Good project manager or just experienced?
So how does it work exactly… You often hear that a good project manager has experience, knowledge, and control. But if you’ve been involved in projects for a while, you know that while all of this is very welcome , it offers absolutely no guarantee. Because:
- You can have a lot of experience and still get stuck
- You can work hard and still lose control
- You can want to solve everything and thus the project correct the vertrag
Hence the question central to this article: what exactly is professional project management?
⬇️ Let's start with an example ⬇️
Project manager Daphne, with 10 years of experience, is assigned a digital transformation project. Daphne knows the methodology, has handled similar projects, and knows how to plan and manage. Yet, things get stuck. This is not due to a lack of knowledge; Daphne has that covered.
What Daphne failed to realize, however, is that the resistance from middle management is the real roadblock. Her experience has taught her how to plan projects, but not how to navigate political tensions. Knowledge alone, therefore, does not make you a good project manager.
What is professional project management really?
A project professional is someone who acts consciously in a complex environment. In concrete terms, this means that you do not necessarily have to have everything under control, but that you dare to make choices. Even with incomplete information.
As a project professional, you take responsibility for the whole. You see when intervention is necessary and when it is not. This means that professional conduct goes beyond doing, doing, and doing again. It is precisely about letting go, coordinating, and setting boundaries.
And yes, that sometimes makes the job of a project professional a bit uncomfortable. At the same time, your role is incredibly important. You make the difference because you dare to switch gears.
➡️ Read along with the case study below. What would you do as a project professional?
Imagine: you notice that your team is overloaded. What do you do then? Do you give your most fiery inspirational speech to keep people working? Come on guys, we can do this! Or do you make the decision to slow down, straighten your back, and talk to your client?
In most cases, acting professionally means telling the client that the scope or schedule needs to be adjusted. And phew, indeed, that conversation is uncomfortable. The client is not happy. But it is professional, because that way you prevent your team from dropping out, people from feeling uncomfortable, and the project from failing after all.
When are you a good project manager?
Many people associate “good project leadership” with visibility and decisiveness. But in practice, it is just a bit more subtle. A good project manager creates clarity without dictating everything, maintains direction without micromanagement , and opens up tensions for discussion rather than smoothing them over.
This requires self-knowledge. Knowing when to guide and when to leave room. This is precisely where professional behavior differs from routine.
⬇️ Below is an example from an advisory process ⬇️
Project manager Yuri notices that two team members radically disagree on the approach. This causes tension within the team. Of course, Yuri could merge both viewpoints into a compromise that no one supports. Or he could bang his fist on the table, dictate a choice, and expect everyone to obediently follow. Does this work? No. It simply doesn't.
Yuri's good leadership is when he facilitates the discussion correctly. Bring on both perspectives! He creates clarity and lets the team decide, under his guidance. That requires more courage and more trust, but 100% certainly leads to better results.
Project manager skills: visible and invisible
When you think of the skills of a project manager, you probably think first and foremost of planning, reporting, and organizing. These are indeed important basic skills. But what you often see happening in projects is that it is precisely the less visible skills that are decisive. Consider:
- Listen to what NOT ALLOWED it is said
- Deal with resistance
- Recognizing and naming interests
- Setting limits on expectations
You don't learn these skills “just like that” from a book. Developing them requires reflection and practice. For example, by attending training courses and working in the field itself. Below you will find 3 examples of this type of skill.
Invisible Skill 1: The Art of Non-Intervention
To start with, an absolutely undervalued skill: knowing when not to intervene. A junior project manager sees a team member struggling with a task and takes over. An experienced project manager sees the same thing but lets it happen because struggling is part of learning. That requires trust and patience.
Invisible Skill 2: Sensing Tension Before It Escalates
Good project managers sense tension before it escalates. They notice subtle signals: someone becoming quieter in meetings, an email with a different tone, or a stakeholder who suddenly stops responding. Picking up on these signals and acting on them before things get out of hand—that is craftsmanship.
Invisible Skill 3: Saying No to the Client
And then perhaps the trickiest skill: saying no to the client. Standing up and saying: “That won’t work within this schedule,” or “That extra requirement doesn’t fit within the scope.” Plus the “if we add this, we have to cut something else.” Having these kinds of conversations is challenging, but essential for a healthy project.
Growing as a project professional requires awareness
Many professionals grow into their roles naturally. They take on more responsibility, are assigned more challenging projects, and are increasingly held accountable for the bigger picture. However, growing as a project professional requires more than just gaining experience.
