I’ve found myself lately realizing that the hardest problems to solve on a project are usually not coding challenges. I work with really smart technical developers and I’m very confident that whatever the technical requirement is, they will research and grind and figure out how to make the system meet the technical specification. Because at the end of the day, that’s really just a combination of reading, thinking, problem solving, all those wonderful things that smart people are good at.

No, the biggest project challenges are usually around people. Because its either business processes and approvals (which requires a person to approve it), or managing customer expectations (which requires communication with those persons), or keeping the developers focused on MVP and managing scope creep.

The trick to managing challenges around people is fostering relationships. Let’s say that the main impediment on your project is getting a manager to approve more budget, or getting security to approve the software to be deployed, or getting contracts to buy that software license you need. If you have a personal positive relationship with any of those persons, then you are able to more easily communicate with them, to understand what they need to approve/move forward.

So whenever I’m providing a status update to a manager, and they ask about the state of anything technical, my reply is usually, “We hired really smart technical people, I’m not worried about that. What I need your help on is communicating with Person X, to get them to approve/understand/support.”

And the lesson to you, if you want to be a technical leader, is working on your communication soft skills and using those skills to create and foster those key relationships.