The responsibility of a project manager is high. The leader of the project has many areas of responsibility and should be fit in organizational matters. The skills and competencies must be very good to have the whole control from the beginning to the end.
The project manager has the task to keep an eye on the time schedule. The manager should always have in focus the project cost, the beginning and the end of the project.
There are some skills which are very important to be a project manager. It would be better that he was a developer so he can understand the process of software engineering. A good project manager should have some soft skills and some other important skills such as the knowledge of the software development process. You can learn these skills by having been a developer before. Also assertiveness and strictness counts to your strengths. Assertiveness is good to stay by your decisions and not to allow to be talked over. It’s important to find weak spots fast in the time period of the project, so the problem can be solved and the software can be improved. Additional a project manager should rely on his network without disciplinary rights on his colleagues, better you’d have communication skills. For a successful project it’s important to select the right process. Also it is advantageous to know how to improve the process itself constantly.
Kevin M.