Project Management Career Path and Technical Skills
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A member of the pmStudent community contacted me for advice about where she should focus her efforts with the end goal of being a great project manager. I’ll give my thoughts, and would love to get input for her from the rest of you as well.
“I am wondering if it is better to be a good programmer first, really good specialist (technically) and than become PM, or maybe other way…would be better to gain more experience as a member of IT team as a programmer, then team leader, try to find a job in a big IT company OR to try to gain PM experience in small company with small projects.”
First off, THANK YOU for contacting me with the question! I applaud your maturity in formulating a plan to reach your career goals!
There are different thoughts on this, and it does depend on the type and size of projects you plan to work on. I agree with what Bill Duncan has said before here on pmStudent.com:
“Technically skilled and knowledgeable PMs are fine on smaller, simpler projects where they are as apt to be making technical decisions as management decisions. But as their projects get larger and/or more managerially complex, they will be making management decisions, and their technical skills are as likely to be a handicap as a benefit.”
“I’ve seen many, many, more situations where the PM got into trouble because [he or she] did not have the sense to defer to the technical leads on the project.”
One of the most dangerous things on a project can be a technical PM who thinks they know (or really do know) more than the technical leads and takes on technical decisions when they should not. On small projects this can be fine, but as the
project increases in technical complexity and size, there’s an increased risk of bad consequences from having too much power and knowledge in one person. The PM should know enough to understand what is going on at a high level technically, but not enough that day-to-day technical decisions are being made by a PM. The PM should be primarily focused on communication and management as much as possible.
The key is being able to effectively communicate with the techies and business suits…you need a foot in both worlds for this. Personally, in your situation I would:
- Continue working as a member of the project team
- Start asking your project manager (and those managing other projects) what you can do to help them out
- Show your interest in what the project managers are doing, and ask them questions. Most people are very happy to help as long as you are tactful and not too demanding or annoying!
- Be willing to commit your own personal time without pay to gain valuable experience and build relationships with mentors
- Start thinking about the work you and your team are doing from both the technical AND management perspective
Apr 29th, 2009 at 7:20 am
I totally agree with everything Josh has put forward, but would add that formal training can be a great way to quickly learn how to “talk the talk” or familiarize yourself with best practices. In 2 days you of training you can learn what might take weeks or even months to learn otherwise.
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Apr 29th, 2009 at 8:34 am
I agree that this person should learn as much as possible about project management from those leading teams now, with the goal of taking on more and more responsibility with each new project. The larger question is whether to do this in a smaller company or a larger company.
A smaller company will likely allow faster growth through the early stages of your career, and the projects will likely be more diverse. The growth track will get limited as you move up and the number and size of projects will be somewhat limiting. The smaller companies will not be able to give the candidate many large projects to work through the way larger companies can. It will be life in a small pond, which can be rewarding.
Larger companies will offer more competition for project work and project leadership. There will be larger scale projects available, but there will be more qualified people trying to get the best positions. The skills required will be more channeled (small projects tend to need more generalists or multifaceted people)and deeper. It will be life in a larger pond, which can also be rewarding.
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Apr 29th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Josh,
I’m of a different mind. But first the step up for this. The technical knowledge required to manage a project or program is highly dependent on the domain. There is a conjecture out there, that a “good project manager can manage” any project and that technical skills become a burden as the projects become larger.
In the domains I work in this is in fact the opposite. In aerospace and defense, where heavy emphasis on software system are found, knowledge of the technical aspects of the program are critical. If a “generalist” project manager were to show up on our spacecraft avionics program, she would in deep trouble in the absence of even the most basic understanding of guidance, navigation and control (GN&C); command and data handling (C&DH), and environmental life support systems – all heavily driven by software systems.
In the telecommunications infrastructure world the two holy grails are billing and provisioning. A PM assigned to one of our TeleCo clients with little or no knowledge of how billing or provisioning works at the detailed functional level, would be lost after a few weeks.
The reason for this deep functional knowledge (not code) is that the “credibility” of the plan, cost, and technical performance measures must be vetted through the project manager.
What Bill fails to explain is that the project manager that when …
“… many, many, more situations where the PM got into trouble because [he or she] did not have the sense to defer to the technical leads on the project.”
the PM has failed to be a good PM.
