Five Signs You Aren’t Cut Out to be a Project Manager
Posted by Brad EgelandNot everyone is cut out to be a Project Manager. Being a PM is not an exclusive club. It’s not even necessarily a highly desirable profession. You get a lot of visibility, but not necessarily a lot of recognition. That often goes more to the technical team than the PM, unless the project is very successful and highly visible.
I’ve written an article on the Background of an IT Project Manager and I’ve written five articles so far on the Characteristics of a Project Manager. Here I’d like to look at five possible signs that indicate you may not be choosing the right career as a Project Manager.
Like Technology more than People
If you’re not a people person and prefer technology over people, then it’s not likely that you’re ready for a career as a Project Manager. PMs are often thrust into customer-facing roles and are looked upon to lead a team of skilled resources on projects. They must be ready to present materials, lead status meetings and status calls, initiate adhoc communication, and just in general be very confident dealing with people.
If that’s not you, then run don’t walk. If you prefer technology more than people you may be more designed for the role of the techie on the project – the person who develops the solution, not the individual who maps out how and when it will be delivered. And patience with your team and the customer is critical. If you don’t have patience, don’t sign up to be a PM.
All People, No Technology
Likewise, if you’re all about people but do not have any technical background then running IT projects as a PM is not for you. I still contend that a good IT PM must have some technical background in order to be trusted, understood, and followed by the technical resources they are leading on a long project.
You might get away with it on a very short engagement just by being a strong, confident leader. But on a 6-12 month engagement or longer you’ll be exposed and the technical team will question decisions, etc. I’ve seen it happen and I’ve witnessed very frustrated PMs who aren’t PMs anymore.
Don’t Handle Pressure Well
Being a PM means you have the target on your forehead for the entire project. The Project Manager has to stay on top of status, project schedules, issues, risks and all project communications constantly. Pressure is frequent throughout the project.
If you don’t handle pressure well, then being a PM is probably not the best choice for you. Being anything in IT is probably not for you, for that matter….because pressure on IT projects is felt pretty much throughout the entire team and throughout the entire project duration.
Need for Constant Recognition and Praise
Like I said earlier, you can get a lot of recognition, but it’s harder to get good recognition than it is to get bad recognition. On the surface, much of the good recognition for a successful project will often go to the technical resources that developed the solution. This, of course, depends on the company, but it is common…and it’s ok. The developers likely did great work on a successful solution. You led, but you didn’t create…and that’s ok.
If you are one who needs constant praise, then a Project Management path is probably not for you. It’s rewarding, but most of your rewards will likely come from the relationships you build on your teams with your team members and with your customer, not from the overflowing of praise and recognition you hope to get on a project.
Shaky Problem-Solver
Being a PM means you’re required to be a confident decision-maker. Look to your team and other available resources – including your customer – as sources to help you solve issues and make decisions. But if you’re inclined to run from problems or put them off and hope that they resolve themselves or that someone else steps up to solve them, then a PM career is not for you.
At every critical problem point, both your team and your customer’s team are going to look to you as the key leader and decision-maker and you can’t back down. If you’re shaky in your decision-making or tend to be wishy-washy when it comes to problem solving and leadership, seek a different path for your own good.
Summary
These are just five – I’m sure I could come up with more and I probably will. I would definitely welcome your input, as I’m sure the list could be nearly endless. Please share your thoughts on what you’ve seen ‘not work’ in the PM field. I’m sure everyone has some great colleague stories. Thanks.
Related posts:
Sven Ringling says:
Excellent and to the point. Unfortunately, far too many PMs seem to hold far too many of the characteristics outlined above.
Quite often, the Pm is the guy who
- ran from the line business, because he doesn’t perform or doesn’t get along with anybody and
- is considered to be useless in designing or implementing things, so they get im out of teh way onto the PM position
May sound a bit cynical, but I’m afraid most projects are far from teh best of worlds and if the 5 rules above where considered more often, not so many projects would fail.
So, keep telling them!
Stacy R says:
I think that one of the challenges of being an IT PM is that you run at both the macro and micro level at the same time.
At the macro level, you are communicating vision, scope, schedule, budget, and have to tailor that to the audience you’re dealing with (client PM’s, client business stakeholders, your internal resources, your internal mgmt), etc
At the micro level, you’re often in the position of writing specs or at least documenting functionality, testing and making sure all the t’s are crossed and i’s dotted.
So, if you are someone who can’t juggle both worlds, then stay away from project management.
Oh, also, if you don’t like writing (business cases, use cases, feautre details, specs, processes emails, reports, etc) then project management is not for you, either. This is where a lot of devs-converting-to-PM’s fall short, IMHO.
