3 Stereotypes of Project Managers
From the Voices on Project Management Blog
by Cameron McGaughy,
Lynda Bourne, Kevin Korterud, Peter Tarhanidis, Conrado Morlan, Jen Skrabak, Mario Trentim, Christian Bisson, Yasmina Khelifi, Sree Rao, Soma Bhattacharya, Emily Luijbregts, David Wakeman, Ramiro Rodrigues, Wanda Curlee, Lenka Pincot, cyndee miller, Jorge Martin Valdes Garciatorres, Marat Oyvetsky
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by Christian Bisson, PMP
The project manager role is often underestimated or inaccurately interpreted. Because organizations can have different definitions of what project management means, there is sometimes a lack of clarity around the role, especially for non-project management professionals. In this type of environment, people fall back on basic stereotypes.
If you find yourself typecast in one of these roles, take heart. You are not alone.
1. The Note Taker
One of the most stereotypical expectations of project managers is that they’ll be the meeting note taker. I’ve experienced this time and time again. During a large client presentation, for example, one of my colleagues was asked if he would be taking notes. He replied, “Well, I have a project manager for that.”
Yes, project managers take notes. But they shouldn’t be the only ones doing so. Meeting attendees tend to focus on the notes that directly impact their work. A designer, for example, will focus on conceptual and visual comments, while a developer will focus on features and functionalities.
Furthermore, if the project manager is leading the meeting it will break the meeting flow if he or she is also responsible for note taking.
2. The Meeting Organizer
Project managers will often be expected to set up meetings—and to a certain extent, that makes sense. For large meetings, such as internal presentations or milestone check ins, it makes sense to have the project manager take care of the planning. It allows him or her to rally everyone and set expectations for the meeting so the team can come in prepared.
But there is a line.
Teams shouldn’t expect project managers to organize meetings when they just need to gather for a brainstorm or a quick chat. Sadly, it happens. For example, I was once asked by a colleague from another office to book a meeting so that he could talk to another colleague that was sitting just 10 feet (3 meters) from him.
Project managers should encourage teams to be responsible for setting up those smaller meetings or one-on-ones themselves.
3. The Accountant
There is a misconception that the project manager is the only team member who should care about budgets, or worse, the only one that should be responsible for a budget’s health. This mindset is tough to change because it’s true that a project manager’s role, amongst other things, is to manage the budget.
However, the project manager cannot take everyone’s actions on his or her shoulders — and it wouldn’t be fair to expect that. If a feature was estimated at 50 hours and the team took 100 hours, it takes collaboration to fix the negative impact to the budget or schedule. The team must warn the project manager, everyone must discuss solutions, and then the project manager should take the appropriate next steps with stakeholders, etc. Obviously, this should be done as proactively as possible, not after the fact.
To think that no one should care about the budget, and only project managers should fetch this information and “figure it out” on their own is absurd. Yet, it’s a common expectation.
Have you found yourself in any of these scenarios? What other project manager stereotypes have you faced? How do you deal with these misconceptions?
Posted
by
Christian Bisson
on: December 06, 2016 08:11 PM |
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Comments (26)
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Rohit Kaul
Program Manager| HCL
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Rohit Kaul
Program Manager| HCL
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Well, even though the project manager performing one or more of above roles; he/she is having much more duties & responsibilities of projects and those are crucial for projects success. But unfortunately, those are not visible/recognisable to non-project management professionals. The project manager is the main person to take the blame or fame of the project and for that he/she has to undertake a lot more activities.
These are my few points, please share others too.. Thanks.
Yes, in many organizations, especially in small ones, company management and other staff don't totally understand who the project manager is and what's his role, and it is really sad. But I think it's the responsibility of PM to explain it clearly and to set appropriate expectations and work processes as soon as possible.
Kimberly McCoy
Project Manager| TekSystems - Contractor
Zanesville, Oh, United States
I completely agree with this. After having just completed my first year with the organization as a project manager, I am meant to set up meetings and take the notes. It's a little different because I deal directly with operations, but doing these things take away time that could help progress the project faster and takes away from what I am doing.
I read the PMI site that the government is defining their project management teams better and what their jobs are. I think companies can learn from that and do the same to better the organization.
1. The Note Taker - as a PM, I do enjoy taking notes. It ensures that I understand the takeaways well. However, I agree that a PM cannot be expected to do both, lead the meeting seamlessly, and take comprehensive notes.
2. The Meeting Organizer - I don't mind this role. Organizing some minor, one-on-one meetings between team members can be beneficial for the project. It means I'll be able to attend and hear the discussion in a small group and understand the situation better. However, there are cases when someone requests a meeting, but their Calendar is full for the next few days. If your Calendar is full and you need your PM to set up a meeting for you, please proactively suggest several time slots that could work for you.
3. The Accountant - I have the biggest issue with this stereotype. PMs have to juggle dozens of project related tasks at each time. Expecting them to forecast costs down to let's say 10% vriance is putting undue stress, and can take away from other important activities that may impact the project success.
Mauro Sotille
Chair, Senior Consultant / Project Manager| PM Tech Consulting
Porto Alegre, Rs, Brazil
Good article. Another PM stereotype I would include is the "secretary".
