Balancing Technical And Human Management Skills In Projects

Skills of Project Manager

Discuss about the Report of Balancing Technical And Human Management Skills In Projects.

The field of project management continuous to grow putting pressures on project managers who cannot sustain demands just by having technical skills but today they are also required to have human management skills like communication and leadership skills. Project managers are required to not just assure creation of products or prototypes but also manage communication between different departments including functional and support departments. Thus, a project manager has to assume a dual leadership role managing technical requirements of projects and human skills required to managing people (Gillard, 2009).

Earlier, project managers were chosen on the basis of technical expertise. For instance, if a Project Manager was chosen for management of IT projects then he would be selected on the basis of his knowledge and experience of system analysis and design. However, the requirement of companies have changed and most hiring managers who sought technical expertise in project managers initially have started to get inclined towards the interpersonal skills of managers(Gillard, 2009).

As per theorist Dr. Russell Archibald (2009), a project manager in any organization has two key objectives to fulfil and these include assuring compliance of activities with the strategic objectives of the organization and; Planning, execution and control of project in such a manner that all the objectives of the same are achieved within the allotted time and budget. Archibald has recognized lack of technical skills like an understanding of cost analysis, scheduling, risk analysis and so on can be a major cause of failure of any project. However, to attain the objectives of a company as a project manager, the manager also needs to have other social skills like strategy development and risk management skills. A project manager not just develops the plan for a project but also  executes and manages activities that are decided.

Jennifer Whitt (PMP – 2012) identifies two skills of a project manager and these include technical and behavioural skills. Behavioural skills include leadership capabilities like change management, risk management planning, organization, communication and so on. Technical skills include tools, techniques and methodologies that are necessary for a project manager to know in order to be able to achieve objectives of the project. Techniques like decision maps, Gantt charts, pareto chart and control charts are some of the examples of technical knowledge  a project manager needs to have.

Technical expertise include understanding of project management procedures such as Work break Down Structure, scheduling ,variance, budgeting, dashboard development and so on. Interpersonal or human skills include communication, leadership, negotiation, decision making and problem solving skills. These skills are more intangible in nature and involves use of certain types of tools. Technical skills require a highly specialize knowledge on a subject of which the project manager needs to be an expert. He or she must understand methodologies that are used for completing technical tasks. Social skills like honestly, team spirit and reliability actually take a back seat when the need for technical knowledge is high (Dr. Archibald, 2009).

Interpersonal Skills versus Technical Skills

When comparing projects that fail, if  a comparison is made between the soft skills and hard skills of project managers while exploring causes of failure, the importance of skills for achieving success on a project can be understood (Marando, 2012).

Figure 1: Reasons for project failure (Marando, 2012)

Human skills facilitate effective interactions between members of a project.  Human skills can be categorized into social or interpersonal skills,  self-control and monitoring skills and Self-Esteem (Zubedi, 2014).

Inter-personal skills: Interpersonal skills can be an outcome of an overlap between  thoughts, feelings and actions. These skills are used by a project manager to have an efficient communication with others and within team members. These skills can help a manager understand ones values and behave in line with them (Hartman, 2008).

Self-Control and Monitoring: When a project manager monitors oneself, it helps one in adapting situations. For this, a project manager uses social cues received from others such that the perceptions of these people could be understood. Low-Self-Monitors (LSM) and High-Self Monitors (HSM) are the methods used by Project managers for monitoring and evaluating social cues (Whitt, 2012).

Self-Esteem: Self-Esteem is a result of combination of self-confidence and self-respect. It reflects how a person values oneself and it affects the way a person deals with problems and challenges.

It can thus be said that interpersonal skills are those shaping the behaviour of a project manager and the if this behaviour is effective for  a project can be determined by using self-control and monitoring methods that can help one evaluate the effectiveness of the social skills of a project manager.

Nurick (1993) says that organizations often ignore interpersonal communication skills and feel that they should only work on technical aspects of a project while another things would be automatically taken care of. However, in reality,  organizations face difficulties like power struggle, differences in point of views and conflicts that require a project manager to use interpersonal skills to manage. For instance, when making a selection of a person for a job, it is not only the technical knowledge that would play a role, but a project manager may also want to know how good they are when confirming their interpersonal skills.  On projects, the team members are not only are trained on technical skills but they are also involved in other activities like team building and relationship building (Nurick, et al., 1993).

