Why Expertise in Finance & Risk is Key to Successful Project Management

We are regularly approached for medium and large projects to take over project management. We are happy to help, but under one important condition: The project must fall within our area of expertise, meaning it must be related to Finance & Risk. It is unthinkable for us to manage a project in an unfamiliar field, and we are confident this would lead to inefficiency or even failure.

Many people still believe that a good project manager should only know and apply various project management methods, ideally with experience in similar project sizes and budgets.

However, we have learned that this is a common misconception. Of course, project management methods are essential tools, but how can a project manager design or challenge a budget? How can they develop and discuss a project plan? How can they ask the right questions, communicate with management, or justify project status? How can they break down the work into manageable tasks? How can they select, guide, and deploy the right team?

There’s no getting around it: Project management methods are part of the foundation, but the other part is expertise—in our case, in Finance & Risk.

So what is your lesson learned? Deprioritize the certifications a project manager may bring. Prefer expert knowledge, experience as a business analyst in the area of where the project will be run. This is the first hurdle to derisk the project deliveries.