I am a 4 yr experienced PM in the Nigerian IT Industry. I have a bachelors in Computer Science and have been schooled in traditional Systems Analysis. I believe the trend amongst clients here in Nigeria(either end users or value added resellers) suggests that PMs should have deeper than normal “generalist” technical skills. There appears to be need for “value added” skills like business integration and change management and technical systems integration such as is prevalent with traditional systems analysts in software development field. This may be because of shortage of skilled IT personnel all along the food chain creating competence gaps which surely trip projects irrespective of how sterling the management may be. Another area is a shift from traditional static goals of acheiving on time in budget to acheiving business value , ROI. People weigh acheiving ROI or time to market much more than meeting set time and cost peices…
Is this a global trend? or peculiar to developing markets? Do PMs need to bone up on Systems and IT solutions integration?
