Project Manager and Technology

There are many discussions on the need for a project manager to be technically qualified. What is a project manager and what expertise does he or she need? If there is a technical aspect, what would that be?

In the material I have developed and presented for management courses to accountants, engineers, personnel, procurement, marketing and other executive professionals I have taken the view that project management must be, primarily, a generalist role. While a project engineer might lead on civil engineering, and a project accountant will concentrate on funding and costs, and the project IT expert would lead on IT issues, it is essential that the project manager should be able to combine the expertise available for the project as a whole.

In order to do this they have to understand the issues and trust the relevant experts to explain the constraints and requirements for each of their areas. They then have to be able to synthesise the many possibly conflicting views in order to report and seek direction and agreement from the project’s client as well as to provide overall management to the project as a whole.

For this to work, while they might be very well qualified in one technical area it is unlikely that they will have been masters of more than one or two, and vital that they delegate authority for leadership on technical issues to those leaders. Distancing yourself as project manager from your main area of expertise is difficult but must be done if, as project manager, you are to be perceived to be fair to all aspects of the job and fair, therefore, to everyone involved. The project manager’s role is in overall management of the project.

Given their likely seniority and experience, it is unlikely that they will remain as experts in any initial technical discipline once they have taken the reins as project manager: they will have handed over the detail technical aspects to other people, delegating these tasks the way that any manager should if they are to develop and promote their team.

Where, then, does the technical expertise count? Using technical language will be unhelpful: the stakeholders from multiple backgrounds will not all share what might be common terminology in a specialist industry. If the project manager were to use technical language for a specialism, while this might confer some credibility with a select group, it might imply a bias which the project manager should not have, and would reduce engagement and commitment from other people.

Primarily, it is important that the project manager can explain problems and solutions in plain language so that everyone who needs to understand can do so. Being able to explain the big picture in plain language is more important than being an expert in a single field.