Steve Mason says:
Nice article and interesting comments BUT we appear to be talking about IT PMs here, not just Project Managers in general. I think that the IT world is still ‘immature’ in it’s use of so called Project Managers as they are often Develpopers or Business Managers who end up running projects, not true (trained and skilled) PMs. Many of the comments made in the article and other responses are exclusive to the IT world. As a PM I started in the construction industry and migrated to IT and information systems with some manufacturing work along the way. A PM should be able to apply PM methodology to almost any business area, it is beneficial to have some experience and expertise in that area (technical knowledge) but not always essential. Sometimes being a PM in a new field gives the advantage of no “baggage”, no “it’s always been done like this” view, an ability to approach a problem with a clear view, apply PM principles and progress the issue. Don’t get drawn into believing that IT PMs are different or special, a good PM should be able to succeed in any field, and a bad PM will probably fail in many different fields also. Go back to basics, review PM methodology and make sure you stay in your core PM arena.
PMs should Manage Projects, if there is too much other work – writing specs, business cases, test plans, etc etc, then perhaps a bigger Project Team with relevant appropriate SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) is needed, if only on a temporary basis to allow the PM to focus on their prime work of manageing the project.
krishna koney says:
Wonderful insight…
Adding to it –
Managers have to be open and flexible. They need to have their own opinion but at the sometime willing to listen to others ideas/opinions which is lacking in most of the IT Managers nowadays.”I know everything” attitude of IT Managers will not take the project anywhere.
He has to a good judge. He should have to decouple the personal opinions from professional opinions. This is one area where some managers fail to have a line between personal and professional opinions.
Biljana says:
Personal or professional opinion, does it matter as long as it keeps the project on time, on budget, on scope?
A Project Manager is there to manage projects, communicate, discuss, make decisions and keep the project on plan, too much micro world task (Spec, reports and others) keep your focus off managing, so things might get a bit out of hand. Help is needed for these kind of tasks, and not just any kind of help, but reliable help.
Great article Brad, keep them coming!!!
Sun-J B says:
So important, that I have printed it out and posted it at a visible place in the company so each and ever PM can look at it!
To the list above, I have added one more:
Unable to recognize and balance stakeholder interests.
Senior managers have different and sometimes conflicting expectations out of the same project. In any healthy project team, there is diversity of opinion and a fair amount of controversy about the right approach to follow. Contractors may use loopholes in the contract to their advantage. Negotiating one’s way through the project from start to finish with a dynamic focus that balances competing interests in a fair and open manner – I consider this a critical factor in the success of any project.
tim says:
Sven is so far the truth it isn’t funny.
He is probably a PM wannabee.
From a PM perspective at least I know how to spell “the”.
Sven Ringling says:
Tim,
I’m not sure whether you have seen many small and medium sized projects, where management thought, investing in a properly skilled PM doesn’t pay off.
Maybe you feel attacked because you understood my post going against PMs. In this case, I have to apologise for not being clear enough:
- I’d love to see more skilled PMs managing projects
- And as to those, who are thrown in without being up to the task as described above: it’s not their fault, but their managers’ in the first place.
If you are one of those managers who staff PM positions exactly according to the principles laid out above, then you have reason to feel targetted by my post.
If you don’t believe me seeing these things happen happen all the time: well, I can’t convince you in this forum.
However, I ask you not to build your argument and judgement of a person on the fact that don’t they double-check web-posts for typos or have a spell checker in the forum’s language installed. And even if: it would speak against me as a QA-guy, not as a PM.
Am I a PM wannabe?
I did manage smaller projects with quite some success, but I know my limits in this field, so don’t touch huge projects or programme management.
Yes, I’d like to have even better experience there, but there are other skills I’m focusing on for now. So, if you want to, call me a PM wannabe. But that’s not what made me post this opinion. It’s rather that I wanna others to be more of a proper PM, if they do the role.
kind regards
Sven
Five More Signs You’re Not Cut Out to be a Project Manager | Project Management Tips || Project Management, Collaboration and Knowledge Management Blog says:
[...] first article on the Five Signs You’re Not Cut Out to be a Project Manager received so much feedback, I figured there is room for a few more. Let’s first revisit the [...]
Siddharth says:
Sven, great article. I have just moved into a PM role and I have no qualms about stating that I still have a lot to learn. But it was great to read and identify with how the role is perceived in a broader forum. Overall I guess it made me introspect and think about how I can acquire skills to be a better PM.
Brad Egeland says:
Siddharth – Thanks for the comment and welcome to the PM world. It’s critical that we understand our shortcomings and work on those rather than leave them for exec management or, worse yet, the customer to identify them for us. If it reaches that point, there are much bigger issues. Good luck!
Are You Cut Out to be a Project Manager? « Random Acts of IT Project Management says:
[...] on 27 May 2009 On the blog Project Management Tips, Brad Egeland wrote 2 articles titled “Five Signs You Aren’t Cut Out to be a Project Manager” and “Five More Signs You Aren’t Cut Out to be a Project Manager”. Both of these articles [...]