How Technical should a Telecom Project Manager be?

How technical does a telecom project manager need to be? By the same token, how technical "should" a project manager be? Should the project manager spend most of his or her time on site, or be driving the project from behind a desk in head office?

The answer is a complex one and it depends upon whom you ask.

In large and mature Telco’s, project managers will have the benefit of a pool of technical specialists. These will be assigned to the project. Project Mangers are usually advised, if not instructed, to focus on driving the project forward and not to get involved with the project's technical details. The theory behind this philosophy is that project managers cannot drive a project if they are involved in technical details. 

While this is true in developed and mature Telco’s, the situation is often very different in smaller, less developed Telco’s.

A project manager that has a good technical understanding of the products and services he or she is delivering, has many advantages. One major benefit is that the project manager can perform many tasks without assistance from technical specialists such as technical reporting, anticipating technical problems and risks, ensuring technical quality as well as managing scope creep and change requests.

Technical understanding is most important in a project’s implementation phase. At this stage of the project, the costs are at the highest, as the hardware and software would have already been purchased. This is also the stage where the project has the highest probability of unexpected technical issues that will cause delays in the timeline, increased costs and an increased scope of works.

On paper during the design phase, everything looked good. Now that the design actually has to be implemented and function, issues arise that quite often come as a complete surprise.

A project’s implementation phase needs to be managed by an implementation manager, in the same way that a project manager manages the rest of the project. Either the project manager performs the task of both or hires the services of a dedicated Implementation Manager (IM).

This decision is primarily based upon whether the project manager has the time and skill to also perform the task of an IM, and whether for him/her to do so, would be a productive and efficient use of his/her time.

In some cases, it may be preferential for him/her to hire an IM and then to project manage a different, secondary project in parallel.

It comes down to the needs of the business and the resources & skill sets that are available.

Pulse Telecom produces technical training to technical, semi-technical and non-technical project managers at a level that is fully customized to the local situation. Pulse Telecom’s popular Technical Project Management training, based upon international project management methodologies, is also available. We look forward to your enquires and any questions that you may have.