Now Trending: Project Managers!

Because I took the strategy execution course offered by Brightline last year, I now get e-mails from online education provider Coursera, usually about stuff I am not the least bit interested in. (Why would they think I want to study nursing policy? It's a mystery.) But I recently got an email that piqued my interest. It reported on the "Coursera Global Skills Index," which as far as I can tell, is simply the most searched-for (or perhaps most popular based on enrollments) ten learning areas in their massive catalog. "These are the skills of tomorrow," shouts the headline, but I actually think that, for project managers, these are the skills of today:

1. Planning
2. Leadership
3. Microsoft Excel
4. Analytics
5. Decision making
6. Data Visualization
7. Project Management
8. Marketing Strategy
9. Financial Statements
10. Forecasting.

That's pretty much a soup-to-nuts list of the skill areas you need to thrive in a project-focused career (especially if you add in Brightline's strategy course). I found the Excel item interesting because, as I wrote last year, a lot of the software tools have reached an expense/complexity level where they are top-heavy and often, simplicity works best. And, actually, isn't "Planning + Leadership" just another way of saying Project Management?