Yong Wang
PMP, PMI-PBA, MBA, Digital Transformation with AI| Digital Transformation Consultatn
Shanghai, Shanghai, China, Mainland
One of pm stereotype is meeting "facilitator".
Setup objective, smooth the discussion, review discuss and try to focus on original objectives, parking lot ideas
Christopher Ford
Manager, Mobile Application Solutions| NYS Office of Information Technology Services (ITS)
Mayfield, Ny, United States
Part of our role in an organization needs to be to educate the organization on our potential. The benefits of having a Project Manager on a project cannot be realized fully if we allow the stereotype culture to lead. Yes, we should record decisions and high-level outcomes at meetings so that we have an accurate record. Yes we should schedule larger meetings so that we can mitigate organizational bias an ensure that the proper stakeholders attend. Yes, we need the manage the budget "estimates" and track trends so that we can prepare the team for needed adjustments. However, especially on larger projects, we cannot take on the other dominant roles of finance officer, secretary, or administrative assistant. No person can handle more than one dominant role on any project.
I have one across a few in my experience...
Updates Chaser ...when I advised one of my projects manager to schedule weekly update for a critical project run as a Agile process....he was called update chaser for the entirety of the project.
The same project manager was called RAG REBEL when he raised a risk due to lack of RAG status from project team.
On both instances, during the Post project review,which I personally conducted, I put down for recently Rs that the project team resorted to name calling, thus reducing the project process to a point scoring process, thereby causing potential risk to project. Once the minutes and lessons learnt were distributed to stakeholders and executives...... this never happened again.
Karthik T
Senior Engineering Manager| Nike
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
My apologies for the lack of replies, the holidays have taken quite a bit of space in my schedule lately ;)
Thank you for your comments! I'm glad this topic interested quite a few.
Mauro, it's funny you should mention "secretary", it is a term I've used quite often to describe how PMs feel when they are hit by those stereotypes.
Yong, you mention "facilitator" as a stereotype, I'm curious to clarify, as I do feel PMs should be facilitators to the team anytime they can, does it still count as a stereotype? What are your thoughts?
Chanu, "updates chaser" is a nice one, it's true that working teams that are not mature or people that are more junior, we are forced to chase updates all the time to avoid surprises.
Christopher, well said, I couldn't agree more. It can be tolerated when you work on smaller projects, and typically in smaller agencies, but it's not viable if you work on large projects that require your attention elsewhere.
Thank you everyone.
Sergio Luis Conte
Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Unfortunatelly you will find this in the market. BUT let me say: 1-those are not project managers. 2-If you are facing this situation (I am in the very begining) is up to you to accept that.
Diana Ballesteros
Project Management Specialist| EMERSON Isolation - Australia
Australia
Great article!
I'm just starting on the PM world but I can see on the organization I'm working at the moment...the PM team is expected to do all of those tasks just as if that was the only meaning of being a PM. While I do agree the PM needs to take notes, set up meetings and look after the project budget these activities should be focused and relevant only to the project and done only if it adds value to the project amd helps to a successful completion. Seems easier to fall into these stereotypes but at the same type I believe is my responsibility as PM to socialize my role and my value to the project and to the team. But once again, I have just started this journey.
Kevin Moran
IT Project Manager| Emory University
Avondale Estates, Ga, United States
Very nice article and informative comments. My 2-cents is that a large part of the problem is the lack of any standard definition of the term "project manager", not just universally, but even within single organizations. Many organizations simply call someone a "project manager" when they don't know what else to call them, even if that person has no understanding of PMI/PMBOK methodologies - it's like a catch-all job description. The person who cleans the offices at night is the "janitorial project manager" and the person who refills the coffee pot in the Break Room is the "beverage project manager", because, after all, they do "manage" those "projects". PMBOK goes out of its way to repeatedly state that "not everyone does it this way", basically leaving it up to every organization to muddy the waters a bit more. If no one can agree on what a project manager is or does, then it's no surprise that the stereotypes listed in this article are so pervasive.
Diana,
thanks for your comment.
I wish you the best in this new world as a PM! Keep striving to show everyone that project management is more than just taking notes and setting meetings.
Agencies that have a low maturity in project management will be harder to teach, but it can be thought, just make sure you have buy-in from senior management or anyone that can help spread the word.
Cheers.
Kevin,
I couldn't agree more, I haven't seen so far in my career two organizations that have the same definition of a project manager, expectations are always different, and sometimes it's night and day.
To your point, what's challenging is that PMs need to make sure everything gets done, and if some tasks do not seem to clearly be defined in anyone's role, then the PMs often take it upon themselves to be the catch-all as you name it, otherwise it might not get done at all.
Cheers.
Jorge Espinoza
Cybersecurity Lead| Growth Acceleration Partners
Heredia, Costa Rica
great topic. I would add one more. MS Project specialist/Expert. It's true project management involves learning and use of tools to keep control of projects, but project management is more than having a MS Project file up to date.
Thanks Jorge, the "MS project user" is a great stereotype too, it seems you need to know/want to use that software to manage projects instead of all the others available on the market!
Cheers.
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