What Does It Take To Be An Exceptional eLearning Project Manager?
What are the qualities of an eLearning project manager that are trusted by both clients and collaborators? Sure, a charismatic personality and years of experience is a great start. But, it takes much more than that - a unique set of qualities to manage eLearning teams and providing deliverables to the client on time. You need an effective eLearning project manager who dedicates himself to bring together various eLearning experts and successfully complete projects within the allocated resources and budget.
Here are 7 essential skills every eLearning project manager should master:
1. Strong Hold Of The eLearning Industry
Professionals involved in eLearning are either highly experienced or come from strong educational or technical backgrounds, as eLearning is a fast-paced industry where every role is contributing to produce high-quality content. Therefore, it is important to have a team of dedicated eLearning professionals who are well aware of the nitty-gritty of the eLearning industry.
So, an effective manager should be able to bring together people with diverse theoretical knowledge who can collaborate with IT developers in complete synergy.
2. Staying Updated With Latest eLearning Trends
To be successful both professionally and personally, you need to constantly update yourself with the latest trends, tools, and technologies emerging every now and then. This means proactively educating yourself about what’s new on the eLearning landscape.
You can read new articles, attend eLearning conferences, network, and make connections with the distinguished people from the industry. As eLearning is a fast-paced world, the more you will educate yourself, the better you would handle unpredictable changes in the industry.
3. Leadership Qualities
Being an eLearning project manager means you are in a leadership position that demands certain qualities from you. You need leadership qualities to form a team of a diversified group of professionals and motivate them to work dedicatedly towards their eLearning projects.
Along with supervising projects, eLearning project managers should be compassionate and empathetic towards their team members. This being said, they should also know when to be assertive while handling situations leading to conflicts within the eLearning team.
4. Effective Resource Management
One of the leading responsibilities of an eLearning project manager is to use the available resources in the best possible manner within the allocated budget and schedule. This means he should know what to do when and how to handle human resources when the scope of the eLearning projects change.
These days many savvy eLearning managers are using project management software that helps them to manage their resources, tasks, and eLearning projects without any hard work.
5. Understands The Importance Of Time Management
Great managers are known for delivering projects on time. They never miss a deadline as they plan every minute of their eLearning projects meticulously. Because they realize the importance of planning and invest a lot of time doing so, they break large eLearning projects into small tasks and timebox every task.
There are many time tracking tools that help project managers to set time estimates, track time spent, and maintain a record of every minute they spend on their eLearning projects.
6. Risk Management
Anyone working in an eLearning industry might be aware of the unpredictable risks involved in the process of creating and developing content for the learners. It’s important to foresee if the learners would face any software related issues or not.
A responsible project manager would identify, track, and mitigate risks in advance to save his team from any kind of embarrassment and failure. They ensure smooth communication between all the eLearning departments as 57% of projects fails due to ‘breakdown in communication’.
7. Conflict Resolution
When there are a lot of team members in an eLearning project, disagreements are bound to happen. This can often translate into professional conflicts. Whereas, to create amazing eLearning deliverables, everyone in a team should work together without any friction.
However, if such situation arises then project manager should step in to resolve these arguments before they turn nasty and impact the workplace negatively. To deal with such situations, one must equip himself with effective communication and interpersonal skills.
It’s high time for professionals to understand the role of an eLearning project manager to deliver quality content to the learners. An effective manager has the power to set an example for his team members to produce great eLearning experiences for the learners and meet clients expectations.
