Essential Skills for Project Managers at Every Career Stage Transcript

Ross Martin:

Our next topic Idris is wanted to talk a little bit about what are the types of absolutely critical skills that project managers need, uh, And does that change from, say, if you're new to project management, you know, an independent contributor to manager level versus maybe like a director level or something like that? How does that change as your career moves on?

Idris Manley:

Yeah, man, that's a good question. I think it falls into, I would categorize into three buckets. I would sort of look at it like a pyramid or at least a triangle. But I think one, you have to really master hard skills, what I would call hard skills. And hard skills are essentially understanding like the, you know, PM methodology, really understanding like the, you know, the nuts and bolts of how you manage a project, right? And like understand the process, the process groups, understand risk management, you know, schedule management, understand like all of the key aspects for how you actually manage a project. I think also soft skills. Okay, understanding how to communicate and understand how to negotiate how to, you know, resolve conflict. You know, the list goes on. But soft, but just generally speaking, you need to gain hard skills, soft skills. And then lastly, domain knowledge.

Ross Martin:

Okay, what do you mean domain of what?

Idris Manley:

Yeah. So I think it would, it depends. It depends on where you're at in your career. But I think if you're earlier in your career, domain knowledge is really understanding the domain of the, that your project support. So if you are a, if you're a technical project manager and you're working in software, you know, product development, you need to understand the product, how the product works. You need to understand engineering. What are the, what are the software components being used to develop and how, you know, how is it architected? really understanding the domain. If you're, you know, if you're in marketing and your project manager supporting say marketing operations, really understanding the marketing side, really understanding like the different marketing campaigns and who's the target audiences for these campaigns and what are the marketing goals for the year and how are you tracking to those goals. It's the domain. If you are more senior, I would expect you to understand the domain, the plus to understand the strategic and business domain, meaning then it's important for you to understand the business, understand what are the business goals? Who are the competitors? What are the challenges? What is the strategic plan? How are they thinking about the strategy for the year? That's all domain, but I think the more senior you become, the more incumbent it is upon you to really understand sort of the business and understand how they're trying to perform the business.

Ross Martin:

So then as you move through your career, as you said, that understanding the domain at a higher level is really important. Do, is there a point where maybe some of these hard skills or soft skills become less important over time?

Idris Manley:

No, they're, they're, they're always important, but I think of them as building blocks or Lego, right? So you, you build off of, uh, once you gain mastery and say, you know, sort of soft skills and hard skills at sort of, you know, early to intermediate level, you know, project management sort of expertise, then it's time to build on top of those and take, you know, take on more advanced sort of hard and soft skills. And I mentioned soft skills earlier, but, you know, as you become more advanced and you're looking at, say, hard skills as a more advanced sort of senior PM, I think it's important for you to really understand scale. right? To understand how do you scale projects, you know? So now it's not about just, you know, how do you understand how to manage a project? It's how do you manage complex projects and large projects or multiple projects as a program manager or at an initiative level or portfolio level, even. It's really how do you manage all of these things at scale? How do you manage people at scale? You know, maybe you're an IC now and you want to move into people management. So how do you start to manage people that are managing projects? But it's all about scale, right? And then it's also when you look at hard skills, it's about how. It's about the operational side of, of, of how do you manage in turn, you know, when you look at sort of from a, from a domain perspective, at least, you know, how do you, how do you understand sort of the how of managing a project, which is really the operational side? How efficient are we? Are we executing? How fast are we executing? you know, are, you know, what about the quality? It's really not about just delivering a project successfully in terms of getting the goals met and the deliverables done, but how are we going about doing that? And what are the KPIs and metrics that allow us to be able to evaluate, to assess how we are performing, um, you know, from an operational perspective?