Gemmil and Welimon ( 1994) had studied  100 technical project leaders  from technology based organizations in New York. He had found in the study that building a high performing team was required for a project to be successful but at the same time, team building was one of the most complex and difficult task. A project manager takes care of technical requirements of a project but at the same time, he or she may also face challenges of interpersonal communication and then the project manager would require to have motivating or educating training sessions for employs on interpersonal skills For senior level managers, team can be modelled and the result may be openly discussed with all (Gemmill & Wilemon, 1994).

In 2001, El-Sabaa has conducted a study on 126 project managers who were from three industrial sectors including information system,  electricity and agriculture. The study took views of 96 functional managers from Egypt  from private and public sects. ate study had explored how they differed from functional managers  in their skills, experiences and  attributes. He had found that human skills was the most important skills that are required from project managers with 85.3% percentile received for the skill in the study. The second most important skills are the ability to organize and conceptualize things., Technical skills were found to be the third important skills in project managers (El-Sabaa, 2001).

Cheng, Dainty and Moore (2005) studied the construction sector of UK where the performances and skills of efficient project managers and average manners were explored.  The aim of this research was to establish a framework for identifying criteria on the basis of relationship that exit between the project success and the competencies of project managers. These criteria for comparing performances of managers could be judged using 9 factors that included leadership, team building, decision making, approachability, honesty or integrity, communication, self-motivation, learning and understanding. and external relationships. The study cleanly summarized that factors that make project managers highly skills are actually human factors of considering (Cheng, et al., 2005).

Stevenson and Starkweathers’ (2010)  had investigated IT executives for  understanding project management practices and ion the stuffy it was found the these executives gave more importance to interpersonal skills over the technical expertise. Six major skills were identified as core competences of project managers in the study and these included leadership, communication skills, viral and written skills, attitudes to deal with change and ambiguities. Companies hired people into project management role based on their interpersonal skills while only a certain level of technical expertise was considered in the selection process. In the study,  the Project manager had interpersonal skills to manage teams and processes, the companies were willing to train them on the technical front to create a balance between technical and human skills of project managers (Stevenson & Starkweather, 2010).

Azim´s et al. (2010) paper explored project complexities and the understanding of the same by the project managers. The study was conducted on the aerospace sector. Project managers who worked on different project settings that had different types and levels of project complexities were involved in the study as participants. The project managers told that they required hard skills of project management to organize, plan, track and manage changes. These project managers also highlighted the importance of having interpersonal skills that they said could help in managing complexities in different ways. A new complexity triangle was proposed in this research including people , product and process as key dimensions (Azim, et al., 2010).

When comparing views of different researchers, it can be said that when the theoretical considerations of project managers were taken, most essential skills recognized by researchers included technical skills and change management capabilities. However, the actual studies on project managers added other areas of expertise as requirements for efficient project management such as team skills, organization skills, conceptualization capabilities and interpersonal skills. Cheng came up with a model of capability for project manager by combining 9  factors that included leadership, team building, decision making, approachability, honesty or integrity, communication, self-motivation, learning and understanding. In any of the case, Interpersonal skills were considered to be major value add for the core of project managers capabilities in practice.

Interpersonal skills are becoming important and prominent in the world of project management and major project management institutes like OMI now recognize interpersonal skills like leadership, communication, team building motivational capabilities, cultural awareness, political awareness and negotiation skills. In 2008, PMBOK guides new edition had added interpersonal skills elements in the guide as significant. A project manager needs to create a balance between these interpersonal skills and technical skills (Kennedy-Moore, 2011).

PMBOK guide states the need of effectiveness communicated and elegant skills. It suggests that lack of communication skills is the single biggest cause of failure on a project. While earlier project management performances were measures against technical dimensions including cost, quality and time,   new approaches take the interpersonal skills as important. Technical skills like making of charts or graphs would not render results in the project manager knows who to communicate the information well to the top management and even to his or her employees or joiners. Today. there are a diverse set of people that work in an organization with different cultures, generation, age, regions,   religions with different strengths and weaknesses. To have good interpersonal skills, good communication skills is a prerequisite (Weiner, 2000).

