Capabilities of a Project Professional
In an industry that is focused on certification and training, a different approach is required.
Competencies vs Skills vs Capabilities
Before we start, let’s define the difference between skill, competency, and capability¹.
A skill is a learned ability to perform a task at work. These are usually learned skills through training, study, and experience.
A competency is an assessment of a person’s ability at work. Companies tend to use it to assess an employee’s expertise against the standard.
A capability is the collective set of skills, knowledge, processes, tools, behaviors, and values that deliver a tangible outcome.
Capabilities are more organizational-based as they include tools and processes.
The concept of capabilities for an individual can be used to develop and create your craftsmanship as a project manager. This can give a holistic view of what you as a project manager need to develop and gain experience in to progress in your career. It’s easy to get lost in specific individual skills and knowledge without having a bird’s eye view of where and how those things fit in.
“The task of a craftsman, they conclude, is not to generate meaning, but rather to cultivate in himself the skill of discerning the meanings that are already there.” Cal Newport
Below are the important capabilities that a project manager needs to develop.
Ability to learn
With the pace of change that is happening in the world, learning new things and unlearning old things become an important skill. This capability includes:
- Reading skill. The last time we learned to read was back in pre-school or kindergarten and unless you took a speed reading course at university or in your own time, you’ve never progressed your reading skills since then.
- Focus and traction. With the advent of the smartphone, our ability to focus and create traction has taken an absolute beating. It’s the ability to focus and get things done over time. It’s knowing how to focus, reduce internal and external distractions, and the discipline to put it into place.
- Learning and retention. The skill in learning, knowing the difference between passive and active learning, note taking, applying the knowledge in solving problems and in the real world, retaining the information, and recalling it when required.
It would also include your personal systems and processes in how you learn, your note-taking system, how you create focus and traction, and how you practice your skills.
Ability to adapt
It’s a cliche but it’s true — the only constant thing is change. Being adaptable has never been more critical in the last two decades.
Adaptability encompasses several skills and values:
Resilience. This is the ability to deal with challenges and bounce back from difficult events. This would include stress and anxiety management, being optimistic/ pragmatic, and how you process change.
Flexibility. This is the ability to manage changes in circumstances about problems and challenges in creative ways. Your skills in creativity and how you create things and problem-solve would form part of this.
Values. Having values that hold you to a moral compass. I believe the cardinal values of courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom are a good start. You may have many more and others. This would be the compass that you use to evaluate change, your response, and how you deal with it.
Acquiescence. Accepting circumstances that you cannot change. This doesn’t mean a passive acceptance. But acceptance of the situation and look for an alternative path or plan. Not spending time ruminating or wishing things would be different.
Project Management
The capability of project management is more than skills, knowledge, and certification in project management. It’s about having peripheral skills in processes and tools that overlap with other capabilities like domain knowledge and communication skills.
Experience also plays a part in the project management capability. How you develop experience, how you capture lessons learned and integrate them into your processes and systems.
This will include your personal system and approach to managing projects. What systems have you got in place, how do you track and control project activities, and how do you plan a project.
Specific company or organizational knowledge also plays a role in this. How the company culture affects project management, forming relationships with stakeholders and other people in the organization who need to do the work, and who to go to for help or assistance.
Domain Knowledge
Domain knowledge covers the industry as well as the specific area in which you manage your project. For example, as a software application project manager in the banking industry, my domain areas are Information Technology, specifically software development, and banking and finance. These are broad topics and that doesn’t mean that I know everything. It’s a continual process to learn and understand the domain areas.
Domain knowledge is developed through learning and experience in the domain area and keeping abreast of the latest developments and changes in the market or domain. It links back to the capability of learning.
Communication Skills
This capability is important not only for project managers but across other roles and careers.
Understanding the techniques and skills of the various aspects of communication like having difficult conversations, influence, public speaking, writing, and conflict management.
Understanding these different skills and developing them through practice in day-to-day activities. Also knowing how the process and guidelines are in your company on some of these communication skills. For example, your company may have standard packs for presentation or a formal process to manage conflict.
Opportunities to develop these capabilities
These are capabilities that I believe are required as a project manager. There may be other capabilities that you would consider important. Add them to the list and think about not only the skill but also the following:
- Experience — what level of experience do you need to develop? As an example, you might have strong technical skills but low communication skills and this would be a focus for development.
- Tools — tools that you need to be good at using. What are the tools you are good at and what do you need to develop? Your organization may use MS Project but the industry standard is the Atlassian tool. So you’ll need to develop skills in the Atlassian tool if you haven’t got experience in it.
- Systems — your organization may have a set of systems for managing projects that you need to understand and know how to use. You’ll also need to consider your personal system for doing things and how it fits in.
- Behaviors — also consider the values and ways of working within your organization, your professional association, and your industry. What changes need to happen with your ways of working and attitude to align with these?
Craftmanship
This approach helps to develop craftmanship in project management. The craftmanship mindset is where you focus on mastery, contribution and continuously improving your craft. And your craft is project management. It develops clarity in your purpose and direction of your career.
Try this approach and see your satisfaction develop.
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