Ross Martin:

One of the things that I've seen, uh, myself and other executives struggle with is the ability to, uh, as you move up, grow and leverage your teams because you can no longer your, your, as your scale and scope grow, you can no longer do everything. Um, and everyone struggles with this. Uh, and I know in, in, uh, and, and what, what's interesting is probably around the time you hit about the director level, your boss will no longer tell you what your priorities are. Everything's important, but not exactly. And you have to get to a point where you understand the strategic goals of the programs and projects or work that you're responsible for. The nuances. understanding the strategy of the company so you know how that fits in and using that to decide that this thing over here is okay with B effort on your part or delegating to someone else or maybe not doing it at all which is a crazy concept for a project manager when you're early in your career they wouldn't not doing something is strange but you you get to a point where you learn how to finite resource and how to decide which to do. And actually senior executives are watching you when you make these decisions and you make the right decisions about what to spend your time on. Absolutely.

Idris Manley:

No, I completely agree. You know, it's, uh, you're definitely, there's, there are definitely different levels of expectations as you evolve through your career. And I'm just thinking further, just even about like the soft skill side. And so, You know, even like when you're early in your career, you're working on soft skills, you're just working on really the nuts and bolts on soft skills, like I said earlier, the communication and negotiation, conflict resolution, etc. But as you become more senior and seasoned in your career, that's even your soft skills begins to sort of expand in a different way and become more advanced, because now you're you're, you know, you're working on being more influential, right? You're thinking about like leadership and you're, you're thinking about how do you, um, you know, like, like how, how do you make an impact and, and influence and inform and, you know, in ways more strategically and with executives in a way that you didn't really have to think about when you were, um, when you were just simply working with your project team and focusing on sort of the basic nuts and bolts of, of how you collaborate and get things done.

Ross Martin:

Yeah, I remember earlier in my career, one of the things that I like about project management is it as a profession and as a role, it is inherently agnostic. So you care about the delivery of your project, and then eventually you care about the delivery, better yet, of the strategic outcomes that you're trying to achieve. That is your true goal, right? And it's not this person's agenda or this person's concerns about their department or anything else. You're very locked in and agnostic and objective about people's agendas. Um, but as I, even though I really liked that as I got further up in my career, I realized you can't, you may still feel agnostic, but you need to understand people's agendas and you need to understand the politics and you need to understand what's going on in the subtext in some of these big meetings and things. So you can be successful in what you're trying to achieve, which is a successful outcome on the things you're responsible for.

Idris Manley:

And that's a soft skill. And so I consider like navigating politics to be a soft skill of a more senior. Exactly. That I would not expect. And more early stage PM to really have to think about, you know, but you have to, I think, as you move up, and you start getting exposure to senior executives, it's, there's a lot of nuances. There's a lot of, you know, people are evaluating and sizing you up and trying to determine if they can trust you and if you're competent. And there's also a lot of nuanced politics there as well that are sort of unwritten. And so your ability to be able to understand and to be self-aware and just aware of those nuances and understanding how to be nimble and adept at how to navigate through them is critical. And it's something that not everyone has the ability to do. But again, if you're looking to become a leader in project management, move up the ranks, you're going to have to figure that out and practice that muscle because it's absolutely critical. It's really just one long conversation, one long interaction with an executive and it can really be the end of your career at that company.

Ross Martin:

