Jose Luis Gonzalez RugelPresidente Grupo Gonzalez - Program Manager - Docente- Consultor - ATP Trainner| DipromacomGuayaquil, Guayas, Ecuador
Given that the PM is the person who should give the projects the north and make the best decisions, is it possible that the PM can develop a servant or cooperative leadership or should we maintain in autocratic leadership? Saving Changes...
Shweta PaiScrum master| ResMedHalifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Well, in my opinion servant leadership is the need of the hour. Regardless of waterfall or agile methodologies, authoritative leadership is not endorsed by either. While organizations are switching over to agile methodologies and are wanting to get the most out of their teams, it only means that the project manager role has to evolve. Instead of being a textbook style project manager, one would be more effective if they were a servant leader and helped the team to get to it's best version. Saving Changes...
Dinah YoungProject Manager / Software Asset Manager| Prince William CountySpringfield, Va, United States
I think in relation to performing the work on the project (and I am referring to technical/software development projects) a project manager could definitely be a servant leader. The methodology will not matter. There may be other aspects of the project where servant leadership may not so easily apply, like dealing with upper management, stakeholders, procurement, risk management, etc.
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1 reply by Adrian Carlogea
Jul 10, 2018 5:29 PM
Adrian Carlogea
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Hi Dinah, I believe that most team members primarily care about the project decisions that are technical in nature or who affect to some extent the actual work being performed. I think it is not very common for technical IT experts or software developers to want to be involved in project management related issue that are not directly related to their work.
In relation to performing the actual work as I said most PMs have no formal authority over the project team members and more importantly they lack domain knowledge. When you are not the boss of a group of people and you don't really understand the technicalities of their work you simply can't lead them but instead you can support them.
I am not sure if the servant leader term is correct but definitely a PM with no formal authority and no domain knowledge is primarily a servant of his team rather that a leader. Command and control or autocratic leadership are options that are simply not available to the PM in this situation no matter the project methodology being used.
Saving Changes...
Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
Absolutely. Empowering the team to make their own decisions and drive their own efforts forward adds significant value to the project, team, organization, and the individual.
I strive to let my team be the experts they were brought onboard to be. I am not there to dictate their decisions, but to allow for them to leverage their expertise on suggestions on best directions forward. I want them to feel, as they should, as core members of the team and solution. Saving Changes...
In any industry the PM should be a servant leader but not just that. The PM has many hat to choose from, Servant leader is one of them. Saving Changes...
Thanks for your point; firstly: the converse position you imply is that no Corrective Action is ever taken. This would just let’s things spiral into failure and fly in the face of every Management best practice on the planet (PMBOK, PRINCE2, CMMI). Secondly you are confused about the nature of the Corrective Action and who creates it. As PM you should work with the team to draw if out from them, and it should be a detailed enough and at least semi-formal who/what/where/when/why that is appropriate at both the management and sponsorship level. I don’t really care about a change to a line of code, that is almost arbitrary. It would be more wide reaching and comprehensive:
1. Person x implement a code change by xx
2. Person Y to peer review change
3. Person z to mentor team on code review process
4. PM to escalate lack of training on automated unit testing suite to get training made available
5. PM to update wall board to include defect breakdown to improve team visibility of this issue
6. Person X include a walkthrough of this issue at the Retrospectiv
7. Person y to raise this in global knowledge base so it isn’t repeated again
Thank you for for your message Phil. In my opinion what you are describing is more like a facilitator type PM or Scrum Master rather than an autocratic leader.
In software development an autocratic leader would be someone who has formal authority over the developers and who gives them concrete instructions on how to write their code.
As I said most PMs in software development have no formal authority over the developers and no coding skills. In this case it is simply impossible for the PM to be more than a facilitator when working with the developers.
The most important thing however is that many issues that appear in a software development project are purely technical in nature and they are the result of technical decisions that prove not to be so good. It is hard for non-developers to understand it but even the best developers can take decisions with a bad outcome. In these situations PMs are simply powerless and no corrective measures taken by them would help the project. Saving Changes...
In an Agile environment, no one should have authority over the developers. Once they start reporting to someone, well then we get back into lower transparency, fear, individual performance assessments, less autonomy, and the list goes on, which are all associated with the traditional software development environment. Saving Changes...
Lenka PincotChief of Staff to the CEO| Project Management InstituteParis, France
I believe autocratic leadership slows team down because PM becomes a bottleneck for making decisions and approves outputs. I also think that good PM must have good learning ability and must become able to understand the team even if not skilled in the details. Then is servant leadership possible. It is a lot about listening to the team members, both side trust and sharing the same goals. Then it does not depend on the chosen methodology meaning agile, hybrid or waterfall. Saving Changes...
I think in relation to performing the work on the project (and I am referring to technical/software development projects) a project manager could definitely be a servant leader. The methodology will not matter. There may be other aspects of the project where servant leadership may not so easily apply, like dealing with upper management, stakeholders, procurement, risk management, etc.
Hi Dinah, I believe that most team members primarily care about the project decisions that are technical in nature or who affect to some extent the actual work being performed. I think it is not very common for technical IT experts or software developers to want to be involved in project management related issue that are not directly related to their work.
