As project managers, we have to serve the interests of a wide range of people, including our team, our customers and sponsors, internal and external stakeholders and other groups. This makes it a juggling act because often, the various expectations can be in conflict with each other.
As good project leaders however should be able to balance the needs of the project participants and drive the project forward as a whole, while ensuring the all milestones are reached. This requires a unique combination of skills (I call it the Project Manager Skill Stack), including communication, organizational and leadership skills.
Read also: What makes a good project manager?
But how do we know if we have done a good job? Delivering a project successfully is more than just hitting the milestones and staying within budget. We need to assess all the factors, including communication and team skills!
A great way to judge the performance of a project manager is to ask the project participants for feedback: How would you rate the performance of your project leader? The easiest way to collect this feedback is by using a PM Evaluation Sheet.
Here you can find the project manager evaluation form I use.
My Project Manager Evaluation Sheet
The sheet covers a wide range of questions from all relevant areas and skills which customers are looking for, including:
- communication skills
- leadership skills
- general professional qualities (e.g. timeliness)
- organizational and planning skills
"It's the soft-skills that set apart good from bad project managers. You need to include them in your evaluation! My evaluation form already covers these soft factors like diplomacy, the ability to communicate well and to provide encouragement and motivation to team members - in addition to the hard PM skills!"
How to use the Evaluation Form
Share the Excel-based evaluation sheet with everybody you want to get feedback from: First and foremost the customer and sponsor of the project as well as key stakeholders. If there was a co-project manager on the client side, his or her feedback would also be very valuable.
The evaluation factors must be rated using the following scoring: 100 – excellent performance (above expectations), 75 = good job, 50 = could have been done better, 25 = weak, 0 = very weak.
The covered areas such as communication are scored separately, and each area is included using a weighting, with communication and leadership skills having the greatest weight (they are the most critical skills).
The form is very easy to use, you can just send it to the client!
You can download the evaluation sheet here.
Get the Project Manager Evaluation Form
- Covers leadership, communication and project management skills as well as general professional qualities such as timeliness and friendliness
- For individual assessment of project managers
- Format: Microsoft Excel
Are you hiring project managers?
If you are looking for help on hiring project managers: Would you like to know what interview questions to ask to spot the best candidates? Check out my Project Manager Selection Guide! This hands-on guide comes with 40+ unique interview questions to ask Project Manager candidates and assess their communication, leadership, teamwork and other must-have skills!
Do you have a question?
Have a question about this article? Need some assistance with this topic (or anything else)? Send it in and I’ll get back to you soon.
