Managing projects large or small can be challenging! How do you manage all aspects of the project management lifecycle, and what type of skills and tools would you need? These are commonly asked technical project management questions, and rightfully so. Let’s dig in!
Most Project Managers can relate to that one time when they hadn’t included all team members in the project or scheduled a kick-off meeting on time. Whatever the case may be, the chance is, if you managed a project in the past, one of the scenarios mentioned above, or both, has happened to you. Sure, at that time, the world was ending. The thought was in your mind that the mistake would be remembered by all involved, forever. Luckily, in most cases, that is not what happens. However, equipping yourself with the necessary skills is a good way of preventing problems rather than solving them.
A great way to start on your project management journey is to familiarize yourself with key technical project management skills as you slowly push off the shoreline and dive into the deep waters. Of course, we all know that most of us prefer to leave the shoreline while the weather is nice and waves are non-existent, but it is important to remember that we will experience huge waves and stormy days at some point. Therefore, we want to make sure we prepare for those days.
Whether you are operating in; IT, Healthcare, Manufacturing, or the Automobile industry, project management is crucial in pretty much all facets of business operations. You may also find this website helpful and insightful as you explore more.
4 Technical Project Management Skills
Project Management skills are typically divided into two categories: soft (interpersonal) and hard (technical) skills. In this post, we will be focusing more on technical skills.
Hard Skills:
#1 Contract management and procurement
- This is a very important skill as it normally involves familiarity in converting business needs into products and services. Managing stakeholders in the supply chain plays a big role and is part of this skill set.
#2 Risk management
- This is a key role of understanding how to identify potential risks, how to manage risks, how to analyze risks, and how to control risks to avoid potential project delivery issues and negatively impact overall results. A great way of leveraging all mentioned risk skills combined with monitoring and evaluation of project performance metrics, ensures that all aspects of the project lifecycle are properly monitored and measured as part of successful project completion.
#3 Budgeting and scheduling
- Budgeting is a crucial part of every project as it requires careful planning, monitoring, and executing of the project.
- Scheduling and monitoring help to ensure that the budget is properly aligned and then monitored for possible overage. Typically, budget overage is never a good thing as it can burden the initially executed contract as well as create unnecessary overhead to the project management company. Setting the right expectations from the get-go is extremely important.
- Familiarity with scheduling tools such as Microsoft Project or Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the best way to stay on top of the project schedule, manage budget, manage resources, manage constraints, create task dependencies, create status reports, link tasks and projects, link sub-projects, among other great tools.
#4 Planning
- Project planning is just as important as all the above-mentioned skills as it helps to facilitate four key points within planning itself.
- What, work is being done?
- This key point revolves around the information and requirements gathering phase. This is the time to ask all the questions in order to understand the customer’s needs. Thus convert the gathered needs into scope of work and service.
- Why, is it being done?
- This key point helps to identify and analyze customer pain points, needs, and requirements. Drafting a scope of work will directly tie this key point to the “what” key point. Both key points are linked together as they pave the way to a proposed project or a plan.
- Who, is doing the work?
- This key point’s main responsibility is to identify who will be doing the actual work. This is another important phase within the planning phase, as it will directly tie into the resource pool. How will the work and responsibilities be divided?
- When, it will be complete?
- This key point encapsulates all three previous points and provides the project start and ending point. Of course, many times the project schedule and tasks are modified and re-adjusted throughout the project lifecycle, but its main purpose is to set a baseline.
- What, work is being done?
Soft skills:
- Leadership
- Communication
- Negotiation
- Expectation Management
Though soft skills are great traits to have, they are intangible and challenging to measure. Therefore, they are not associated with measurable deliverables.
The best way to learn
Now let’s reflect on these four technical skills you need to succeed. Even though every technical skill is different and requires managing, discipline, understanding, and executing, they are all interconnected and work in ways to help you be the best at what you do, project management. Of course, this is just a summary of functions and expectations of each technical skill as you truly start developing even more sub-skills and traits as you dive into the meat of things.
The best way to learn something is to start. The ability to just dive in and learn as you go will not only teach you how to be flexible and humble, but it will also teach you discipline, responsibility, accountability, teamwork, and much more.
If this post has caught your eye and has helped you learn something new, maybe totally blew your mind as to what exactly is involved in successful project management; please let us know in the comments below. We love sharing knowledge with others as we understand that it is a great and humane way to learn something new in return! Lend a hand to your fellow project manager and help them with some of these key technical points. I am sure that they will have something to offer in return. After all, we’re all in this together.
Resources
If you’re looking for more project management training, head over to Advisicon Academy. You’ll find an abundance of free webinar training. Plus you can earn PDUs while you learn.
We also have tools! Check out our selection of custom-created flowcharts, templates, and guides. They can be a huge help!
If you have any additional questions or comments, reach out. We’d love to hear from you.
