The Business Skills Development Gap

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.

  Career Development   Strategy   Using PMI Standards  

PMI has been doing a much more active job of communicating the PMI Talent Triangle recently. If you are a member (especially with a certification), you have likely received direct contact about it because it is a major element of the upcoming changes to the Continuing Certification Requirements (CCR) program.

Essentially the concept is that PMs need three distinct sets of capabilities to be successful: technical project management, leadership and strategic & business management. Look at the copyright at the bottom of the triangle graphic: 2010. Now I’ll freely admit that I wasn’t aware that this was PMI’s thinking that far back, and perhaps that was deliberate on their part.

However, it shows that this idea of a better-rounded PM who can combine business and project management skills with leadership ability is not a new one for a leading standards body in our profession. Also, since at least 2010 I have been hearing from organizational leaders who have had the same complaint about their PMs--that they are too focused on project deliverables and don’t have enough understanding of the way that projects support the success of the business. To me that sounds very similar to what PMI is saying about the need for the three sets of capabilities.

So we have a major standards body who is saying these three elements need to combine for a PM to succeed…

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