Rebuilding the Path to PM Mastery

What happens when we skip the basics and automate the talent pipeline

How do we build hard skills in a world where tools do the work for us?

You can’t delegate what you don’t understand.

I’ve said that line to teams, executives, and aspiring project managers. Given where we are in technological advancement and workplace dynamics, this remains relevant and true.

Automation and AI have transformed how we work. We are seeing AI tools build schedules, auto-refresh dashboard, and create deliverables (documents, code, etc).

Project Management practitioners don’t necessarily need to know how to calculate float or build a cost baseline by hand. But what happens when a project manager does not know how to perform such a task manually? Does this mean that a PM would not be able to verify that a system has performed this task accurately? Is that a risk we can afford to take as organizations and leaders?

The Vanishing Fundamentals

Are Project Managers being recruited and promoted without specifically demonstrating technical competence in the project management fundamentals? Is that because hiring managers and HR professionals are being careless or is it because they simply don’t need to worry about this any more?

Every day we witness new tools that are able to do the building and creation, but are tools advanced enough to go beyond the what and into the why? When projects go off-script, which is almost always the case, that’s where the skills gaps is most likely going to become visible.

This isn’t a project-level risk but it’s an organizational level risk. It’s also a leadership risk because in most organizations there are hierarchies where senior staff rely on lower level staff to perform certain functions that will verify data and enable them to grow in their career.

If future PMO leaders, program directors, or strategic advisors don’t come from a foundation of technical understanding, how can they coach teams, review plans, or challenge assumptions? Perhaps the most obvious answer is, they can’t. They' will defer to yet another set of tools which will in turn require another set of tools to verify that the analytical tools are working properly.

What’s Changed?

The career path of project management often started with the basics. Here’s a couple of examples to illustrate what I mean:

• Project Planning: learn how to build Work Breakdown Structures, figure out how to translate them into plans, and create schedules to track the work.

• Project Execution: learn how to read and update schedules, develop dashboards, and create presentations to update executives and customers

These days there is a strong debate that the path to mastery can’t follow the same road. In fact, many argue that its not even needed. They argue that given that tools are able to master these repetitive and simpler tasks, certain roles are no longer needed.

There is not widespread agreement on result of the impact of Generative AI on career paths. We see a lot of excitement but a significantly greater level of uncertainty. That is driven in no small part because we don’t really understand how we can build the talent pipeline in an age where the simpler tasks are performed by a machine rather than a junior level human.

Yet, organizations seems to be reacting fast. They are cutting junior roles, automating aggressively, and chasing cost savings. But in doing so, many are destroying the very pathways that allowed professionals to build credibility in the first place.

We're hollowing out the early-career experience without replacing it with anything substantial.

Rebuilding the Path

So what does it look like to intentionally build hard skills today?

Here’s what I’ve seen work across organizations, PMOs, and coaching settings:

• Teach before you delegate. Don’t just assign work, walk through the logic.

• Use AI as a learning tool, not a shortcut. Ask new PMs to explain what the AI built and why.

• Simulate failure. Give teams a “broken” plan and ask them to fix it. That’s where real learning happens.

• Create reverse mentoring moments. Let senior leaders narrate their process, not just approve outputs.

• Test fundamentals early. In hiring, onboarding, and development plans test candidates, don’t assume they’ve got the skills based on an interview.

It’s a Pipeline Problem

Hard skills aren’t just about technical credibility, they’re about leadership depth. Expecting to create great PMO leaders out of nowhere is at best lazy thinking.

Building strong PM talent in the organization depends on professionals who have done the work, who understand the constraints, and who have actually experienced success and failure.

If we skip the fundamentals today, we’re weakening the strategic layer of leadership tomorrow. This is what industries like law, consulting, and finance have already started worrying about:

What happens when we eliminate the “apprentice” phase, but still expect people to become experts?

Final Thought

If we care about the future of our profession and the teams we lead through complexity we have to be concerned not only with professionals who look like Project Managers, but individuals who are able to act like one.

The risk that the Project Management faces of destruction of our PM talent pipeline requires the community to come together to figure out a started to address it. That’s where PMI and other like minded organizations can play a proactive role in defining the future of the profession.