The project management principles defined in PMBOK guide support the view of importance of interpersonal skills of a project manager which was found necessary for success by organizations. Thus, PMBOK guidance may be used to develop a strategy for assessment and development of interpersonal skills of a project manager such as communication skills and social skills.

Project managers are required to spend most of their time in meetings, problem solving and negotiation which is why a project success which is dependent on how  a project manager performs require a project manager to have god communication skills.

A project managers may use four types of communication methods including formal communication such as written project charter and status reports, informal written communication such as memos and project notes,  formal oral presentations,  and informal oral communication like done in social meetings (Taylor, 2006).

Project managers require personal skills to be able to manage teams and , eliminate project obstacles, manage team conflicts, resolve issues within and even  outside the team for smooth functioning of the project. Some  project managers can use personal skills on their  job can be :

A project manager may use manage by Example (MBE) technique for operating when which the project manager would display his own skills and expertise and the same is observed by his juniors. such a project manager is required to be knowledgeable, honest and straightforward such that a conductive and motivating environment is created for juniors (Lengnick -Hall, 2011).

A project manager is require to attain positive attitudes even at times of conflicts and major difficulties failing which , the confidence of the project manager over her capabilities and possibilities would reduce leading to issues in project(Grantham, 2000).

Project manager must be able to deal with problems and must handle the same directly, clearly and openly. If the problems are faced in an organization and the project manager is unable to solve the same at his or level then the same needs to be escalated to a senior manager which required a project manager to have good communication skills such that he or she can not only communicate with the internal team working on a project but can also communicate the progress, problems and other aspects for that project efficiently with the senior managers(Pearson, 2000).

Figure 2: Personal Skills of a Project Manager (Pearson, 2000)

A project manager should understand oneself and practice interpersonal skills that to facilitate and lead participations in projects. Effective managers can be seen as those people who are able to manage themselves effectively with discipline coming from inside (Kutlu & AslanoÄŸlu, 2009).

In practice there are many training programs that target on educating managers on the technical expertise but there are only a few opportunities available for developing interpersonal skills in people. This is due to the fact that training individuals on personal things is not so easy as it is for training them technically. Interpersonal skills is something which allows managers to work with people. The interpersonal skills cannot be learnt through theories but can only be learnt through practice (Barton & Barton, 2011).

Further, in the interpersonal space, there are some complex skill requirements. Egan (1976, p. 202) talks of the importance of the skill of immediacy which is a communication skill that is achieved through the combination of empathy, confrontation and self-disclosure (Erden & Erden, 2009).

A training material has been used by various organizations to train their employees on interpersonal skills using teams and group dynamics. The course that was designed to develop skills of managers in the personal space identified six factors of learning including:

• self-disclosure that allowed managers to clearly express their emotions without becoming aggressive,
• concreteness of expressions allowing them to communicate precisely and clearly,
• active listening through engagement via eyes, body language and nods to be able to absorb whatever is being said(Norman, 2010),
• empathy allowing managers to understand the perspectives of others before responding to any situation,
• genuine presence by showing self-consistency and respect for others and
• constructive confrontation which helps them criticize things by being descriptive making way for behavioural change and not overreaction(til, 2012).

Conclusions

It was found that technical expertise had been considered as one of the most important criteria for selection of project managers earlier but with increasing need for interpersonal skills for managing projects, the preferences of employers are changing and they have started to hire project managers based on their interpersonal skills such that they are given more weight age than technical skills. Companies are willing to train their project managers on technical skills if they carry good interpersonal Skills. The study highlighted that technical skills do not give results unless the personal is able to manage things efficiently with people which requires interpersonal skills. When considering project failure, the major reasons behind the failure of any project was lack of interpersonal skills in most cases. The interpersonal skills that were identified as most important in this paper included communication skills, leadership capabilities, team building, change management, and active listening.

References

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