Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
I also have not observed this phenomenon. If anything, industries are starting to stop asking for project managers to be technical.
When I was asked about working on this project as a project manager, they enquired if I had an agile certification. I replied "would you not prefer a project manager with project management certifications"? Saving Changes...
James ShieldsIS Director - Portfolio Solutions| City and County of San Francisco, SFPDSan Francisco, Ca, United States
I have a hard time believing that the role and responsibilities we associate with a Technical Manager is now absorbing the role and responsibilities of a Project Manager -- or, at a minimum, cannibalizing the PM.
Please point us to a case study or other evidence that supports such a statement. Saving Changes...
Collins AlugaQuantity Surveyor| MCK Contract Services LtdNairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
PM position and function cannot be obsolete.A PM may have technical knowledge and probably do both,but this still does not negate the need for the PM role. Saving Changes...
George FreemanThought Leader | Author | Architect| Florida, United States
A few thoughts:
- If a Technical Manager is chartered as the individual who has the mandate, accountability, and authority to officially execute the project, then they ARE the Project Manager. If the individual named is a functional VP, Director, Manager or any other position, then they ARE the Project Manager.
- If an organization doesn’t want to call the “leader of the project” a project manager, then that is absolutely fine, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the individual is functioning as the project manager working under methodology to accomplish stated objectives.
- If the individual who is functioning as the project manager has other responsibilities (e.g. technical leadership, architecture, sales administration, process specialist, executive management, etc.), then it is incumbent on them to make their project responsibilities their highest priority or only priority for the time period of the project.
Recognizing the above, the PM/TM or PM/Any-Role discussion/argument largely falls mute, or am I missing something? Saving Changes...
Jeffrey HarmaTechnical Project Manager| Plante MoranRochester Hills, Mi, United States
I don't see the role of the PM becoming obsolete, but it certainly will evolve and adapt. Look to your PMP certification as evidence....back in the mid 90's when I took the test, there were 8 areas of the PMBOK, and only one flavor of certification available. Over time, the PMBoK expanded to 10 areas (I think?), along with all sorts of offshoots and additional certifications, to account for the changing technical landscape and role of the PM/PgM. Saving Changes...
I have had many job roles and titles that reflect more or less technical and PM responsibility. As the scale of projects increases, the PM necessarily has less and less direct technical involvement, otherwise they become the bottleneck for the whole project. There simply is not enough time in the day to accomplish both the project level work, and have detailed oversight of the technical work.
On larger projects, I may have a team of people to help me, including multiple "technical project managers" who have detailed knowledge of specific subjects where we have the greatest technical challenges. While I have a technical background myself, my design level involvement is often limited to reviewing what Group X is doing, and evaluating what other groups that might impact at a project level, and how non-design aspects such as process or budget changes are going to impact the design teams.
Sometimes I have one foot in the technical details and the other in the PM domain, but often that does not scale up well. Just like computer systems, If all traffic must be directed by a central controller, the capacity of that controller will determine the speed of the whole system. Saving Changes...
I am not sure about other domains but in IT project managers tend to be less and less involved in the actual work performed by the team. Many if not most of them have no clue about what the team members are really doing. I mean they know at a very high level what they are trying to achieve but they can't get into the details, not even a little bit.
These PMs obviously can't manage or lead a team and as such the need of a so called technical project manager arises. The technical manager manages and leads the team and is responsible for all the technical decisions as well as for the scope of the project. PMs are left with tracking, reporting, facilitating, chasing people and other project related issues that are not technical in nature.
The technical PMs I met where paired with PMs who were less senior then them and at a lower pay.
I imagine that in smaller projects the technical manager does not need the help of a PM and can deliver the project by himself as a one-man team or with the help with one or two other technical experts. I have never seen it but it is possible since in smaller project PMs spend very few time and are not doing much work. In smaller projects SMEs can do the project management work in addition of doing the actual work needed to deliver.
...
1 reply by George Freeman
Oct 02, 2019 5:43 PM
George Freeman
...
Adrian,
When I look at how you describe a project manager in this post and in past posts, you are functionally describing more of a “project coordinator” or “scheduler” role versus a PM role as defined by general practices (PMI, PRINCE, etc.).
There’s nothing wrong with an organization leveraging technical managers in the way you describe them – as if it works well for an organization, then that is what matters. However, the view that you have a PM is not the basis for the profession, although I understand it is your experience.
I have nearly forty years of IT experience, however at the same time I have over 25 years of traditional PM experience, and have seen the gamut, so I understand the mindset you are coming from. Consider this: A traditional chartered PM is empowered and accountable for the project and essentially holds the role of an executive within its boundaries. They work closely with all managers across the business and technical delivery domains to accomplish the objectives and goals of the project, and they are the ones who “take the hit” when things go awry.
Now it varies from enterprise to enterprise, but that generally describes the traditional PM. A PM is going to do everything possible to make their technical project managers successful, but they are NOT going to get into the technical details as they recognize you are the expert! Hope this gives a little insight.
Saving Changes...
