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5 Basic Skills Required to Manage Software Projects

Software projects require expert skills that go beyond managing traditional projects. The skills are vital for a software project manager to ensure that the digital project satisfies client’s expectations. In the world of IT, traits such as organization, negotiation, and communication skills are not enough. You need to know a bit more in order to ensure successful project outcome.

Here we will cover the important skills that are required to successfully manage software projects.

1. Basic Technical Skills

In order to be a successful programmer, you need to have certain basic technical skills. While you don’t need to have advanced programming skills, it’s still important that you have an understanding of the following basic technical skills.

• Good software development practices
• Online project management software
• Prioritizing and scheduling
• Budgeting and cost accounts

Also, a critical thing that you should keep in mind is that even if you don’t need to code, you have to know the basic knowledge about coding framework and obstacles. This will ensure that you set a realistic target for the team. Consider taking courses to know about different architecture and app platforms. This information will ensure that you are able to make the right decisions regarding where to place the technology based on performance and cost outcomes.

2. Knowledge about Project Backlog

A software project manager should be aware of the product backlog, which is a core component of the scrum project management approach. A product backlog represents prioritized features requested by the product owner. Make sure that you know how to determine the project requirements by looking at the backlog.

3. Identify and Remove Technology Roadblocks

Project managers should also know how to identify and remove technology roadblocks. They need to identify network issues, server problems, storage errors, and other technical issues. This requires gaining basic knowledge about computer hardware troubleshooting. Without the basic skill, you will not be able to successfully manage the project team and requirements.

4. Software Jargon

Project managers should also be aware of software jargon. They should know about the important software terms like stack, memory, node, network, and others. Also, it’s important to know about the technical acronyms to ensure that you don’t feel lost in the woods while managing the software development team.

5. Measure Software Project Process Effectiveness

Lastly, you should know how to properly measure the software development process. Consider using the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) to measure the performance of the software development team against the industry standard. Developed by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, the model can help in finding out the efficiency of the software project process, and make the required improvements.

Having the above skills is important to properly manage the software project team. Once you have developed the skills, you will be well on your way to achieving success with software projects.