Project Manager as Business Professional
Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.
When I first started in project management, there was a debate raging as to whether a project manager should understand the business that they operated in. One side argued that the PM should be a functional expert because that way they could understand the details of the project and help solve problems as they arose. The other side argued that a PM didn’t need that knowledge, and maybe shouldn’t have it because they needed to focus on project management skills, not functional expertise. Either way it was a very tactical debate.
Now there is a similar debate underway, but at a more strategic level. The discussion now is on whether a project manager needs to understand the business environment that their organization exists in, the strategic goals behind the project that they are managing. The pro side will say that it’s no different from other forms of management, that managers cannot effectively lead unless they understand the organizational drivers. The opposing view is that those decisions have already been made during the business casing/approval process for the project and that a PM has to simply deliver the project successfully.
I’m not going to use this article to present a balanced view of both sides--I’m biased. I believe strongly that PMs need to be business people, and I’m going to try and explain why.
The…
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"The golden rule is that there are no golden rules." - George Bernard Shaw |
