8 Key IT Project Manager Skills: What to Look for When Hiring

Project management is an exponentially expanding field. A 2017 report predicted that by 2027, there would be over 80 million project management professionals worldwide. In the Information Technology (IT) world specifically, hours billed in project management positions grew at higher rates than nearly every other IT position.

There’s good reason for the growth. Project managers play a crucial role in determining the efficiency of project completion by fostering team dynamics, mitigating risks, and ensuring that the project’s success metrics deliver value. The presence of a skilled project manager can significantly impact a project’s budget and timeline, saving months of work and significant budget.

IT project managers possess the essential IT project manager skills that facilitate the progress of these projects. Before we delve into these skills and their benefits, let’s clarify what an IT project manager does.

What is an IT Project Manager?

An IT project manager is a professional who helps an IT team plan, execute, and deliver projects according to stakeholder expectations. Their primary objective is to deliver the project on time, within budget, and to the satisfaction of various stakeholders, whether internal or external.

While some IT project managers may also lead a team, most often this role is focused solely on project delivery.

Project managers work in all fields, but IT project managers specialize in projects that exist in the IT space. Some of these projects include:

• Developing new applications or systems
• Reconfiguring the office wireless network
• Implementing new software solutions
• Establishing customer service help desks

These examples illustrate just a few projects that benefit from the expertise of an IT project manager to ensure timely and efficient task execution.

Must-Have IT Project Manager Skills

IT project managers are adept in various areas, from maintaining project timelines to effective communication across all organizational levels. For this article, we spoke with Sowmya Rengarajan, an Insight Global IT Project Manager who also hires and leads IT project coordinators.

Let’s dig into some of these IT project manager skills and their impact on team success.

Organization

IT project managers excel in organization. They ensure projects remain on schedule and efficiently navigate multiple simultaneous projects.

Through various tools, templates, and established processes, IT project managers maintain organization, even as they adapt to the unique demands of each project. Their training in project management principles equips them to effectively manage diverse timelines while keeping all aspects of the project on track.

Rengarajan explains that IT project managers must “consistently maintain a repository that will showcase and store all sorts of project artifacts.” This includes details like project estimates, status reports, and the project timeline.

And they need to be able to organize project artifacts regardless of a company’s specific project portfolio management (PPM) tools. If a stakeholder asks for one of those artifacts, the IT project manager needs to know exactly where to find it. They also need to communicate that information effectively to the stakeholder.

Communication

IT project managers effectively communicate with stakeholders at all levels, from C-suite executives to individual contributors. Clear communication is essential, as different groups require varying levels of information.

When assessing IT project manager skills, Rengarajan looks for “the ability to communicate in a way that is neutral.” She explains that in this role, it’s important to “understand all perspectives without sharing an opinion.”

An IT project manager not only communicates directly with stakeholders, but they also facilitate communication between team members and stakeholders to keep everyone aligned.

Beyond basic communication, IT project managers excel in adjusting their communication style to suit the urgency of tasks and the preferences of their audience, which ties into…

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (also known as emotional quotient, or EQ) is the ability to recognize and understand both your emotions and those of others. According to Rengarajan, this soft skill is invaluable for project managers in the IT industry.

“Are you able to connect with people?” and “Do you have empathy?” are two questions she considers when looking for a strong IT project manager. In other words, “people connection” is one of the primary skills she looks for when hiring.

With EQ, an IT project manager can:

• Enhance team dynamics by recognizing individual perceptions and reactions to tasks and responsibilities
• Unify diverse personalities toward a common goal
• Identify when team members may be struggling or overwhelmed
• Allocate tasks effectively based on team members’ strengths and responses

All of these IT project manager skills come together during meetings.

Meeting Management

Have you been in a meeting that’s gone nowhere? Have you ever thought to yourself, “This meeting could have been an email?” We’ve all been there.

Great IT project managers know what needs to be a meeting and what doesn’t. Time is precious with project delivery. Experienced IT project managers know when everyone needs to come together—and when updates can happen over email or chat.

Moreover, project managers excel at facilitating meetings. Their skills include:

• Starting and ending meetings on time
• Understanding meeting technology
• Establishing an agenda and adhering to it, unless changes are agreed upon
• Determining who needs to be present at meetings
• Identifying action items and assigning ownership

When Rengarajan sets meeting agendas, she does two things to set expectations.

First, she tags people in agenda items, so everyone knows who owns what before the meeting starts. Second, time blocks the agenda itself, so everyone is aligned on priorities.

However, Rengarajan acknowledges that not everyone reads meeting agendas in advance, so she also starts her meetings by going through the agenda.

And while she also facilitates the conversation to keep everyone on track, if something comes up unexpectedly, she adapts.

Adaptability

Rengarajan says that adaptability is one of her personal favorite skills to hire for, because “embracing change and embracing challenge” is just so important. An effective IT project manager must be able to pivot strategies, adjust timelines, and reallocate resources to keep the work on track.

Sometimes that means shifting priorities entirely and not letting that negatively affect motivation. Rengarajan explains that her role includes accepting that she might need to pivot and work towards completely new outcomes and goals.

Her advice to anyone working on this skill is, “Don’t take it personally. Figure out how you can move forward.”

Technical Skills

Many of the skills we’ve talked about so far are soft skills, but an IT project manager will also have an IT background. Technical expertise is the biggest difference between IT project manager skills and general project manager skills.

However, Rengarajan does suggest hiring managers consider transferable IT skills when evaluating candidates. She gives this example.

“If you have any sort of technical background, you would know what an API is, what servers do, what cloud is. If you have knowledge about that, but you don’t necessarily understand a company’s existing systems, that’s okay. You can learn that.”

Risk Management and Risk Mitigation

For Rengarajan, risk management and risk mitigation are crucial hard skills that stem from every previous skill. EQ and technical knowledge are first necessary to recognize potential risks early in the process. Even just proactively identifying minor things that could become a risk is crucial.

Once identified, mitigating that risk then requires organization, communication, and adaptability. According to Rengarajan, it’s helpful to have a “log of where you’re documenting the risks, the issues, and the decisions” because that “brings a lot of visibility to the people who need to see it.”

And it’s not strictly about just risks, Rengarajan explains. “There are risks, there are issues, and there are key decisions that we would all have to make as a team or a stakeholder would have to make.” Risk management entails understanding all of those.

Other Hard Skills

An IT project manager often needs other hard skills, including:

• Budget management
• Goal setting
• Project management processes and methods
• Risk management
• Risk mitigation
• Project planning
• Project scoping
• Agile management
• Change management
• Project management software

Certified project managers have taken courses to get a project management certification. Some well-known project management certifications are:

• Project Management Professional (PMP)
• Certified Scrum Master (CSM)
• Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)
• Google’s Project Management Certificate (via Coursera)

However, project managers can still excel without certifications. When hiring an IT project manager, look for experiences such as:

• Working with both co-located and remote project teams
• Managing teams across different time zones
• Overseeing large budgets and diverse stakeholder groups
• Managing different kinds of projects

And if you need help finding skilled candidates, reach out to Insight Global. We’re the experts at finding experts.

Find IT Project Managers with Insight Global

A skilled IT project manager can be the key to ensuring a project is completed efficiently and on time. Identifying the right talent, whether seasoned or entry-level, with these essential IT project manager skills can significantly enhance the success of your IT initiatives.

If you’re struggling to source top talent, or you don’t know how to screen candidates for the right IT project manager skills, connect with Insight Global by filling out the form below. Our hiring partners can find you qualified talent in as little as two days.