility of the project manager: What Are The Project Manager’s Responsibilities? Moreover, project managers have tasks they do on daily bases, which you can learn about here: What Are The Daily Tasks Of A Project Manager? Tips For Excellent Project Management.

Now, let’s jump into the 9 effective ways to stand out from the crowd as a rookie project manager:

Table of Contents

1- To learn well is to ask more

Early in my career, it was pointed out to me that in order to progress at anything, you have to be willing to become comfortable with the fact that you do not know everything. Things become much clearer when we start working on them. We just have to start somewhere. In your case, as a rookie project manager is to ask questions.

You: Easy said than done, but I feel embarrassed to ask questions because it might show that I do not know what I am doing, or my question might be stupid, making them think I am an idiot.
Me: Well, because you are a rookie, no one expects you to know much, and no questions are stupid questions. The sooner you become okay with the fact that you do not know much, the quicker you start progressing in your career. Just ask questions.

Just ask. Senior leaders are usually inclined to help, but they can not help you if you are not willing to help yourself first by asking the question.

What type of questions should you ask? Well, anything that boggles your head. Ask the WHO, WHEN, WHERE & WHY of any project. Such as Who is paying for the project? What might impact project progression? When do we have to finish this project? Where are the results expected to be delivered? Why are we doing this?

2- Communication, communication, communication

Project management is a communication game. The better you become at communicating project-specific, the better manager you become. The main difference between average and top performer project managers is how they deal with people and exchange information. In fact, even if you know more than anyone about the project, without effective communication skills, you are no good.

You: okay, good information, but how do you communicate effectively? Does it have anything to do with my personality? Do I need to be more friendly or serious?

You: Effective communication has to do with your ability to provide clear and factual information without ambiguity and misleading details.

That is all to it. It does not have anything to do with your approach, and you certainly should not try to pretend to be something else that you are not. Just focus on delivering factual information; it helps build your creditability and trustworthiness with others.

As for the means of communication, emails make a big chunk of the most effective way to exchange information. This post can help you become extremely good at email communication: 10 Tips To Use Outlook More Productively And Work Smart. Emails are good but not always the best, so you should avoid them in some situations explained in this post: 5 Ways To Communicate That Are Better Than Emails.

3- Be relentless on the vision but flexible in the detail

This means you should not aim to be a perfectionist in the details. The goal is the real trophy; the details are just the way to get it. If you try something and fail, it is okay. Try another one as long as it will get you to the same goal. This quote, “We’re stubborn on vision and flexible on details.” is actually not mine; it belongs to Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, which can serve you very well in your project management career if you apply it.

Let me elaborate more. To be relentless on the vision is to ensure that the project deliverables are met according to the client’s expectations. However, the means to get to the final results do not have to be perfect; they just need to work to give you the final result. They say the devil in the detail, but trying to be a perfectionist with unimportant detail might waste your time and surely distract you from other things.

You: Okay, but if I handed poor work to my manager, it shows that I am not smart enough to do the job they trusted me to do.

Me: do not worry much about the quality of your work; your main focus is the final goal and learning from the experience. Keep trying and learn from your experience. Mastery comes with time.

Many junior project managers do not feel comfortable trying something different. They are too afraid to fail because they aim for perfection instead of being flexible in detail. Therefore, try to find solutions in your way and make your assessment later. This way of thinking will increase your experience in the long run.

4- Under-promise over-deliver

Project management 101: rule #1021 is always under-promising and over-deliver. Do not give false hope to your client. Your client might want something to be done very badly and comes to you, the project manager. You think you can do it but are not 100% sure, so you tell your client you will look into it but can not promise anything. Behind the scene, you work on your client’s request, and voila, you show the final product to your client, and he is now very happy. Under-promised and over-delivered.

This is a fictional scenario, but you get the idea. You do not want to give false hope or over-promise. What happens if you are wrong, which you will be a lot in project management. Therefore, if you encounter something that seems unpredictable, always give a negative image to your client. Worse case, you can not deliver, which is okay because that is what you told your client. Best case, it works, and now you look like a hero to your client.

You: Are you asking me to lie or be negative all the time?

Me: No, I am saying that you should try to give a realistic view of the project. From my experience, you should always try to expect the unexpected, so you should not overhype anything even if there is enough evidence that suggests so. You are not being negative, just being realistic, as things usually do not go as planned.

5- Leverage your team

You: What does that even mean? I am the rookie one; how can I use my teammates? Should they be the ones using me?

Me: Yes and no. Let me elaborate. If you are a junior, your seniors will give you work to do not because they do not know how to do them but because they are too busy with other things that they rather just give it to a junior project manager instead. This is your chance to gain experience. Use them to answer all of your questions to gain more knowledge. To leverage your team is to make sure they teach you more about what you are trying to do.

