Too Much Power (Skills)?

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Strategy  

If you look at the list of project management power skills, it’s a comprehensive list of all of the things that make someone a good people and business leader.

The people leadership side of that is generally well accepted by all organizations. It’s increasingly recognized that the ability to lead people and to create an environment where teams feel able to give of their best is essential to consistent project performance. But the growing importance of the business leadership aspects of project management is starting to get pushback in some areas.

To cherry pick some of the key power skills that PMI identifies, we have strategic thinking, an innovative mindset, a future-focused orientation. These accurately reflect the world in which projects are delivered today, a world where outcomes are more important than outputs, and where virtually every project is a foundation for the work that comes next.

So why is there resistance to some of these in project management?

Stay in your lane
The short answer? Iin my experience, it’s a perception that project management is starting to encroach on other areas of the business.

Strategic thinking is probably the easiest example to understand. The sponsor, customer representative, and other business leaders feel as though they own all of the strategic decision-making, and the project manager should “just&…

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