I saw it. I saw it in somebody who worked for me. I actually saw this happen. They implode? Well, they left. It was a trust problem. So what happened was that this person liked to talk over the water cooler. And as they got further along, they became more privy to some insight and knowledge about things. And in this case, it was an upcoming riff. And they talked. Um, so it again, and they talk to the wrong person and they talk to somebody who talked to somebody and talk, you know, and, and, uh, uh, yeah. So what, what's, what's so amazing about it then again, as, as this soft skill that will absolutely kill you later on in your career is not having the trust of the executives that you can hold an important secret. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I remember a very uncomfortable situation I was in where I was actually project managing an upcoming layoff at one of my companies, and I had lunch with a friend of mine, and I knew he was on the list. And I couldn't even imply that there was a project or a list or anything. I made sure that after that lunch, it was... In hindsight, I look back and I go, I wish I just not gone to lunch. Yeah. But, um, and so people sometimes would be like, Hey, what are you working on? I'm like, Oh, you know, not much or whatever. It just never led on anything. But then the executives know that they can, you can be in the room when, when stuff like Yeah, like an M&A is being discussed or something like that, and it will not leap.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, yeah, no, I absolutely agree. I think it's important, you know, just sort of bring it in full circle. I think it's really important for project managers as they think about how to frame their skill set in an optimal way to really keep it simple. Like, I think, you know, because if you ask someone a question, you know, what are the like important skills to have? You know, everyone will give you a laundry list of things that you should consider. But I think it can be overwhelming, right? And so I think it's really important. How do I distill this down into digestible chunks that I can understand and conceptualize and implement? And I think to that end, I think, you know, hard skills, soft skills, and domain knowledge. If you focus on those three areas, it will really sort of be that your guidepost that will help you matriculate through your career. Now, obviously, the devil is in the details, what soft skills, hard skills, and domain knowledge. At least you have a framework to begin to evaluate yourself and to understand what areas- And don't over-index on one versus the other.

Ross Martin:

Make sure they're doing all that. I remember a situation where I was starting at a new company in a project management role, and I met with the engineering leader of the product area that I was going to be responsible for. And he asked me, like, well, what's the first thing you're going to do? And I honestly don't remember what my answer was, but I remember his retort was, no, I think you should learn how this product works. Domain knowledge. Domain knowledge. And here's the thing that's important is understand your audience. So for the engineering manager, it is absolutely critical that I understood his product that he engineers. And for me not to make that the most important thing, then I think that sort of threw him.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, no, I think it's, yeah, I've had some really interesting experiences when it comes to domain knowledge, particularly working in technology, working for companies that are very innovative, very advanced. And so you're working with a lot of smart people and a lot of complex technology. And, you know, fortunately I have a computer science background. And so I was very adept at understanding technology concepts. But even for me, it was sometimes, you know, not being a coder, being able to sort of understand what's being discussed. But it really makes all the difference in the world, be able to understand and to be in a meeting and to be able to understand what they're discussing and also to be able to contribute. You know, I have a friend of mine who works at Amazon and we talk all the time and he's a program manager at Amazon and he talks a lot about like the Amazon way and how, you know, project managers there have to, you know, have to be technical. And for him, it was a challenge because historically, he wasn't expected or required in previous companies to be technical in that way, but now it's different. And they expect technical project managers to not only just sort of facilitate and lead conversations among technical teams, but have a point of view. and to really, you know, advocate for and influence, you know, so it's a very deep sort of domain, sort of expertise that they expect. And not everyone can perform at that level. But I think it does speak to the fact that, in general, and it kind of comes back to what we were talking about earlier in the show, it's really important that if project managers want to continue to figure out how to be more strategic and how to add more value, to really understand the power and the importance of the domain piece of it. Yeah. Because not that you're trying to take anyone else's job in that domain, necessarily. You're just trying to be effective enough to where you can actually contribute in a value added way to, to the project in a way that you can be respected and valued and, and actually hopefully actually make some meaningful contribution outside of just facilitating a meeting and taking meeting notes with the, with the individuals that are involved in that particular.

Ross Martin:

I found one thing that helped was, um, not understanding multiple domains on a project that are on a program that covered several areas and being able to provide what I call translation services. So, uh, so, um, as I've joked about in other situations, you know, legal people speak through word that finance speak, people speak through Excel. you know, executives speak through PowerPoint, that sort of thing. So it's their language. And I remember being in a situation where I was on a project helping out the head of HR with finance. And she didn't really understand the finance people, and the finance people didn't always completely understand. You mean she didn't speak finance? She didn't speak finance. She wanted to make sure that her budget was good for the whole year, and that was what she cared about, but she didn't really care about the devil and the details, but the finance people certainly did, as they should. But as a person who then understood both of those domains, I was able to understand the real questions coming from each side and provide that meta layer between the two functions. And I've done this also with legal. as well in some situations. And the fact is, is that some of these different groups and companies, engineers sometimes and finance and things like that, it's really important that somebody understands what both sides are trying to say and is able to make that communication and soft skill.

