The role of traditional technical managers should be redefined and enhanced to improve project success, giving rise to technoproject managers, states South Africa-based black-owned engineering consultancy Gibb.

“Depending on the type and size of a client’s project, the roles of professionals within larger firms may range from purely technical to coordinating or managerial, or a combination. It is therefore essential for such businesses to have groups of people who can sell their skills and demonstrate capabilities of delivering on time, within budget and to agreed client expectations,” explains Gibb dams and hydropower sector project leader Sandip Shinde.

Additionally, managing client expectations is a critical skill in delivering the highest standards and quality in business, with clients that want delivery of their projects done effectively, on time and within budget.

To ensure effective control of project schedules and financials, consulting engineering firms are motivated to choose dual management functioning, such as technical and project management, for example, Shinde says.

“In light of various dual functioning impacts, it has become important to explore a common platform where the skills of the technical leader and project manager could complement each other. This is where we see the rise of technoproject managers,” Gibb environmental services GM Dr Urishanie Govender explains.

Govender highlights that there have been numerous significant engineering developments in the past decade, but believes the greatest technological innovations are yet to come.

With the twenty-first century having ushered in major technological discoveries and advancements within the engineering sphere, the innovations are set to create new impetus for consulting engineering firms for decades to come, Govender explains.

With the growth of communication networks that instantaneously link ideas to infrastructural designs that provide tangible solutions to the most technical of problems, engineering professionals have achieved an understanding that establishes a foundation for future developments, she adds.

“For these innovations to see light, the consulting engineering space will need to welcome a new breed of managers who will not only bring with them great skills, but also add unmatched value to our business,” Govender says.

Further, in mature companies, the strategy to support the emergence of this new breed of professionals includes training senior technical project leaders and developing technoproject managers.

Shinde and Govender explain that, within mature organisations, the creation of a technoproject management culture requires that senior staff be assessed on their abilities, mentored and trained appropriately. While developing senior project technical leaders, the importance of ensuring that junior technical staff are also motivated and nurtured towards the technoproject manager culture should be equally stressed.

This could be achieved through encouraging the existing selected staff to attain the desired level of technical competence and then through developing them to fulfil technoproject manager functions by means of project management training interventions.