My intention is to write a book titled “PRINCESS” which will be a soft skills companion for the hard skills focused PRINCE2 or any other project management (PM) methodology.

The book will be designed as a uniquely Kiwi companion to the UK process-heavy PRINCE2 methodology that largely ignores the so-called soft skills essential for PM success. Once the technical processes of PRINCE2 have been mastered, it’s always the people that make the difference. Soft skills help us use our hard skills expertise to full advantage. So, to be effective PMs we need both soft skills and hard skills, and research supports this assertion, but let’s describe these two skill sets:

Hard Skills. Hard skills are technical abilities that generally involve the creation of a tangible deliverable such as a work breakdown structure (WBS), project schedule, critical path diagram, earned value reports, and … Read More »

Big projects mean we can’t do all the work ourselves,  and no one wants us to because we aren’t that good at everything. So assigning or delegating project tasks to others who possess the requisite skill sets is crucial to getting the project done. Within an organisation, project management (PM) itself is an example of delegation of authority, typically from the CEO to the project sponsor to the PM.

Delegation means realising results, by empowering and motivating others to achieve their assigned targets. But before we explore this important soft skill further, we need to have an understanding of three terms – accountability, responsibility and authority. The main difference between them is that the last two can be shared, while the first cannot, and responsibility moves upwards, whereas authority flows downwards.

Accountability. Accountability is the answerability for performance of assigned tasks. … Read More »