Professional and personal development are at the heart of what I do and the pillars I try to keep my team focused at. Many articles are floating around talking about the shift in skill set that the pandemic has brought upon us. To me personally, I don’t see this as a shift in skill set, but rather an eye opener to what has always been essential but not attended to.
In the past decade, I have been focusing on two frameworks that help guide my development plans. And these are the Project Management Institute’s talent triangle as well as the Chartered Quality Institute’s competency framework. In this post, I will share with you the updated Project Management Institute – PMI Talent Triangle®.
The original talent triangle include 3 key areas which all developments fell under:
- Technical Skills
- Leadership
- Strategic and Business Management
Technical Skills involved the tools and techniques required by the project manager to deliver a project. They focused on all the knowledge areas and material shared within the Project Management Book of Knowledge – PMBOK® Guide.
Leadership Skills involved all of the soft skills that a project manager requires to fulfil their duty as a change maker and a key person in navigating through the great achievements and difficult time each project, situation, and team go through.
Strategic and Business Management Skills covered all the areas that assist in identifying and delivering on the added value of the project; what is also known as the benefit realisation. The skills in this arm of the triangle took the focus beyond the scope, schedule, and cost, and dove into what added value will all the stakeholders get out of this project despite those three constraints.
So if all of the above makes sense, then what is the change and why make the change?
In 2021, PMI launched the new version of the PMBOK® Guide – the seventh edition. This edition changed the way the guide is written entirely. It moved away from the descriptive or prescriptive way of what a project manager needs to consider at every step and every knowledge area. It instead introduced the guiding principles that would influence the mindset, behaviours and outcomes a project manager must focus on. If you would like to know more about the changes made in the seventh edition, please get in touch.
To align the new approach to the guide with the development plans project managers would consider, it is essential to update the talent triangle. That was way the update was introduced. Now the triangle covers:
- Ways of Working
- Power Skills
- Business Acumen
The triangle arms maintained similar colours for a purpose. This is to give a sense of assurance to all project professionals that at this point, the change will have no impact on their professional development.
Ways of Working covers their understanding of all the principles of project management that is aligned to whatever method they choose.
Power Skills sheds more light on leadership skills. Because the pandemic has showed us the true meaning of leadership. And as the word is used a lot, giving it a new focus ‘power skills’ will highlight the importance of having that mindset to influence, collaborate, negotiate, and think out of the box to deliver on the desired outcome.
Business Acumen simply goes beyond strategy and business management. Business Acumen aligns with the Context pillar from the Chartered Quality Institute’s competency framework. This is about understand what the context is so you can help shape up the benefit realisation of the project. It is about understanding how micro and macro trends can have a major impact on your project. (you can read more about the competency framework here)
Check out PMI Talent Triangle® directly from the source here and you can find the flyer that explains the new triangle at the bottom of this blog.
What skills have you acquired as a project manager through your career? Get in touch with your story and the chance to get featured on my blog.
The Project EDIT 