Projects are the engine of organizational value generation, they allow to crystallize the strategy and achieve customer satisfaction. Professionals dedicated to project management do not have an easy mission, since their success goes beyond being technical experts and applying knowledge, skills, and tools, suggested by good practice, or the fruit of experience, there are other factors to consider in order not to fail in the attempt, such as economic and market conditions, culture and organizational style. The Project Managers that today's globalized world requires must have the ideal skills reflected in the Talent Triangle for Project Management (TTGP).
In the VIII Global Project Management Survey, conducted by the Project Management Institute (PMI®) in 2016, for the first time the concept of TTGP is mentioned, and it is emphasized the fact that the Project Manager must look beyond the skills of Technical Project Management, and also have Leadership, Strategic and Business Management skills, which facilitate their contribution to the strategic objectives of the organization. So much so, that it is suggested that if an organization focuses its efforts on having Project Managers with all three types of skills, the number of projects that meet their original objectives will increase by 40%.
Technical Project Management Skills
Due to the evolution of business and the application of project management at a global level with a more professional approach, different organizations formed by experts in the field, have built and proposed standards and methodologies that enhance the success of projects: the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) of the PMI®, the IPMA Competence Baseline (ICB®) of the IPMA, the ISO 21500:2012, and the Project in Controlled Environments (PRINCE2), developed by the British government. A Project Manager, by mastering one or more of these standards, certifies that he/she has the technical skills required to manage a project from its different aspects; with this, he/she can build his/her own project management methodology, and contribute with standardized practices for the entire organization. However, this is not enough to be successful; it also requires leadership and strategic and business management skills to cope with external factors that are not under your absolute control.
Leadership Skills
In a research conducted by Kappelman, McKeeman, and Zhang (2006), they determined that one of the early warning signs of project failure was having a weak Project Manager, in other words, no leadership. This soft skill is critical to address problems caused by the culture and style of the beneficiary organization such as: low level of stakeholder commitment (sponsor, executives, project team members), organizational structure and authority relationships, resistance to change, geographic allocation and distribution of resources and facilities, ineffective communication system, and information silos.
Strategic and Business Management Skills
The approval of a project is based on the business case, a document that evidences the benefits that would be generated by the results of its implementation, and the value that the organization would obtain by contributing to its strategic objectives. This is when the economic and market conditions must be taken into account when analyzing the project from a business perspective, providing information to facilitate decision-making by senior management. If the Project Manager has Strategic and Business Management skills, he/she will not risk managing a project whose business case does not exist or is deficient in its feasibility analysis, but will detect opportunities for improvement and ensure that the project is aligned to the strategy, and is able to deliver the benefits required by the organization and its stakeholders.
For 2017, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) projects a regional economic growth of only 1.1%, and for Ecuador 0.6%, so it will not be an easy year for Ecuadorian project managers, where they will have to fight for resources for their projects to be approved, surely whoever has the TTGP, will have the upper hand.
