Datasheet

10
Chapter 1

Establishing Project Management Fundamentals
FIGURE 1.1 Project management process groups
Key Project Management Skills
When this author (Kim) started her career in project management, the field wasn’t even called
project management. We were known by a host of names: analysts, implementation special-
ists, engineers, integrators, hey you, and so on. Several times before the term
project manager
became commonplace, my coworkers and managers would describe us as “those organized
people with a mix of technical, business, and people skills—you know, the ‘do everything’
kind.” In reality, this description wasn’t, and still isn’t, far from the truth. Project managers
must have a wide variety of skills and they must have high competency levels in those skill sets.
Four cornerstones frame the skill set of every good project manager:

Leading

Communicating

Team building and motivating

Negotiating and problem solving
From these skills, the project management house is constructed. Project management skills
form the next floor. General management skills, technical skills, organizational skills, business
skills, industry-specific skills, and so on all build upon this foundation. We will look at each
of the foundational skills later in this section with the exception of team building. We’ll cover
that topic in Chapter 5, “Planning and Acquiring Resources.”
Project Management Process Groups
Initiating
Closing
Planning
Executing
Monitoring and
Controlling
Communication
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