Skills to Look for in Project Managers

Today I read a brief article describing the eight skills to look for when hiring an IT project manager. The headlines caught my attention and I'm sure this was the purpose. While the eight skills (conflict management, technical knowledge, business awareness, communication skills, management skills, risk assessment, ability to speak technology, and global experience) are all important skills this list is certainly a narrow view of the criteria to use when hiring a project manager.

A more complete view of project management skills should be taken from the Project Management Institute's Project Manager Competency Development (PMCD) framework (I also have my own conceptualization here). While not specific to individual skills, the PMCD framework better outlines all of the areas of proficiency an effective project manager should posses. From this framework, a set of skills can be derived and prioritized.

The skills mentioned in the article mostly describe the industry-specific expertise used to complement the basic PMCD framework but, other than risk management, the skills were limited to the Professional competencies of the PMCD. In addition to omitting professional competencies of leadership, cognitive ability, effectiveness, and professionalism, the list also did not include most areas of project performance competency and the entire set of Knolwedge competencies. The list also left off the Organizational expertise competency but, since this was a list for hiring a project manager, it can be assumed that this competency would not be expected of any new hire. Keep in mind that this required competency may be reason to consider hiring from within.

While the article certainly missed many of the competencies needed for an effective project manager, it did touch on several critical skills. The main point of the article is that we should not just focus on knowledge of project management processes when hiring a project manager; other skills are needed beyond process knowledge. The inclusion of several soft skills help make this point.