Effective project leadership

Leadership is all the rage these days. But how important is it for managing large complex projects? When I was coming up, we learned by being thrown in the deep end. You tried not to drown and, with the help of good mentors, even to swim a few lengths. 

What kind of skills do today’s complex projects need? Leadership is only one of many.

Another peeve of mine is a fixation on technical details, typified by industry ads: ‘PM role: must have pipework experience’, or ‘PM role: must have engineering degree’.

Technical knowledge is always useful, but have your specialists head up workstreams. What the overall job requires is a competent project manager. Risks lurk across the project landscape, so pushing technical merit before managerial ability can kibosh your project. When things go south, the inexperienced retreat to their comfort zone.

PMs who focus on their pet areas easily miss threats and opportunities elsewhere. Becoming a good PM requires a keen eye for risks and coolheaded judgement. Both of which come more with experience than the certificate.

In upstream energy, there’s no shortage of good engineers. But PMs who can see the bigger picture are rare. If you do hire an engineering manager to be a PM, don’t expect them to be the de facto head of engineering as well.

I was fortunate with my mentors and have done my best to create a mentorship culture at Epeus. We recognize the importance of specialization in our pool of expert witnesses. Even here, though, our core experts have an understanding of the broader project issues.

In upstream energy, there’s no shortage of good engineers. But PMs who can see the bigger picture are rare. If you do hire an engineering manager to be a PM, don’t expect them to be the de facto head of engineering as well.

When managing complex feats of engineering, and their associated risks, there’s no substitute for project management experts.