Naturally, they will be busy, but they would not mind teaching you a few staff so you can do your job. Because if you do your job well, their job becomes more manageable. If you think of it this way, you will gain far more experience by leveraging their knowledge for your benefit. This is also known as the win-win situation. You help make their job easier, and they help you progress in your career by gaining experience.

You will not stand out if you are trying desperately to impress them. If you are trying to show off, you will only pick the things that will make you impress them, which are the things you know and won’t teach you anything, but if you are trying to learn from them, you will often find yourself doing challenging assignments, which is where you will find the most growth. Plus, no one likes a show-off, especially in project management.

6- Prioritise learning over planning

To truly get on top of your work as a project manager, you have to do your homework. This includes understanding the project requirement and planning how you will tackle those requirements. You can break the project into small tasks and priorities based on importance and urgency.

To become better at the management game is to know the critical things that need to be done today. Your seniors will have a clear idea of their priorities as they have been in the game longer than you. Which is really bad if they catch you doing something that is not urgent when you should be spending your time doing the urgent things.

You: How can I be sure that I am working on the priority tasks?

Me: First, try to understand what the project is about and what needs to be done, then make a plan based on your understanding. If you are unsure, ask. It is very simple. Again no one expects you to know everything, and asking the question of what you should be doing now is far better than wasting valuable time doing unnecessary tasks.

Early on in my career, I understood that time can be your friend if you use it wisely, but it can also be your enemy if you do not know how to prioritise tasks. If you can not prioritise, you will work overtime and are less likely to get ahead with the important things. I have put all my knowledge about prioritising tasks in this post: 7 Effective Ways To Prioritise Tasks As a Project Manager.

7- Reflect and learn from your failures

It is the failures that make us progress, not the successes. The top performer in your organisation is simply the best of the best because they failed more than anyone else. In contrast, the average to bad performers are so because they are afraid to take risks, and thus they do not fail as much and learn from their mistakes.

You: Are you saying I should be okay with failure?

Me: That is exactly what I am saying. There are two types of people, the ones who fail and blame it on others and refuse to learn from it, and the ones who realise their own fault and choose to learn from them so they will not fail at it again.

We are imperfect, so we will be making mistakes in our careers; therefore, we need to be at least honest with ourselves. Honesty with yourself helps you reflect on past experiences to find the lessons that you need to learn. Failures are a never-ending cycle. Therefore, be okay with it and embrace it. It will serve you well in your career.

8- Network as early as possible

Making strong relationships in your career is quite necessary to build your presence. Networking is quite essential in our day and age. This includes networking within and outside your organisation.

You: I think this will have little to do with my career progression?

Me: That might be true in the short term, but it can make a significant difference in the long term. Networking is to open the world of possibilities within your industry by getting the chance to work on big and exciting projects. You can not just treat your job as just a job. Not finding people to connect with makes your relationships limited, and difficult to move or change jobs and projects.

People are more likely to treat you well and be friends with you if you are humble and genuine. Often, exaggeration pushes people away from you, and humbleness brings people closer to you. Therefore, when networking, try to learn about the person’s achievements by becoming genuinely interested in them. People will respect you more if you do not come off as arrogant. In my experience, there are 5 things you should try to avoid to make strong relationships: 5 Ways Pride Is Destroying Your Project Management Career.

As for the platform to network on, it should be Linkedin. Meeting people in person is still the best way to form relationships. Therefore, make sure you go to events within your organisation and get involved in conversations that are interesting to you. After meeting them in person, connecting with people on LinkedIn is far more accessible and straightforward than connecting with people randomly, which is not actually networking.

9- Believe in the process

I saved the best at the end. The main difference between average and top performers project managers is that they believe in the process and are committed to putting in the hard work to get to their personal goals. You do not go from rookie to pro by sitting down and complaining and criticising everything you see but by taking action.

You: I find it very difficult not to complain or criticise things.

Me: It is quite difficult. In my experience, it is far easier to complain than to take action. Every job I started, there was always something that I disagreed with about the job. It could be a process or the way people conduct their business. I could complain about something I do not understand and look like an idiot in front of my managers, or I can commit to the process of learning something that I might be ignorant of.

This is possible by taking action toward the things you disagree with. To not criticise is to try to understand first by taking actions, then make your judgment based on that action, then and only then can you start introducing suggestions and changes. This is how you commit to the process.

Things become much clearer after working in your company for a while. You can then find out what works for you. Rookies start their dream job as project managers, and within the first two weeks, they find themselves losing interest in the job and think of quitting. Why? Because they do not understand it well enough to make them commit to the job. At least give yourself 6 months in this job. If you still feel the same way, at least you committed well enough to understand the business well, and it is far more likely for you to trust your feelings than 6 months ago.

Finally, I want to leave you with some top personality characteristics that every project manager should have to find success: Top 7 Personality Traits Of Project Manager For Immediate Success.

Good luck with your new job 🙂