Defining Skills Every Good Project Manager Needs

Many times, organizations will knight their technical experts as project managers. The skill
and expertise that made them stars in their technical fields are mistakenly thought to translate
into project management skills. This is not necessarily so.

Project managers are generalists with many skills in their repertoires. They are also problem
solvers who wear many hats. Project managers might indeed possess technical skills, but tech-
nical skills are not a prerequisite for sound project management skills. Your project team should
include a few technical experts, and these are the people whom the project manager will rely on
for technical details. Understanding and applying good project management techniques, along
with a solid understanding of general management skills, are career builders for all aspiring
project managers.

Project managers have been likened to small-business owners. They need to know a little
bit about every aspect of management. General management skills include every area of man-
agement, from accounting to strategic planning, supervision, personnel administration, and
more. General management skills are called into play on every project. But some projects
require specific skills in certain application areas. Application areas consist of categories of
projects that have common elements. These elements, or application areas, can be defined sev-
eral ways: by industry group (automotive, pharmaceutical), by department (accounting, mar-
keting), and by technical (software development, engineering) or management (procurement,
research and development) specialties. These application areas are usually concerned with dis-
ciplines, regulations, and the specific needs of the project, the customer, or the industry. For
example, most governments have specific procurement rules that apply to their projects that
wouldn’t be applicable in the construction industry. The pharmaceutical industry is acutely
interested in regulations set forth by the Food and Drug Administration, whereas the automo-
tive industry has little or no concern for either of these types of regulations. Having experience
in the application area you’re working in will give you a leg up when it comes to project man-
agement. Although you can call in the experts who have application area knowledge, it doesn’t
hurt for you to understand the specific aspects of the application areas of your project.

The general management skills listed in this section are the foundation of good project man-
agement practices. Your mastery of them (or lack thereof) will likely affect project outcomes.
The various skills of a project manager can be broken out in a more or less declining scale of
importance. We’ll look at an overview of these skills now, and I’ll discuss each in more detail
in subsequent chapters.