George FreemanThought Leader | Author | Architect| Florida, United States
Oct 02, 2019 4:32 PM
Replying to Adrian Carlogea
...
I am not sure about other domains but in IT project managers tend to be less and less involved in the actual work performed by the team. Many if not most of them have no clue about what the team members are really doing. I mean they know at a very high level what they are trying to achieve but they can't get into the details, not even a little bit.
These PMs obviously can't manage or lead a team and as such the need of a so called technical project manager arises. The technical manager manages and leads the team and is responsible for all the technical decisions as well as for the scope of the project. PMs are left with tracking, reporting, facilitating, chasing people and other project related issues that are not technical in nature.
The technical PMs I met where paired with PMs who were less senior then them and at a lower pay.
I imagine that in smaller projects the technical manager does not need the help of a PM and can deliver the project by himself as a one-man team or with the help with one or two other technical experts. I have never seen it but it is possible since in smaller project PMs spend very few time and are not doing much work. In smaller projects SMEs can do the project management work in addition of doing the actual work needed to deliver.
Adrian,
When I look at how you describe a project manager in this post and in past posts, you are functionally describing more of a “project coordinator” or “scheduler” role versus a PM role as defined by general practices (PMI, PRINCE, etc.).
There’s nothing wrong with an organization leveraging technical managers in the way you describe them – as if it works well for an organization, then that is what matters. However, the view that you have a PM is not the basis for the profession, although I understand it is your experience.
I have nearly forty years of IT experience, however at the same time I have over 25 years of traditional PM experience, and have seen the gamut, so I understand the mindset you are coming from. Consider this: A traditional chartered PM is empowered and accountable for the project and essentially holds the role of an executive within its boundaries. They work closely with all managers across the business and technical delivery domains to accomplish the objectives and goals of the project, and they are the ones who “take the hit” when things go awry.
Now it varies from enterprise to enterprise, but that generally describes the traditional PM. A PM is going to do everything possible to make their technical project managers successful, but they are NOT going to get into the technical details as they recognize you are the expert! Hope this gives a little insight.
...
1 reply by Adrian Carlogea
Oct 02, 2019 7:23 PM
Adrian Carlogea
...
Thank you for your message George. I know perfectly what the role of the Project Manager SHOULD be, unfortunately in many companies in the IT domain the actual role is very far away from theory.
Many companies have project management internships and graduate project manager positions. Fresh graduates that have no working experience in any domain can start their first jobs in project management and in a few months they may end up "managing" projects. This has become very common as many IT companies have entry-level project management positions.
I know a young lady that has completed a master's degree in project management with exceptional academic results and was hired immediately as a junior PM in software development although she had never worked in IT before in any capacity. She was paired with senior developers that served as project technical managers and they were managing and leading the team. A huge number of such examples exist.
The technical details are crucial for the success of the project and if you don't make the technical decisions or you have no way to review them to a reasonable detail then you have a huge handicap and you don't really fully manage the project.
Entry level project management positions and project management internships should not exist at all. As long as they exist those that are starting in those positions would never be more than project coordinators even if they progress in their career.
Maybe in other domains is different but this is now the situation in IT in a very large number of organizations.
When I look at how you describe a project manager in this post and in past posts, you are functionally describing more of a “project coordinator” or “scheduler” role versus a PM role as defined by general practices (PMI, PRINCE, etc.).
There’s nothing wrong with an organization leveraging technical managers in the way you describe them – as if it works well for an organization, then that is what matters. However, the view that you have a PM is not the basis for the profession, although I understand it is your experience.
I have nearly forty years of IT experience, however at the same time I have over 25 years of traditional PM experience, and have seen the gamut, so I understand the mindset you are coming from. Consider this: A traditional chartered PM is empowered and accountable for the project and essentially holds the role of an executive within its boundaries. They work closely with all managers across the business and technical delivery domains to accomplish the objectives and goals of the project, and they are the ones who “take the hit” when things go awry.
Now it varies from enterprise to enterprise, but that generally describes the traditional PM. A PM is going to do everything possible to make their technical project managers successful, but they are NOT going to get into the technical details as they recognize you are the expert! Hope this gives a little insight.
Thank you for your message George. I know perfectly what the role of the Project Manager SHOULD be, unfortunately in many companies in the IT domain the actual role is very far away from theory.
Many companies have project management internships and graduate project manager positions. Fresh graduates that have no working experience in any domain can start their first jobs in project management and in a few months they may end up "managing" projects. This has become very common as many IT companies have entry-level project management positions.
I know a young lady that has completed a master's degree in project management with exceptional academic results and was hired immediately as a junior PM in software development although she had never worked in IT before in any capacity. She was paired with senior developers that served as project technical managers and they were managing and leading the team. A huge number of such examples exist.
The technical details are crucial for the success of the project and if you don't make the technical decisions or you have no way to review them to a reasonable detail then you have a huge handicap and you don't really fully manage the project.
Entry level project management positions and project management internships should not exist at all. As long as they exist those that are starting in those positions would never be more than project coordinators even if they progress in their career.
Maybe in other domains is different but this is now the situation in IT in a very large number of organizations. Saving Changes...
