QINGQING QINfacility and maintenance coordinator| King's pastryMississauga, Ontario, Canada
Hello. Experts .I'm new CAPM holder, and I have a question about entry job of project management. I don't have any real-world experiences only did few during school years. My education background is Chemical Eng. and my current job is quality control technician. I want to land a job in the project field, I found it is not easy. could you please give me some suggestions about how to land a job without experiences? THANKS SO MUCH. Saving Changes...
You would be surprised how much managers can rotate through different positions where they lack the technical background. As a PM even, I have led technical teams in a very broad variety of disciplines. It requires quickly coming up to speed on what is relevant to my own involvement, and knowing who to listen to.
As someone who has transitioned from a technical specialist role to a generalist, I often describe my #1 core competency as, "Quickly becoming an expert in things I know absolutely nothing about." It's one of those places where continuous learning is beneficial to a career. It doesn't show what you know. It shows that you are still capable of learning.
Managing an engineering project as a PM is one thing managing engineers as an Engineering Manager is another thing. The Engineering Manager is usually involved in the technical decisions the PM is usually not.
Even when engineers are assigned to projects it is still the Engineering Manager the one who's responsible for the engineering work being performed on those projects.
So managing may have one meaning for the PM and another meaning for the Engineering Manager. Saving Changes...
The level of technical engagement by the manager vs. PM is largely dependent on the organizational structure. In a purely functional organization, the manager has a lot more input than a purely project based organization. When I have led dedicated project teams, the organizational managers often have little to no input in the technical content. In strong and weak matrixed organizations, there are varying degrees of engagement in the RAAs.
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1 reply by Adrian Carlogea
Nov 09, 2018 1:08 PM
Adrian Carlogea
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The level of technical engagement is primarily dependent on the engineering knowledge. If the PM is not a good engineer, or is not an engineer at all, then he can't get involved in the technical decision process no matter the organizational structure.
If the Engineering Manager does not get involved either then one of his direct reports, a senior engineer, will act on his behalf and will manage the team at the technical level. The Engineering Manager is ultimately responsible for the work of his senior engineer who leads the other engineers working on the project team.
If the PM is not an engineer and hasn't taken any technical decision and the project fails because of poor engineering work then the Engineering Manager would be fully accountable for this in most cases. He would not be able to blame the PM or his engineers for the failure.
The level of technical engagement by the manager vs. PM is largely dependent on the organizational structure. In a purely functional organization, the manager has a lot more input than a purely project based organization. When I have led dedicated project teams, the organizational managers often have little to no input in the technical content. In strong and weak matrixed organizations, there are varying degrees of engagement in the RAAs.
The level of technical engagement is primarily dependent on the engineering knowledge. If the PM is not a good engineer, or is not an engineer at all, then he can't get involved in the technical decision process no matter the organizational structure.
If the Engineering Manager does not get involved either then one of his direct reports, a senior engineer, will act on his behalf and will manage the team at the technical level. The Engineering Manager is ultimately responsible for the work of his senior engineer who leads the other engineers working on the project team.
If the PM is not an engineer and hasn't taken any technical decision and the project fails because of poor engineering work then the Engineering Manager would be fully accountable for this in most cases. He would not be able to blame the PM or his engineers for the failure. Saving Changes...
Respectfully - While that may be true in your personal experience, it is not universally true and it disagrees with the PMBOK section 2.1.
In many engineering projects, there is a Systems Engineer assigned, and a PM (not IT systems only BTW) . The SE is primarily involved in the technical content of the system while the PM is primarily involved with the business management content. The PM and the SE need to understand each other's roles fairly well but their RAAs are necessarily separate.
In the case of a project based org structure, the SE coordinates with the technical focals from the various functions. Relevant business aspects get relayed to the PM. 1st line reporting managers may be responsible for the HR aspects of their employee's performance but have no decision making authority on the project team. If the project fails, it may not be the direct result of any single function contributing. If it is, the manager is responsible for their decision as to who to assign to the project and the capabilities of that individual, but not for the technical decisions made. That is the responsibility of the SE, and it is often spelled out in the project charter.
Combining both the SE and the PM is what is sometimes referred to as a "Technical PM" but names differ widely. This is consistent with both the PMBOK, and the SEBOK.
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1 reply by Adrian Carlogea
Nov 09, 2018 2:09 PM
Adrian Carlogea
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"1st line reporting managers may be responsible for the HR aspects of their employee's performance but have no decision making authority on the project team"
On the whole project team no, just on the project team members that directly report to them yes.
For instance a project team may have a software developer, a business analyst, a tester and a PM. Each of them usually report to different line managers (including the PM). These line managers usually can't interfere with the project wide decisions but can give instructions to their direct reports on how to perform their work and what decisions to take in their area of responsibility. Each project team member must respect the policy imposed by the department on which he works, even when he works on projects.
If the project team member does not obey the PM nothing bad happens to him if he does not obey his line manager he can get fired, not promoted or demoted. That's real life not books. :)
Respectfully - While that may be true in your personal experience, it is not universally true and it disagrees with the PMBOK section 2.1.
In many engineering projects, there is a Systems Engineer assigned, and a PM (not IT systems only BTW) . The SE is primarily involved in the technical content of the system while the PM is primarily involved with the business management content. The PM and the SE need to understand each other's roles fairly well but their RAAs are necessarily separate.
In the case of a project based org structure, the SE coordinates with the technical focals from the various functions. Relevant business aspects get relayed to the PM. 1st line reporting managers may be responsible for the HR aspects of their employee's performance but have no decision making authority on the project team. If the project fails, it may not be the direct result of any single function contributing. If it is, the manager is responsible for their decision as to who to assign to the project and the capabilities of that individual, but not for the technical decisions made. That is the responsibility of the SE, and it is often spelled out in the project charter.
Combining both the SE and the PM is what is sometimes referred to as a "Technical PM" but names differ widely. This is consistent with both the PMBOK, and the SEBOK.
"1st line reporting managers may be responsible for the HR aspects of their employee's performance but have no decision making authority on the project team"
On the whole project team no, just on the project team members that directly report to them yes.
For instance a project team may have a software developer, a business analyst, a tester and a PM. Each of them usually report to different line managers (including the PM). These line managers usually can't interfere with the project wide decisions but can give instructions to their direct reports on how to perform their work and what decisions to take in their area of responsibility. Each project team member must respect the policy imposed by the department on which he works, even when he works on projects.
If the project team member does not obey the PM nothing bad happens to him if he does not obey his line manager he can get fired, not promoted or demoted. That's real life not books. :) Saving Changes...