Idris Manley:

But you can't understand what they're trying to say if you don't understand the domain, right?

Ross Martin:

That's the point. You learn each domain you're involved with. When I got on a project one time where we were implementing a new contract management software at our company, it was the first time I'd ever really dealt closely with people in legal. But I learned a lot. And one of the things that helps is just showing interest in their function and what they do. They'll teach you. as long as you genuinely find what they're doing interesting and valuable, they'll tell you the stuff you need to know. And then from that point forward, now you're somebody who kind of understands that area a little bit. So again, it's people want to tell you what they do. Yeah.

Idris Manley:

You know, it's interesting. I, I, um, it makes me reflect on like some of the earlier parts of my career. I think, you know, so I, I, I've come to realize that PMs there's, you know, different types of PMs or PMs that, you know, can be a bit lazy. and PMs that are not, right? Like it's just different levels of like motivation and all of those things. And I think that, you know, very early in my career, I think that, you know, I was a pretty smart PM and I didn't think that I had to necessarily work as hard on the domain. You know, I have a computer science degree, I understand it. You know, I can just sort of look at the document and understand the gist and, you know, have a meeting and help sort of manage it, et cetera. But I think, but over time, I realized that while I was sort of getting by on my inherent ability, technical sort of chops and ability to sort of be a fast learner, I was doing myself a disservice and I was doing my career a disservice by not really spending more time going deeper into the domain. And so I realized that it started to sort of limit my ability to continue to move up as a leader based on that fact alone. And the minute I realized that then I was at a crossroads, I had to, I decided to pivot. And I was at that point that I decided to actually invest more of my time. So when I'm going home, you know, I'm spending time reading, you know, you know, different technical documents and reading different things that are the artifacts that are available to help me better understand the domain of this project, um, so that I can add, I can add more value and impact. And once I did that, you know, my career sort of just really took off and, you know, I'm, I'm being assigned even more projects, more, uh, you know, more engineers and product managers, et cetera. They, they want to, they want me to work on their projects. I'm getting, you know, I'm being considered for promotions. work more rapidly, like everything really started to move in the right direction once I really took the domain piece seriously as an individual contributor. And then certainly as a leader, being able to really understand domain, again, domain knowledge and from a strategic perspective, really then also it allowed me to sort of accelerate and fast track because now I understand what the executives are thinking. I understand how I understand the business and I'm able to contribute to discussions in a way that I'm able to understand the business outcomes and the business goals. and talk about how they meaningfully apply to the projects I'm working and how we can optimize projects to improve our ability to reach those results. And so then that, yet again, gave a lot of wind beneath my sails to be able to move up as an executive as well. And so, again, I think it's very critical. The domain piece cannot be understated. I mean, we know that the hard skills is important. That is the bread and butter. You have to understand the hard skills. That's what you get paid for. But you have to understand those soft skills and domain knowledge as well.

Ross Martin:

Yeah. And I think one of the mistakes that project managers, especially at your earlier in your career, make is thinking that if you are truly become a master of those project management hard skills, that that's enough. That's enough.

Idris Manley:

No, it will, that, you know, back to our earlier discussion around sort of being strategically underutilized and PM said is the main reason we're strategically underutilized is because we have, we have sort of hung our hat on the what on the ability to deliver projects. when that should really be the starting point in our career, not the sort of the end point. And so a lot of project managers, they get stuck somewhere around senior project managers, senior program manager, and they, you know, either they struggle to sort of break through to director level positions, they never reached VP positions, And they're wondering why do you think that maybe they can just move from company to company to be able to sort of move out the ranks and look at the opportunity and they're finding their, their, just their career is stagnant. And I would argue that oftentimes it's stagnant because they don't figure out how to master the domain and or the soft skills piece of it.

Ross Martin:

Yeah. I think, I think that's, that's the problem.