Tools Don’t Manage Projects, PM’s Do!

As I engage with folks in preparation for coaching and training them on project management, I’ll ask questions to get a sense of their background, experience and what they are looking for as an outcome of the process. Often, the response includes something to the effect of: “I want to learn the tools of project management (e.g., MS Project, Smartsheet, etc.).“

The very same sentiment was shared at the beginning of a recent training session with a few “IT guys” when I asked: “Do you have any questions from our last session? And/or, are there things you are hoping to see next?” To this questioning, the response I received was, “The stuff we’ve covered so far is good, but I really want to learn the tools of project management.“

It was at this point that I had an epiphany…

To provide training on PM tools and expecting a person to be an effective project manager would be like training someone on the use of a calculator and expecting them to be a CPA. That is, to become a CPA one needs to learn the process and methods of accounting. To become a PM one needs to learn the process and methods of project management…

Further, the Project Management “Primer” we provide covers a number of foundational skill areas we consider absolute prerequisites to learning the process, methods and tools of PM. These skill areas include:

• Time Management
• Collaboration
  • Interpersonal Management
  • Email Management
  • Meeting Management
  • Public Speaking
  • Global Considerations
  • People Dynamics
• Analytical & Organizational
• Domain Knowledge

My experience tells me that the above are foundational for success in any leadership role and most certainly project management. As such, we cover the above prior to getting into the process, methods and tools of PM to ensure that each person has these key skill areas to build upon in their quest to become a high performing project manager. It is only then that we cover core PM topics (the People/team, Process/methods and Technology/tools)…

For example, in a relatively short amount of time I can train someone on how to input the necessary information into a PM tool to build out a project plan. However, the more challenging part of this exercise is actually gathering the information from our team members through an iterative and collaborative process. As such, a PM tool is very much like a calculator. I can easily show you how to input the parameters needed for the calculation. The challenge arises in obtaining, oft-times negotiating, these parameters from the vocationally diverse and geographically dispersed members of our project team.

Fortunately, for our readers, we’ve written blog posts on many of the above topics (and MUCH more) which are available at our topical index of articles on High Performance Project Management by clicking here…

Bottom-line: aspiring PMs are highly encouraged to bone-up on the prerequisite skill areas (above) in advance of learning core PM topics as these are logical stepping stones in the journey to becoming a High Performance Project Manager.

In closing, if you are looking to improve PM capabilities in yourself, or organization, feel free to reach out so we can discuss how I can help!