A Good Reason Not To Be A Project Manager

 

The first question I ask of students when I do career coaching is whether or not this is even the right choice for you.

Here is a primary consideration if you are considering a career switch into project management.

Individual Contributor?

In what role do you get the majority of your satisfaction?  Contributing directly in an individual role or by leading others who are contributing directly?

Make no mistake, the project management role is about facilitating the real work that is producing a new product or service.  When I point to the result of something my project teams have produced, I say "this is what my team did", not "this is what I did."  I guided my teams to create the product, I didn't create it myself.

If you are someone who derives a ton of personal satisfaction from how well you personally created something, the individual contributor role is probably for you.  If you want to be a manager, project or otherwise, then you need to be able to derive your personal satisfaction from working with people and their accomplishments.

The Goal:  Love What You Do

Have you ever had a manager (project or otherwise) who just didn't seem like they loved what they do?

Of course, we all have!

If you do not have a passion for working with people and deriving your satisfaction through them, you probably should not be a manager of any kind.  You'll end up being on the extreme:  a micromanager or an apathetic manager.

Now, an ex-programmer who is now a manager but still loves to program is not necessarily a bad thing.  As long as they view the objective of their management role and how to derive satisfaction from it appropriately, this is fine.

It becomes a problem when they want to write big chunks of applications themselves because "no one else can do it like I can." and so forth.  Or in some cases, the job becomes a meaningless cycle of paperwork because they just don't get jazzed by developing people, enabling team communication, or removing obstacles to help their teams succeed.

Do you have the DNA of a project manager, or an individual contributor?  Neither is better or worse, they are just different.

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