The days when project managers only wore a single hat are long gone. Today’s PMs play a variety of roles, both within their projects and within the organization itself. As such, it’s imperative that PMs have the skillsets necessary to handle those emerging roles with aplomb. This is more than being able to communicate effectively, or knowing how to avoid micromanaging. Some of the most important skills for a project manager to possess include business management skills, leadership and technical project management skills. What do you need to know?
Business Management Skills
If you’re not acquainted with business management skills, you might find that there’s less demand for your services than you’d expect. More and more organizations are seeking project managers who also know about business management in order to ensure that projects are correctly aligned with the business’ goals. It’s no longer enough to know how to run a project – you have to ensure that the project lines up with the overall business strategy and its long-term goals.
Leadership
Leadership has always been an important quality in project managers, but it’s getting more focus these days. This is largely due to the number of internal and external stakeholders you’ll have to deal with on a regular basis in today’s projects. Being able to assume a leadership role requires more than just project management skills. You’ll need to communicate, prioritize, be accountable and be able to lead your team through the ups and downs of the project.
Technical Project Management Skills
You might not think it, but PMs do require technical project management skills. This is because you’ll need to provide direction to your team and your stakeholders on a project’s technical aspects. All projects, no matter how removed from the traditional “tech world” have technical aspects. It will be up to you to direct and guide your team and your stakeholders throughout the duration of the project. Often, you’ll have to translate technical aspects into everyday language in order to make the concepts recognizable and ensure that everyone’s on the same footing.
Ongoing Education and Training
The immediate upshot of this broadening skillset requirement for project managers is that ongoing education and training really is not optional anymore. It is vital that a PM continually develop his or her skills, and that requires getting down and dirty with the topics. Certainly, a great deal can be learned through OJT (on the job training), but quite a bit must be learned in a more formal capacity.
This is one reason that more and more organizations are requiring project managers to go through in-house training programs. While these programs don’t result in internationally recognized certification (like PMI’s program), they do provide the skills that a specific company will require from their PMs both now and in the future. In addition to formal training programs, many companies are focusing more heavily on mentor led training and education, which offers some benefits over a traditional classroom-based curriculum.