What to do when you're a technical expert

The second concern is that you may be appointed as the project manager, and you do have technical knowledge; so what should you do? The only thing you can do is to be aware and conscious of it, and draw a line between the technical and managerial aspects and don’t get yourself involved in the technical aspects at all.

One of the great project managers I know was an architect working on construction projects. In one of the meetings, two companies involved in the project had a disagreement about the architectural design of an area and were arguing about it. Suddenly, one of them asked the project manager what he thought about it, because after all, he was also an architect. He responded, “I’m not here as an architect, but as a project manager. As a project manager, I can tell you that it’s an important decision, and I’d like to ask you to have a workshop in the following days, explore and document all aspects, make a decision, and send me a report about it. It’s best to finalize the decision by the end of the week, because otherwise we’ll have a delay in our project. Shall we move on to the next topic?”

If you accept the project management role, you need to have the mental discipline to do as he did!