In addition to active learning in the workplace, it is also very important to simply pause every now and then. To ask yourself the question: What is actually expected of me? Which role do I naturally assume? Where is my boundary, and do I set it?
Without that reflection, you run the risk of working harder and harder, while your professional effectiveness declines. Recently, a senior project manager told us: “I was doing 10 projects a year, working 60 hours a week, and actually always felt exhausted. One evening, when I was still working through emails late at night, I realized:
I'm not growing, I'm just surviving.
I was doing more and more, but learning less and less. It was only when I consciously took time to reflect that this changed. I started taking on fewer projects, but I did so with my full attention. That was evident in the results! And a nice bonus, also for my family, was that it made me a more pleasant and relaxed person.
Professional development in projects is not a luxury
Professional development in projects is sometimes seen as something extra. Something for “later”. In reality, it is essential to remain sustainably employable. Plus, and we at Lagant consider this at least as important , you get more enjoyment out of your work.
At Lagant, we see that professionals only truly grow when they learn to put words to what they experience. And also by learning to recognize patterns in collaboration and learning to connect behavior to context.
Our e-learnings and training courses are geared towards your daily practice. Naturally, we guide you through the methodologies and processes, but this is always in service of the bigger picture: professional conduct. We help you to ⬇️
- Have conversations about roles and expectations
- Recognizing patterns in collaboration
- Setting boundaries without damaging relationships
- Demonstrating leadership without formal power
- Adapt behavior to what the context demands
These are the skills that make the difference between a project professional who actually does the work and a project manager who 'just lets the work happen'.
A shared language helps deepen professionalism
Speaking a common language helps with professional development. A framework such as that of IPMA provides that language. Do not view it as a norm of “this is how it should be,” but rather as a hook for reflecting on leadership, context sensitivity, and professional behavior.
IPMA helps you, as a project professional, to interpret your actions: what am I doing, why am I doing it, and what does this situation require of me?
IPMA's Individual Competence Baseline describes competencies in three areas: perspective (strategy, governance, compliance), people (leadership, teamwork, conflict management), and practice (scope, time, quality). This categorization helps you identify your current strengths and areas for growth.
Many project managers excel in practical competencies. They can handle it all! They plan well, closely monitor progress, and deliver neatly on time. On the other hand, these same project managers sometimes struggle with people skills. Having difficult conversations? Don't call me. But resolving conflicts and exercising influence without power is also perceived as challenging.
Or how about perspective competencies, the highly sensitive political context-reading. Managing interests and translating strategy into execution... That can be quite challenging.
👉 Lagant offers you such a moment of reflection in your development with the IPMA certification . You can view an IPMA certification as a kind of mirror that shows you exactly where you stand right now. What can you already do? What are you struggling with? Where do you want to grow?
These questions are more valuable than the certificate itself. From that foundation, you can, of course, strengthen and deepen your desired skills, also with IPMA.
Being a good project professional is not an end point
It is not as if you wake up on a beautiful Monday morning and know: “Right. Now I am a good project professional.” It is not a title or a certificate that you tick off so you can move on. Being a good project professional requires a way of working in which you take responsibility for your role . You continue to learn from what is challenging and dare to act, even when things get tense.
Signs you are growing
But how do you know you're growing as a project professional? A few signs are:
- You ask more questions instead of giving answers. You realize that others often already know the answer, they just need space to express it.
- You feel less responsible for everything. You understand that the project is not yours alone and that others can also share responsibility.
- You'll have less stress about what you can't control. You accept that projects will always remain unpredictable and focus on what you can influence.
- You dare to set boundaries. You say no more often, not out of reluctance, but out of professionalism. You protect your team, your schedule, and therefore your quality.
- You learn from every project. Not just what went right or wrong, but also what you did and why, and what you will do differently next time.
The essence of professional project management
Professionalism in projects, therefore, does not lie in working harder or wanting to control everything; it is about acting consciously . As a good project professional, you know when to intervene and when to let go . Professional project management lies in setting boundaries while maintaining relationships , in providing direction without dictating or forcing.
And as we told you before , professional project management is a continuous process. Because every situation is different. Just as every context brings with it different options. The question is therefore not so much: am I doing it right? The starting point is: am I acting professionally regarding what is needed *now*?
You keep asking yourself this question, regardless of whether you have 10 years of experience or are just starting out. Because that is what a good project professional does: keep learning, keep reflecting, and thus keep growing . Lagant supports you in your continuous development as a professional.
Would you like to know how we can help you or which certification best suits your current stage in your career? Send your question to us via ln.tnagal@ofni or call Patricia on +31 (0)85 050 9742.
