Crucial Skills for Today's PM

Project management is changing….it's becoming more strategic, more mainstream, and not just synonymous with technology implementations. Today's PM needs to be more than technically adept or be able to whip out a gantt chart.  Get a read on some of these crucial skills the everyday PM will need to succeed:
Communication - PM's need to be very adept at communicating to the project team, stakeholders, sponsors, and executives. You could have the best project in the world but if you can't communicate what you're doing you're going to have a difficult time getting others to buy in.

Risk and Issue Management - PM's need to be diligent at identifying material project risks and knowing what mitigation strategies they are going to use to try to avert the risks. Also PM's need to be able to monitor project issues closely and avoid a small issue growing into a massive one that can torpedo the project.
Planning - PM's need to pave the way for the project team and need to design the work in such a way that the team understands what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, who needs to do it, and what dependencies exist among the tasks.

Ability to work virtually - Today's PM's need to be able to work with project teams spread across town, across the country, or across the world. The PM needs to understand how to keep a project team together when the project team can span the globe or cross organizations and ensure that everyone is working out of the same playbook.