An interesting thought Jacob; in my experience a project manager needs to be the most all around member of the team. That is to say, medical device projects often involve doctors, or biology specialists explaining or focusing on the importance of its application on the body, engineers designing developing and manufacturing the device, and business or sales people working to market the device and put it in use. The project manager must be able to effictively communicate with each of these parties and set reasonable goals and expectations for each of them to ensure the smooth and effective completion of the task at hand. Now I don't mean to insinuate the project manager must be a master in all fields associated with the development of the medical device, instead that they have the necessary background to speak to a degree of technicality with each of the specialists and decide what to do with that new information. All in all the most essential skill for a project manager is the ability to communicate clearly and effectively to all members of their team to facilitate the development of the project.

There is emphasis on interpersonal skills for project managers. As cra24 explained, a well-rounded project team has members with diverse backgrounds and experiences who contribute to the outcomes or products. A project manager in the biomedical field should have the experience and expertise to apply to new projects, which in turn enhances understanding and communication. Communicating not only to team members with their own communication styles and performance levels, but also to stakeholders or upper management, in which the project manager can influence decision-making. Communication also includes active listening and emotional intelligence as project managers balance strict deadlines and unexpected challenges & disagreements. Medical device projects can vary greatly depending on the device class, regulatory changes, or market demands. Therefore, having strong interpersonal skills may be more beneficial as the manager learns along the way. A successful project manager can facilitate collaboration among team members but make decisions when necessary. Skills such as collaboration and leadership have to be developed, and can be harder to find. 

I think to be a successful project manager relies heavily on the interpersonal skills. If you have established respect and a rapport with your team, you would, in theory, be able to rely on them when your own technical skills fail. Each project you manage would require different technical expertise, so to an extent, it would be near impossible to expect a project manager to have knowledge in all the different areas of said project (beyond the basic knowledge, which should be a requirement). As long as they are detail-oriented and willing to put in a little extra work, they can fill those knowledge gaps, whereas, as at644 said, it is always necessary to have the "soft" interpersonal skills which can be harder to master.

In my opinion, a project manager in the biomedical field does not need to have a lot of technical expertise. Instead, they must have a good set of interpersonal skills and be able to read and extract information such as risks and dependencies from abstracts or protocols. Once they are able to understand exactly what is happening in the project, they must be able coordinate teams and translate information from one body such as the FDA to another body such as the engineers on their team. Furthermore, specifically in the biomedical field, a good project manager has to be able to treat regulation as a parallel workflow with their project instead of an end goal. Being able to treat regulation and go hand in hand with their project reduces stress and minimizes mistakes or catastrophic failures. Finally, I believe that a strong project manager is very organized with their work. Habits needed for this include version control, documentation, and have the ability to keep all papers incase of an audit.

I think it is important for the project manager to have interdisciplinary experience themselves, or at least a good understanding of the disciplines required for the project. I also feel like it is extremely important to know the background of each member on your team so that you can see who can cover each others weaknesses if some are lacking skills or even just to know who would be the best person to assign certain parts of the project to. In my own experience, I have found a PM with more technical experience to be more quickly trusted due to them understanding what it was like to be in your shoes. However, communication is one of the most important skills a project manager must have, along with their ability to break down a project into its individual problems, I feel like this type of thinking can be more important at times, but this depends on the place and project being worked on. 

As I agree with all the comments above that mention communication amongst different project members and departments is important for a project manager to have, I would like to include that what he or she does with that information and risk management and being able to adapt or be flexible under certain circumstances is just as important. A majority of the time, not everything goes as planned, therefore the project manager should be able to make tough decisions, using all the information given from the different teams and under pressure, that can either make or break the project. Sometimes there are design changes that are necessary, safety hazards, or even inconsistences in data that can cause a setback in the project timeline. In these cases, the project manager has to make a overall decision that doesn't compromise the product and company, even if it pushes the company a little back on their timeline, it will avoid bigger problems in the future. These decisions are based on the project goals, timeline, budget, quality, safety, standards, data, and other factors that managers have to keep in mind when making a single change in the product. Overall, although it is important for the project manger the to communicate and collaborate with other team members, it is essential for him/her to make an educated final call on risks that determine the future of the company. 

I also believe that interpersonal skills are far more important to a PM than technical skills. Like someone else said, the exact technical skills needed will vary from project to project, while the interpersonal skills can easily transfer and most importantly, is the primary role that you should be filling as a PM. However, I think that a general understanding of the technical skills required is necessary for a PM, so that you can understand your teams' limitations and needs.  It may be necessary for a project manager to be a quick learner so they can quickly gain a general understanding of different technical skills. I think the most important trait is the ability to handle disputes and facilitate collaboration between team members. 

