Many companies fall into a common trap when they hire project managers: prioritizing technical expertise over core project management skills. The assumption is that a subject matter expert will save money, but in reality, this approach often leads to costly delays, mismanagement, and inefficiencies. A technical training class might cost a few thousand dollars, but poor project management can cost millions.
A project manager’s role isn’t to be the technical expert—it’s to bring the experts together and drive execution. Just as a great singer isn’t necessarily qualified to direct a musical, technical expertise doesn’t make someone a strong project manager. A director coordinates the cast, crew, and production, just as a project manager ensures alignment, removes roadblocks, and keeps everything running smoothly.
The Risks of Prioritizing Technical Expertise Over Project Management Skills
Project management thrives on clear roles and responsibilities. When a project manager gets too involved in technical details, it creates blurred accountability and decision paralysis. It’s like a family gathering where kids are running wild, but no one steps in because every adult assumes someone else will handle it. Without clear leadership, chaos ensues—and in a project, that means missed deadlines, confusion, and costly mistakes.
Beyond inefficiencies, this dynamic hurts team morale. A micromanaging PM signals a lack of trust. Teams work best when members own their responsibilities and feel valued for their expertise. A PM’s job is to support that dynamic, not override it.
What Makes a Strong Project Manager?
Core Project Management Knowledge: Finding a project manager that does core things well, like reading and managing scope, tracking risks and knowing mitigation strategies, having difficult conversations and tracking all issues, and reporting and communicating anything that impacts the budget so that you have everything documented appropriately. This is the area where hiring a technical PM may be a gotcha when litigation occurs, or a client is asking for more money, scope, or time when it is not managed well, which will cost companies astronomical amounts in money, relationships, lawsuits, or cancelled/failed projects.
Execution & Leadership: A project manager juggles a zillion moving parts, stays on time and budget, and keeps stakeholders happy—or at least appeased. That’s no small feat! It doesn’t matter how good of an engineer you are; you can’t use math to navigate office politics, resolve team conflicts, make a client satisfied, or convince an executive to approve a change request. Project management is about guiding the entire project to success, not just having the right technical answers.
Decision-Making & Communication: A great project manager doesn’t have all the answers but knows how to ask the right questions and get the answers quickly. Ever played “20 Questions” with a project manager? You’d lose. They know how to extract key information, make decisions efficiently, and ensure clear handoffs.
Trust & Delegation: Any Project Manager worth their salt knows they can’t do this job alone. The best ones empower their teams, delegate wisely, and step back to let experts do their thing. A PM who also tries to be the subject matter expert is redundant—find someone who knows how to utilize their team instead of trying to be the team.
Hire for Leadership, Not Just Technical Knowledge
Hiring a PM solely for their technical expertise is like choosing a conductor based on their ability to play the violin—it misses the bigger picture. The actual value of a project manager isn’t in knowing all the answers but in knowing how to bring the right people together, keep things on track, and ensure no critical piece falls through the cracks.
In the long run, investing in strong leadership prevents costly missteps and inefficiencies that can derail even the most well-planned initiatives.
