5 Skills Needed to Become a Technical PM

The demand for Project Managers has increased significantly over the past couple of years. Notably so in the Tech space, which typically references these roles as Technical PM, Scrum Masters, IT PM, and many other variations. Regardless of the job title, the Job descriptions are aligned to have specific technical skills. These technically proficient skills require you to manage a team of software developers, understand the technology used in the project, and still navigate the conventional requirements of team manipulation. Operating in this technical space is more demanding than dealing with the soft skills of getting a team to work together.

The potential Technical PM must still possess the capabilities required of all project managers, but there are five (5) essential technical skills needed that will make you an expert Technical PM. The in-depth knowledge and demand of those skills will vary based on the company size, resource constraints, and maturity of the overall team. The lower each of these factors is, the more weight the Technical PM will be charged with to ensure the team’s success.

We have decided to allocate some arbitrary percentage beside each skillset to really help the individual understand the ratio of skillset.

#1 Project Management (35%)

It goes without saying since the baseline of the Technical PM’s role is to have the skills to manage and successfully deliver a project. This skill is core and though other skill sets will make up the composition of your team or be required of you, most technical teams will not be able to replicate your role, unless another PM is on board. The main objectives are to facilitate meetings, manage various stakeholder expectations by setting the Project Roadmap, manage the budget and burn rate while mitigating all the risks and issues that come along the way.

Resources:

• Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification
• Prince2 Certification

#2 Scrum Master (30%)

One of the top arguments in this profession is that, “The role of a Scrum Master is a direct conflict with that of a PM.” This is simply not true. As more and more projects align to the development of software, being able to appreciate the need for a Scrum Master will be a great asset. Many major projects we have managed over the years benefit from servant leadership. You can:

• Check-in on the team during the Daily Standup.
• Analysis of the burndown chart to help the team perform.
• Overall, ensure the scrum principles and methodology are being utilized effectively.

For a scrum Master you’re down on the ground with the team, while as a PM you have a bird’s-eye view when managing all the phases of the project implementation.

Resources:

• Professional Scrum Master
• Certified Scrum Master

#3 Business Analysis (20%)

It is critical to have a clear context on delivering value for the customer. An understanding of Business Analysis brings clarity to context. Before we can drive any implementation, creativity is necessary for how we capture requirements. This requires various combination techniques to leverage in order to accurately scope out the specs for a unique product. This compliments the PM and Scrum technical skills.

Resource:

• Certification of Capability in Business Analysis™ (CCBA®)

#4 Software Architecture (10%)

Although the Business Analysis skills will capture the business requirements, there are still a few technical requirements to be considered. Software architecture is pivotal to understanding the technology utilized to deliver the product needed. Yes, there are tonnes of coding infrastructure and languages. The success of a project is reliant on identifying which ones go together to achieve the product goal. Thus, before writing a single line of code, Software Architecture lays out the technical roadmap for the development team. Selecting the appropriate architecture diagram, technology stack, and coding structure can be the make or break of a project.

Resource:

• The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF)

#5 Software Development (5%)

Year by year tech upgrades or changes completely for example specialization full-stack, backend dev, and front end dev. All the knowledge to become an expert developer takes a lot of intentional time. It is rare to see a vertical progression from a Junior dev into a Principal dev and then cross over into Project Manager. The reality is that most PMs would have never written a single line of code but have managed tons of Software projects. Therefore, having an appreciation for the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), creating a ramp-up checklist to have the team access to Git, the coding branch, etc are some ways to align to the framework of Software development rather than the specific coding language. Finally, always keep up to date with the latest development practices and tools that will make your project a success.

Conclusion:

Ideally, it’s best to have a dedicated resource for each of these technical skills which will help prevent any cascading errors that might be overlooked by a single individual working across all those technical skills. But as a Technical PM, who has acquired all these skill sets regardless of working with someone who specialises in the area, there is a lot to contribute. Having full context on what is going on and what impacts certain high-level decisions on a project is advantageous to any project. Overall, we found it key for a Technical PM to leverage all the above mention skills to be able to drive software projects to success.