A successful digital project is like a fast train running, or a mountain biker on a descent, or a team about to win a world championship (sorry Wales, but it was close!).

It requires absolute focus, meticulous co-ordination, perfect interworking and flow. Its endpoint nature is to be disruptive, to beat the impossible – to crack a deadline, to deploy a new technology, to amaze a client. Yet in its execution it must be managed through discipline,and achieved through personality and imagination.

It requires a unique person to manage it – often born than made, but there are 5 things you can work on if you feel like stepping into one of the most rewarding roles there is:

1. You must live to organise.

You must be the kind of person who sees something disorganised and can't leave it that way. Are you naturally the one who gets a grip and wrestles disorder into order? Do you really care about doing a good job, and your organisation being run well? Do you care enough to personally change your working world as best you can? Don’t hide it - turn that energy into a salary by being a digital Project Manager!

2. You need to be visionary.

You need to develop a vision for how your role ties to that of your team and of how our team’s role ties to everyone else in the business. You need to be able to align all those people around a vision that delivers for your client, on time and budget. You should also have a vision for how you see yourself succeeding in your role and you also need to know how to turn the pain of failure into a win next time – and never show your doubts to the team!

3. You need to be central to everything, but never get in the way.

This means you need to develop a sixth sense about when to be there, and when you being there isn’t helping. You’ve got to bring out the best in your teams and that means influencing and guiding them, but more often listening and responding to them and making their work ‘flow’. You can’t let the deliverables slip, so great estimation and planning needs to be followed up by brilliant tracking, measuring and testing. You need to be a hub, a support and a lead. This comes with experience, so start small and build up to more complex or high budget projects.

4. You need to be a player when it comes to risk versus reward.

You need to feel a twinge of excitement when you're asked to do something that as it stands is not possible, but with your energy applied to it – it could be. To stay at the front of digital, almost every project needs to include one new technology or way of doing things differently. The key is not to forget the basics in the excitement of the new. Be rigorous with the planning, the communication, the reporting. Track, measure, control and use the excitement of what you are doing to fuel the project when the time comes to pull it out of the bag.

5. You need to know it’s all about people.

You’re going to need every person you can get, and you need everyone on side. A good digital PM can weave their way through arguments, stress, disappointment, excitement, wild dreams, concrete reality and make it look easy. They can broker between technical and creative people, clients and the business. Get to know your team well and yourself better –identify your own areas for development. Read Stephen Covey’s 7 habits of highly effective people. Think win-win, and when it all gets too much don’t blow – get a coffee and remind yourself you’re not building a nuclear reactor. Your just becoming a great Digital PM.

We're looking for Project Managers to join our team so if you think the above sounds like you then get in touch!