Blog

There are a number of complicated competency systems or competency baselines in project management, which themselves are difficult to handle. I use a relatively simple model that gives enough guidance for practice without being too much overhead itself. From my point of view, the most important areas of competence are:

• methodological competence
  Project management is a special approach to controlling complex, targeted activities. Mastery of the methods and tools developed for this purpose is a fundamental competence in project management. This affects the respective project management approach of the company and its own special methods. But also methods that are used in each of the known approaches, such as stakeholder analysis.

• leadership competence
  Leading projects is a managerial task. Just mastering the project management methods is not enough. Interdisciplinary teams works differently than business-as-usual because teams need a special kind of leadership to become efficient or even excellent. In the current situation, remote management is a very special challenge for work teams and their managers.

• stakeholder competence
  No project takes place in a vacuum, each has its own special environment. Different interests - individuals, groups, organizations - are allies, competitors or onlookers. Involving the right stakeholders in the right way at the right time is an art that often decides more about the success of the project than the factual results: Don't forget your stakeholders

• organizational competence
  A very special environment for projects is the own organization, sometimes also the organizations of customers and suppliers. That's why I'm emphasizing this field very specifically. Structured organizations, with their different functions, levels and distribution of power work very differently than teams, and each organization has its own logic and culture. Just think of the classic, the tension between line organization and project organization. Project managers need to know how their organization works.

You need strengths in all four areas of competence in project management. In further training, in coaching and in project support, we analyze which areas of competence are already well covered. And we take acare of these areas in which supplementation through training or consulting is most helpful.