Monday, July 14, 2014

Project Manager - Industry Building Block

competencies
I recently shared my conceptual model for the building blocks for project managers. This model is based on the PMCD framework published by the Project Management Institute. The building block model includes the project manager competencies of industry experience, organizational experience, professional behaviors, process knowledge, and project performance. In this post I'm going to describe the first of these building blocks; industry experience.

Industry experience is a supporting competency for project managers. Competent project managers should have a solid foundational knowledge of the industry and some technical skills, or at least an appreciation of the technical skills required in the industry. The industry knowledge includes awareness of regulatory and legal requirements, past and future trends within the industry, and experience with projects in the industry. For example, a project manager within the construction field should be familiar with OSHA and local building requirements, history and trends in construction materials, and possess the insight gained from previous construction projects to understand the sources of project risk in a construction project (like weather, fuel costs, transportation logistics, etc.).

In addition to the industry knowledge, a project manager must also posses the technical skills or at least an understanding and appreciation for the skills needed and the work to be carried out in a project within the industry. For example, in an IT project, the project manager should understand the level of difficulty for writing the code for a piece of software and understand the amount of time it takes to design, code, and test the software. The technical experience or technical skill appreciation helps the project manager assign the work to the properly skilled team member and evaluate the schedule needed to complete the work.

Industry experience is not required to meet the basic requirements for a project manager. Project managers may still succeed managing a project outside of their industry expertise. However, the knowledge of the industry and the technical skills within the industry are beneficial in understanding projects within the context of the industry. This contextual understanding of the industry enables the project manager to better communicate with the project stakeholders, better understand the sources and solutions to project risk within the industry, and improve project decision making.

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