Dear Aniko your question is a little general and it has various aspects to discuss about. For example project management in software industry is a distinct course whereas its competences are completely unique. In software project management simply the ability of the manager to have insights about project milestones and software artifacts could lead to a steady management. Also It is important to say, same with other practices, for project planning-estimation the ability to specify an efficient method even a customized one, could be very helpful for the optimal results and maximum stakeholder satisfaction.

Dear Ali,

thank you for your help.

Not to make the question so general I can rephrase it as follows:

What competences might seem important/essential:

- on the one hand when 'person-to-person interactions' (face-to-face communication) are taken into consideration during project work, and

- on the other hand when 'non person-to-person interactions' (e.g. communication via e-mail, adding something into a database)?

So this topic can be viewed from two different direction.

Furthermore within these different directions it would also be interesting to know which competences can be considered general (used in every kinds of projects) and which can be used only in certain project types (or project phases).

There are different roles in the process of a project. As a manager with the account on your specification, direct interactions are used during the project meetings. At every checkpoint there should be a review procedure on the progress and if necessary a meeting should be appointed. In this meetings the manager gets to know about the issues/advantages related to the assigned resources and on the other hand regulates them accompanied by deliverables with the stakeholders' expectations.Brokering in this scenario is a very important competence considered for a typical manager. But as for the employees who participate in the work breakdown, adaptability with the manager, environment and other employees is very important capability. Generally for every project work that comprises of several persons the first important factor is adaptability to current work and personnel's fast-effective communication will be favorable to smooth progress and better results.

Dear Ali, thank you for the great competences you shared. How would you describe fast-effective communation?

Aniko, it is a very good question and indicates your precision and attention over my answer. In the context of project management communication is the most important factor for transference of knowledge. Especially for transmission of tacit knowledge, communication should be defined with a different way which this is what I called as effective. For example to learn about a special technique that is used for coding by a senior expert in software engineering, a junior practitioner needs to be accompanied by this expert for a determined period of time. After transference of required knowledge, the junior could start to work independently on the related work areas.

As for the "fast" attribute which I specified with "effective" term, methods that are implemented for knowledge transferring should be discriminated by their required time. Consequently if a method is only considered as effective, it could take a long time that will not be efficient for the project work. But a trade-off between these two factors of knowledge transferring, it is possible to reach out to a point which contributes the most desired output for the project work. It could be a face-to-face method or IT-based technology to facilitate the process of knowledge transferring.

I hope these answers help you.

Best Wishes

Ali, I like the answer, thank you.

I am also interested in those techniques, methods that can be used to develop these competences. Any suggestions?

Aniko,

I would begin distinguishing between individual competences and group processes. Is project work dependent on the individuals’ competencies, or is it the process that makes groups successful? In Ali’s example of the junior practitioner following a senior engineer for a while, the question would be: Was the junior engineer learning the process, or was he learning new competences? From my experience new engineers (my background) are trained how the organization wants things to be done, they are trained in the organization’s processes. You may want to look at project work from a process perspective. Look at the Input-Process-Output (I-P-O) and the Input-Mediator-Output-Input (I-M-O-I) models from team and small group research. If you want specific references let me know.

Research is beginning to tell us that diversity in groups results in improved performance compared to more homogenous groups. This could mean that more diverse groups will be more successful at project completion? In some cases, it is the diversity and not the competences that make the group more successful.

Regarding your comment about face-to-face and virtual groups: research is indicating that one key component to knowledge creation / ideation is increasing the number of interactions between individuals. This would be the same for groups that meet face-to-face and for virtual groups. The difference is in the method in which these interactions are increased. Further research has shown that increasing these interactions is the critical component, not the content during these interactions. For more information on this research you can view Alex Pentland at MIT labs and look up his articles in Harvard Business Review. 

Just a few thoughts that you might find helpful. Best of luck. Let us know what you come up with.

John

HI Anikó, with regards to competencies, the Project Management Institute has given set of guidelines. You have to refer the PMBOK 2013 edition. PMBOK outlines Leadership, Team building, Motivation, Communication, Influencing, Decision Making, Political and Cultural Awareness, Negotiation, Trust building, Conflict Management, and Coaching. In addition, they have to have the following skills:

http://www.pmi.org/About-Us/Ethics/~/media/PDF/Ethics/ap_pmicodeofethics.ashx

there is no such thing as one competency is better than the other...Although in practical sense, no would have every single characteristics, as the time goes by, the PM are expect to develop these skills.

A PM communicates over 80% of the time. Of course communication is pivotal. However, what about if the project has an offshore team? What about those team culturally different from that of PM?

http://www.projectmanagementguru.com/communication.html

Competencies required during project work: 

1. Team Cohesion 

2. Team Collaboration

3. Team Communication 

4. Team Accountability 

5. Team Coordination 

6. Mutual Trust 

7. Respect for Individual