Get the Balance Right

Vincent is a Senior Project Management Consultant and e-Learning Developer.

  Career Development   Estimating   New Practitioners   Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)   ProjectsAtWork  

What does it take to be a good project manager? Many believe the ability to plan and manage scope, schedule and budget can be applied to any project. Others believe that domain experience is more important. Some say both take a back seat to soft skills. But it’s not an either/or debate. It’s a balance that must be built.

As an engineer who has moved into managing engineering projects, I have found that my engineering background definitely helps me as a project manager. But I have worked with excellent project managers who were not engineers, so it’s not absolutely necessary to be an Subject Matter Expert (SME). I also have seen both engineers and non-engineers who are poor or mediocre project managers. When discussing what a project manager should bring to the role, focusing only on technical background is misleading. A better discussion question would be: What does it take to be a good project manager?

To answer this question it is necessary to take a broader look at project management. While it goes without saying that a project manager must have general project management skills, these skills alone are not sufficient. Projects involve people, and so communication skills or “soft” skills are also necessary. And projects are executed within specific markets, industries and fields, from IT to construction, education to research, so it is also …

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