NOT that the PM should not possess the technical knowledge of what’s happening in the project. As the PM, she needs to be able to make informed business decisions, and this requires understanding, knowledge and most importantly experience in the information that goes into those decisions.
I’m currently working a proposal for the US Air Force. The proposal requires a portal that interfaces with the Air Forces portal based on SOA. Sufficient knowledge of SOA, techcncial and business choices are SOAS enabled portals, plus the the knowledge of the Air Force techncial domain, contracting processes, the myriad of regulations, and guidance, plus the infrastructure of the DoD in the procurement processes (FAR & DFAR) are the “entry criteria” for developing the proposed solution, managing the proposal (we doing the Management and Cost/Schedule Volumes).
A good generalist PM – someone who has managed small projects in a variety of domains – would unlikely keep up with the jargon and concepts flying around the room, if she had not worked in that domain for a number of years at the technical level.
I’d conjecture that in the NASA, DoD, DOE, and heavy construction domains, the more complex the project, the more knowledge of the fundamental technology is needed. I’m conjecturing this as a Program Manager (now PP&C manager) on large (> $billions) defense and space programs, after having been a software engineer writing the same code in 1976 that is being used today on the same platforms.
So my suggestion to your questioner. Get a good solid grounding in a technical domain. Get experiences managing the technical staff in that domain – or others. Have success delivering products in that domain. Then move to the “management” of the project, not just the management of the technology. Both are needed in many domains. ERP, Enterprise IT in general, real-time embedded systems, process controls, flight controls, and the myriad of other mission critical software, hardware and processes based worlds.
Glen B. Alleman
VP, Program Planning and Controls
Aerospace and Defense
Denver, Colorado
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Josh Nankivel Reply:
April 29th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Good points as usual Glen. We both work in aerospace, so I’d bet our environments are more similar than not.
Some of my project managers are vital because they possess BOTH the project management skill AND know enough about the technical aspects of the work their teams are doing. You could NOT substitute someone with no technical expertise about our specific domain and have them be successful out of the gate….someone with a system engineering background may be able to get up to speed within a few months though.
At the same time, I have seen project managers on both the government and contractor side that hurt more than they help, because they are technical enough (or think they are) to step all over the toes of their lead engineers and developers.
If you work in software development, you had better know about the software development life cycle and methodologies your company uses. If you are in construction, you had better know something about construction, even if you are not a specialist.
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Glen B. Alleman Reply:
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Josh,
I say when the PM “steps on the toes of the TDs,” the TDs need to politly ask the PM to “stand back.”
I’d say if you manage SW Dev, you’d better know something about the software that is being developed. The mesaure of physical percent complete needed for any successful project, requires the PM to know what that means independent of, or in conjunction with the developers. With knowledge of the technology, the PM is just a scorekeeper – a highly paid one at that.
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Bill Duncan Reply:
May 4th, 2009 at 4:51 am
Glen and Josh — I think we are mostly in agreement. I would always prefer a PM who has deep UNDERSTANDING of the technology or technologies involved in the project. But understanding is not the same as skill. In the same way that a great player won’t always be a great coach or manager, taking your strongest technical experts and making them project managers is only occasionally the right choice.
Duncan
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Josh Nankivel Reply:
May 4th, 2009 at 10:26 am
I think that is very well said Bill. I like the clarity you brought to the table with the understanding/skill distinction.
Thanks!
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Glen B. Alleman Reply:
May 5th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Bill and Josh,
” taking your strongest technical experts and making them project managers is only occasionally the right choice.”
Is likely highly context sensitive. The Program Manager of Nuclear Safety and Safeguards, Rocky Flats is the world leader on the technology of sercuring Plutonium tailings from weapons recycling.
The Program Manager of a $200M claims processing system we work on is the companied leading expert on doing medical claims processing using COTS ERP systems.
The Program Manager for the manned spacecraft avionics systems is the Chief Engineer for the avionics on two previous machines and several Boeing 7 series airframes.
3 counter examples in specific domains, but the word “only” generally” needs a context to be effective.
In all these examples the role of Program Manager was earned not granted. This is the fundamental failing in many of the examples on this thread. We a PM (project or program) “steps on the toes” of the engineers, that person is not qualified for the role. Her technical skills are not the issue, the management of the project with those skills is.
James Brown’s book “The Handbook of Program Management,” shoudl be mandatory reading of any PM in a technical discipline.
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