@vanshamin I actually disagree on the premise that interpersonal skills far exceed the need of technical skills for a PM. I haven't personally been on the side of project management, however I have been part of the team that executes and completes said project in medical devices. I agree that a PM does need both of these skills to successfully execute a project to the best of their ability, however I believe that these skills need to be more equally balanced. 
At the medical facility I work for, we are constantly opening or renovating new departments, which requires not only our project lead, but the technicians that I work alongside to have to rethink and plan out how we are going to lay out individual medical devices, but also medical device systems. Especially in the healthcare field, things are almost always going to need to be modified or changed to some extent. As a Project Manager in a field such mine, it is essential that you have good technical skills to understand and redesign small aspects of these projects on a whim. One personal example that I can give was the redesign of a room within the Endoscopy Suite at the hospital I work at. They have several monitors within the system that are connected to various systems, such as different live vitals, patient information, and views of the scope within the patient. All of these monitors need to work in conjunction with the system that they are connected to, and one small problem caused none of the monitors to work in the new room. Our team and PM had to go through the entire system to find the point of failure, and had to develop a work around/revision to ensure that the issue did not occur again, emphasizing the important need for technical skills. 
I would definitely like to read more about your viewpoint/a rebuttal of why interpersonal prevail.

Interpersonal skills are essential to PM than technical skills as a Vansh Amin points out and are required for facilitating collaboration. However, for these efforts to be established it is vital for a PM to have the trait of prioritizing and escalating parts of a project under tight constraints. Deliberately determining what needs to be prioritized in an active project where time, budgeting, patient safety and regulatory restrictions are on in conflict. Although communication and interpersonal skills are essential for team collaboration, the most impactful role a PM takes on is decided what is the targeted need for a project to move forwards which in my experience can be addressing budgeting, reallocating resources or mitigating potential risk early on. A project can fail if there is too much effort on the incorrect deliverables and at the inappropriate moment which can be too early or too late in a project. Therefore it is essential for a PM to evaluate the risks and keep the project on track through organization. Technical knowledge and interpersonal skills are additional beneficial traits however, in terms of execution, prioritization of deliverables is essential.

Project management is certainly a very demanding role, uniquely situated at the crossroads of biomedicine, regulation, and team coordination. Given its current state, I don't think there's really an either-or in the debate of "technical skills vs. interpersonal skills." A PM's technical skills are a major contributor to their credibility, as technical knowledge shapes a PM's understanding of project feasibility, associated risks, and terminology. However, the PM's primary role is not to be a technical expert, but to coordinate, manage, and even motivate the people involved in a project, who may have varied priorities and backgrounds. Thus, strong communication skills are a must. 

In fact, I may even go as far as to argue that a candidate for the most critical trait of PMs would be communication. One could argue that for any role, but particularly for the role of PM, effective communication is critical to wholly align team efforts. 

I am curious to see other people's opinions as well on this. Do you think perhaps the integral nature of certain skills is in flux at different parts of a project?

When it comes to project managers on medical devices, it is important for them to have good analysis on systems coupled with a strong awareness for risks in the field. Biomedical projects and devices are not necessarily linear and certain changes (such as in the design) can affect regulatory strategies, timelines, and manufacturing processes. This can lead to an alter in both cost and clinical performance, so it is necessary for a PM to be able to see the ripple effect from certain decisions.

While this might feel like a copout answer, a PM really does need to have the technical skills, experience and interpersonal traits for communications to really thrive. With that said, if one was to be chosen, the experience of the PM as well as their technical skills should be higher on the hierarchy in necessity. Because of this, sound judgment is the most important skill as that really comes from experience, analysis and thoughtful observation.

A lot of great points here focus on communication, prioritization, and technical awareness, but one skill I think ties all of those together is decision-making under uncertainty. In biomedical projects, PMs rarely have perfect information. Clinical data evolves, regulatory feedback can change, and technical risks aren’t always fully understood early on.

Because of that, I think the most critical trait isn’t choosing between technical or interpersonal skills, but the ability to make reasonable, defensible decisions with incomplete data and adjust quickly as new information comes in. I’ve seen projects get delayed not because teams lacked expertise, but because no one felt confident enough to make a call and move forward. In those moments, a PM who can weigh risk, ask the right questions, and commit to a direction adds a lot of value.

This also connects to the idea that different skills matter at different phases of a project. Early uncertainty demands judgment and adaptability, while later stages rely more heavily on structure and execution. To me, that flexibility in decision-making is what ultimately keeps biomedical projects moving despite complexity.

To note on certain questions asked in other points, I think that certain skills do indeed have volatility throughout the course of the project, while at the same time certain foundational skills holding weight. This ties in with the importance of project managers as a whole due to their experience in understanding how different members can contribute in different aspects of the project pipeline while maintaining overall flow of project development. Without the project manager involved, executive decisions and gauging each other's talents and abilities can be difficult as priorities can be divided, especially for biomedical applications. While I personally have not had a project experience focused on BME applications yet, I believe that the fusion of technical experiences and soft skills is important in understanding how to develop a BME project.

In my opinion, the most important trait for a project manager in the biomedical field is the ability to think systemically while communicating effectively across highly interdisciplinary teams, because biomedical projects operate under tight timelines, strict regulatory requirements, and significant uncertainty. While technical literacy is essential for understanding design constraints, regulatory implications, and realistic schedules, interpersonal skills such as communication, adaptability, and stakeholder alignment are more critical than deep technical expertise, as the PM’s role is to translate between engineers, clinicians, regulatory teams, and business stakeholders rather than to act as the technical authority. Ultimately, the single most critical trait for a successful biomedical PM is strong communication grounded in systems thinking, since it enables proactive risk management, prevents costly late-stage surprises, and keeps complex projects aligned with regulatory, budgetary, and patient-safety goals.