Project Management

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Project Manager's Power Skills vs Technical Skills

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Michael King
Community Champion
Senior IS Project Manager| Baycare Health Systems Clearwater, Fl, United States

As Project Managers we are all well versed on the proper tools and procedures needed to run our projects, but there are some projects that requirement at least some technical skills. Construction projects are different from Information System application build projects which are different then projects dealing with medical research.

How much focus should project managers put into building / expanding their technical skills?

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Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada
Michael -

PMI recognizes the importance of domain expertise in their Talent Triangle, but as far as the depth to which you need to go, this really depends on stakeholder expectations and whether your team is staffed appropriately with the right number of competent, technically skilled folks. In some contexts, your team might be short staffed and senior stakeholders might expect the PM to be able to do more than "talk the talk" whereas in others it is sufficient for the PM to know what are the "right" questions to ask.

Kiron
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Steven Horst Centennial, Co, United States
Hi Mike. I’m a PM for Canon Medical Systems. I routinely work with general contractors building radiology suites that must be built to very specific specifications to accommodate Canon’s complex infrastructure requirements. I agree that we as PMs must practice our skill set when managing complex situations, but I’m also finding myself as the SME when trying direct Constuction techniques which I’m not an expert. These efforts don’t necessarily transfer to me wearing the “hard hat”. I also have no legitimate authority over the construction labor that I need, and must be prepared perfectly before I can install my company’s $1M equipment. Have you heard of this kind of friction and how can I be more effective in controlling the construction process without myself having legitimate authority over these general contractors and their employees?
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Rami Kaibni
Community Champion
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten Associates New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Michael, while it’s true that roughly 70% of a project manager’s effectiveness comes from soft skills, yet the remaining 30% of technical knowledge is still critical. This is especially true in highly technical industries like design, engineering, construction, IT, or medical research. Without a baseline understanding of the technical domain, project managers may struggle to fully grasp project requirements, assess risks, or engage meaningfully with subject-matter experts.

Project managers don’t need to be technical specialists, but they should possess enough technical competence to interpret budgets, schedules, estimates, contracts, and technical constraints. This foundational knowledge enables them to ask the right questions, identify issues early, make informed trade-offs, and support problem-solving more effectively.

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