In relation to performing the actual work as I said most PMs have no formal authority over the project team members and more importantly they lack domain knowledge. When you are not the boss of a group of people and you don't really understand the technicalities of their work you simply can't lead them but instead you can support them.
I am not sure if the servant leader term is correct but definitely a PM with no formal authority and no domain knowledge is primarily a servant of his team rather that a leader. Command and control or autocratic leadership are options that are simply not available to the PM in this situation no matter the project methodology being used.
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1 reply by Dinah Young
Jul 11, 2018 9:05 AM
Dinah Young
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Actually, in all of the projects that I have worked on the project manager does have the domain knowledge. Many of our project managers started as technical people and then were promoted. Even the ones who were less technical did have a good understanding of the overall technical nature of the project.
And our PMs do have authority over their projects. They are given a budget, can purchase supplies (with approval from upper mgt), are somewhat able to decide go or no-go on the project, and assess their team members abilities. They do not always have the ability to decide who works on a project or the authority to hire/fire employees, but they can decide when to bring in a consultant to support the project.
So, knowing what they need to complete their work and providing it to them and giving guidance when needed, in addition to supporting any needs the team has sounds like a servant leader.
Saving Changes...
Dinah YoungProject Manager / Software Asset Manager| Prince William CountySpringfield, Va, United States
Jul 10, 2018 5:29 PM
Replying to Adrian Carlogea
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Hi Dinah, I believe that most team members primarily care about the project decisions that are technical in nature or who affect to some extent the actual work being performed. I think it is not very common for technical IT experts or software developers to want to be involved in project management related issue that are not directly related to their work.
In relation to performing the actual work as I said most PMs have no formal authority over the project team members and more importantly they lack domain knowledge. When you are not the boss of a group of people and you don't really understand the technicalities of their work you simply can't lead them but instead you can support them.
I am not sure if the servant leader term is correct but definitely a PM with no formal authority and no domain knowledge is primarily a servant of his team rather that a leader. Command and control or autocratic leadership are options that are simply not available to the PM in this situation no matter the project methodology being used.
Actually, in all of the projects that I have worked on the project manager does have the domain knowledge. Many of our project managers started as technical people and then were promoted. Even the ones who were less technical did have a good understanding of the overall technical nature of the project.
And our PMs do have authority over their projects. They are given a budget, can purchase supplies (with approval from upper mgt), are somewhat able to decide go or no-go on the project, and assess their team members abilities. They do not always have the ability to decide who works on a project or the authority to hire/fire employees, but they can decide when to bring in a consultant to support the project.
So, knowing what they need to complete their work and providing it to them and giving guidance when needed, in addition to supporting any needs the team has sounds like a servant leader.
...
1 reply by Adrian Carlogea
Jul 11, 2018 5:38 PM
Adrian Carlogea
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That's very good, in my opinion PMs should be senior technical experts capable of providing technical leadership and guidance to the project team members. In large companies I haven't seen this happening. Usually technical leads are assigned to the project to lead the project team members while the PM usually takes care of the things that are not technical in nature. The PM in these cases is more a supportive rather than a true leadership role.
What's funny is that sometimes the technical lead and all the team members are more seniors than the PM who is just a junior employee with a very few years of work experience and no domain knowledge at all.
But as I said the team members don't care too much about the "powers" the PM has as long as he lacks the knowledge to get involved into the technical decisions. Trying to involve project team members in purely project management issues can be counterproductive as the team members may see this as a complete waste of time and they may perceive the PM as being either lazy or incompetent.
PMs however will almost never going to have full authority to manage projects and that's because the project is a temporary structure from within an organization that does not have its own resources. The resources used in projects come from the permanent structures of the organization and these structures are being managed by other people.
Actually, in all of the projects that I have worked on the project manager does have the domain knowledge. Many of our project managers started as technical people and then were promoted. Even the ones who were less technical did have a good understanding of the overall technical nature of the project.
And our PMs do have authority over their projects. They are given a budget, can purchase supplies (with approval from upper mgt), are somewhat able to decide go or no-go on the project, and assess their team members abilities. They do not always have the ability to decide who works on a project or the authority to hire/fire employees, but they can decide when to bring in a consultant to support the project.
So, knowing what they need to complete their work and providing it to them and giving guidance when needed, in addition to supporting any needs the team has sounds like a servant leader.
That's very good, in my opinion PMs should be senior technical experts capable of providing technical leadership and guidance to the project team members. In large companies I haven't seen this happening. Usually technical leads are assigned to the project to lead the project team members while the PM usually takes care of the things that are not technical in nature. The PM in these cases is more a supportive rather than a true leadership role.
What's funny is that sometimes the technical lead and all the team members are more seniors than the PM who is just a junior employee with a very few years of work experience and no domain knowledge at all.
But as I said the team members don't care too much about the "powers" the PM has as long as he lacks the knowledge to get involved into the technical decisions. Trying to involve project team members in purely project management issues can be counterproductive as the team members may see this as a complete waste of time and they may perceive the PM as being either lazy or incompetent.
PMs however will almost never going to have full authority to manage projects and that's because the project is a temporary structure from within an organization that does not have its own resources. The resources used in projects come from the permanent structures of the organization and these structures are being managed by other people. Saving Changes...
