The Eight Skills Needed on the Path to Project Management
I remember when I was promoted from a humble engineer to the dizzy heights of project manager back in my twenties. The company I worked for successfully turned a reasonable engineer into a poor project manager! Worse than that the company also wanted me to be the “technical architect” (create the products) of the project.

What I needed was the project management skills to manage change. Picture my frazzled brain by mid-week: “I must get this design optimised, but I must get it done by Friday and not spend any more than 15 hours doing it.”

Whatever the specialist area of your organisation, it is important to understand the difference here:

Specialists use their skills and experience to create specialist products (deliverables). These products can be anything from hardware, software, roads, documents, service delivery, aircraft, buildings, carpentry, and HR guidelines, the list is endless.
Project managers on the other hand, need general management skills, along with a knack for problem solving. Project managers are there to plan and manage the work – NOT to do it!

So what is the project management skill set?

1. Be a Leader and a Manager
Leaders share and communicate a common vision (of some future state); they gain agreement and establish the forward direction. They motivate others. Managers are results driven and focus on getting work done against agreed requirements. A good project manager will constantly switch from a leader to a manager as situations require.

Read on at ProjectSmart.