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The Dual-Purpose Project Manager
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.
There has long been a debate in project management circles about whether a project manager in IT should be a technical resource who understands the detailed aspects of the project, or whether a better PM would be a non-technical resource who can focus on the PM activities and not be sucked into some of the technical details. There are pros and cons on both sides of the argument, and I don’t think any side will ever claim to “win” the argument. But in these tough economic times, there is no doubt that more and more technical project managers are being asked to play the role of PM and team member. Can this be a successful model, and if so, how?
The challenge of duality
At the most basic level, there are three problems with having a PM also be one of the technical resources on the team:
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The PM can lose sight of one of their roles, generally the project management one
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The team can be confused as to which role the PM is playing in any conversations/discussions
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There is too much work for one individual to do a good job on either task
However, if these challenges can be overcome (not an easy exercise), then there is no reason why a PM can’t contribute to the technical aspects of a project. This shouldn’t be the normal project management model--it’s clearly not optimal--but in these …
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