Project managers that are also content specialists in the business process and/or industry risk taking too much for granted and may leave critical questions unasked.

With the economy convulsing as it has done in the last 12 months it's understandable that organisations become highly risk averse.

One manifestation of this is the specification of contract and interim project and programme management roles. At its heart, project management is the systematic delivery of a defined programme of work against a specific business outcome. It calls for the ability to break down complex implementations into manageable packages of work while understanding how they each contribute to achievement of the ultimate goal.

Programme management requires excellent structured thinking combined with highly developed interpretive skills and the ability to apply these even in areas that are unfamiliar.

What we have seen in recent months is an increasing tendency to qualify the search for a programme or project manager with a specific technology, business process or industry. This means recruiting managers are not only looking for excellent delivery capability, but also much deeper subject matter expertise.

That's all well and good, but there is a downside.

Paradoxically, the more we tend to know about the detailed content the less likely we are to ask the 'dumb question'. And yet it is often the case in project management that asking the dumb question actually uncovers a material issue that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

For example, in a recent assignment the client had asked a specialist SAP integrator for a 'vanilla' solution which the integrator agreed to deliver. Both parties assumed they knew what 'vanilla' meant. It was only by asking for a detailed schedule of anticipated functionality from both sides that a potentially showstopping difference was identified that could have had serious financial and reputational implications for the client.

The best programme managers are guided by their innate paranoia that a bear trap is lurking somewhere. This becomes much more difficult to achieve when we 'know too much'.