To be effective as a Techical Project Manager, technical excellence is not enough. On top of that there are several other aspects on which a great professional should focus. Near the top of my list there is the ability to interact with other people involved in the project. Whatever is the nature of your project you will need to interact to get things done :
- as an open-source contributor you have to collaborate reviewing patches or having your patches reviewed, you have to address the issues brought up by users, you want to communicate your features to new users, planning with other committers or co-maintainers
- as a freelance you have to interact with the current customers and with potential ones. You have also to interact with other developers or designers or testers involved in the projects and you need to communicate clearly who is responsible for what
- when working in a company you have to coordinate with the other developers, in your team and in other teams, to communicate with your manager and most importantly to interact with project managers