3 Technical Project Skills That Never Go out of Style

Bruce is the founder of ProjectManagementHacks.com, a resource for growing IT project managers.

  Estimating   Resource Management   Risk Management   Schedule Management   Scheduling  

We often hear about how important leadership skills are, and you may have noticed a strong emphasis on it here on ProjectManagement.com. Those skills are critical to your success and advancement. However, they are built on a foundation of strong technical skills. With this leadership skill emphasis, your technical skills may not be as sharp as they once were.

To brush up on your project technical skills (which make up one-third of the PMI Talent Triangle®), view this month’s focus as a chance to emphasize the fundamentals. Specifically, we will focus on a few timeless skills:

1. Time and resource estimation
2. Risk management
3. Scheduling

If you’re running the project directly, these skills will help you improve your performance. If you’re in an oversight role such as a project director, these skills will help to challenge the adequacy of the plans developed by your team.

1. Become a Master of Project Estimation: Time and Resource Estimation

“Your project is $1 million over budget! How much more budget do I have to ask for this month?”

That’s the kind of comment that every project professional has to face at least once in their career. Sometimes you will have an angry project sponsor. However, most of the time you hear this kind of response because the project manager has become sloppy with their technical skills, …

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