With organizations placing more emphasis on using projects to achieve strategic goals and foster cultural change, project leaders now need a wider range of skills to succeed.

According to the Pulse of the Profession 2020 report from the Project Management Institute (PMI), the most in-demand project professionals have a combination of technical, digital and people skills.

In a survey of executives and project professionals, PMI put together a list of the top skills that businesses look for in a project manager.

“Even the most forward-looking organizations won’t be able to reach the next horizon if their teams are struggling to execute,” the report stated. “Organizations are creating future-ready talent by prioritizing technical proficiencies, leadership acumen, business strategy and digital skills.”

Project Management Skills Businesses Want

Project managers must still meet the traditional goals of overseeing projects that stay within scope, budget and time constraints. But leadership has become a much larger issue with project managers than in the past.

In a list of in-demand skills, Pulse data showed that organizations named the following four skills most often:

  • Technical (68%) – This includes all the strategies, tools and techniques used in project management.
  • Leadership (65%) – Without the soft skills needed to motivate and focus a project team, all the time spent on data analysis and strategy prove useless.
  • Business (58%) – An understanding of how their business operates is essential for successful project managers.
  • Digital skills (50%) – An understanding of innovative technology, which is used in conjunction with project management technical skills, is crucial for project managers. This includes understanding what will and won’t prove useful on specific projects.

Leadership ranks almost as high as technical skills. That means organizations value project management soft skills such as empathy, conflict management, trust building and decision-making.

The Need For Expanded Project Management Skills

Project managers need an expanded set of skills because organizations now ask them to take on much more than in the past. Many project leaders manage cross-functional teams that operate outside any one department, giving them a large amount of leeway in how they run their team. These self-governed teams are not dependent on other areas of a business.

Innovative technology also makes an expanded skill set necessary. Many businesses are hiring project managers to oversee a portfolio of projects “and increasingly, those projects will be tied to technology,” according to PMI.

Data fluency and an understanding of technology are no longer “nice to have” skills for project managers. They play a central role in how they get their job done.

Importance of Executive Support

PMI also emphasized executive support. About 61% of the project professionals surveyed for the report said their companies provide training and 47% said they have a clear career path in project management. Also, 51% of organizations require project professionals to have project management certification for their job.

Those percentages underscore the importance of project managers.

PMI notes the example of Moda Health. Just three years ago, the company had no formal governance for project management. Robert Tresente, PMP, who now directs the Enterprise Project Management Office (EPMO) at Moda, said in the past “projects were really done by the heroics of individuals with no standard methodology.”

The company did not prioritize projects and struggled to achieve goals. Now, the company has the EPMO and a council that decides which projects to pursue.

Tresente said that Moda also now has project managers skilled in leading complex projects, adding, “We’re executing on our strategies and we’re delivering to our strategies.”