The Case for Career Growth With Technical Skills

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

  Career Development  

Depending on your interests and goals, there are many ways to unlock career growth. You might focus your energy on applying for new jobs or branding—or you might want to change direction. In my case, I have found that developing new skills is the way forward.

The Case for Focusing on Technical Skills
When you look at the PMI Talent Triangle®, many options are available to grow your career. You might focus on working methods (e.g., project-specific skills like scheduling), power skills (i.e., leading people) and business acumen.

If you see growth potential in a specific skill, you should explore it! For more insight on growing your career with non-technical skills, see my past article 3 Power Skills That Fuel Advancement.

If you are unsure which skills to develop, there are four reasons why you should consider building up your technical skills as a project professional:

1. Improving your technical skills gives you increased credibility with other project team members. For example, you are more likely to be seen as credible in working with software developers if you understand some of that profession's guiding principles and best practices.
2. A project manager with significant technical skills has the flexibility to step in and execute project work directly. This means that the project manager has some capacity to act as a backup to others on the …

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