Project management skills are in hot demand on the market currently, as companies are growing and scaling, projects are multiplying. The question is ‘will any project manager do?’.
Project management skills are transferrable, and while there is a huge amount of transferrable skills there are other requirements in most project management roles that come from specific industry or project experience. Project management qualifications and studying multiple methodologies provides a strong grounding for any project manager but they also vary in what they qualify you in. For example, a PRINCE2® qualification is methodology based, while PMI is industry agnostic experience based.
Most experienced project managers hold one, if not multiple, project management qualifications such as PRINCE2®, PMBOK, Six Sigma, Agile and the crème de la crème – the PMP awarded by PMI. PMP requires a degree, 35 hours of PM education and at least 4,500 hours of project management experience, or if you have a secondary degree you need 7,500 hours of project management experience and 35 hours of PM education. On top of these requirements, you need to pass an exam and maintain your qualification by having 60 professional development units every three years. A PMP qualification highlights an extremely experienced project manager but that still doesn’t mean they can slot into any project role.
There are many types of project managers; digital, infrastructure, technical, functional, agile, construction, and management consultant to name a few. When you review the job specifications for any of these, you will find many similarities such as the number of years’ experience, PRINCE2® or PMP certification, strong communication skills, reporting and managing budgets etc. and yes these are transferrable and common skills. However, where it all gets a little trickier is when you look at the requirements a project manager needs to hit the ground running. These requirements can include regulatory knowledge, experience working within a software development lifecycle, experience managing client-facing projects and unless there is experience as well as certifications in some cases, the skills simply aren’t there.
A good example of this is a project manager who has no exposure or knowledge of Agile methodology but has 10 years’ experience managing IT projects Can they transfer their skills? Yes, but the likelihood is that they won’t be capable of hitting the ground running. The stakeholders who input into this project are working in an Agile methodology and the project manager who is tying all the pieces of the project together needs to speak their language.
One of the most recognisable gaps is between project management and technical project management. The core requirements are the same, managing the project plan, timelines, milestones, risks, resources etc. but a technical project manager brings technical knowledge and understanding to the project plan. A project manager focused on functional projects generally won’t have the technical understanding required to make quick decisions and add valuable insights, however, they will have the core project management skills to put a robust project plan in place. The advantage of the technical understanding is that they can properly assess and plan for risks, ensure the status updates they receive are realistic, understand the language the software engineers speak and can be the link between technical and non-technical stakeholders.
This example carries across most comparisons, the core project management responsibilities are the same and any experienced project manager will be fluent in the setting up and management of a project. The skills they may not have are likely to be industry specific. A finance project manager won’t know how construction projects run and where planning permissions and building to code come in to play and the construction project manager won’t understand the impact of regulatory requirements in financial services. These skills can all be learned through additional learning, asking peers, researching and learning on the job but this takes time and critical projects may not have time.
Knowing your capabilities and being aware of them is in itself a valuable skill
Let’s look at the original question. Are project management skills transferrable to any industry? The answer is yes, absolutely, the core skills that are fundamental to successful project delivery will apply to any project. If we look at our other question – Will any project manager do – The answer is no, not always. If the project is complex, industry specific and requires industry knowledge, the core skills will be there but there will be a knowledge gap that most projects can’t allow for.
With all that being said, project managers are paramount to project success in most businesses and they are in high demand. Most project managers like to specialise and some display high levels of flexibility. Skills are transferred across industry in many cases and a high performing project manager will navigate any obstacle they come across including a gap in their knowledge. They understand their skills and capabilities and strive for successful project delivery so are unlikely to take on projects they can’t deliver.
Knowing your capabilities and being aware of them is in itself a valuable skill. The ability to tell the capabilities of someone else is another and that is why many businesses will look for industry experience as a key requirement for a project management position.
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Project manager photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash
