Pamela RobbStrategic Program/Project Leader| E2M Project Management PartnersSterling, Va, United States
I have been managing programs and projects for nonprofits for more than 10 years. I have my PMP and I'm very active in PMI. I helped found a virtual community and have recently added speaker to my set of skills.
I was laid off from my Project Portfolio Management position back in June 2010. Since then I have been trying to break into other areas of PM (like IT which is prevalent in my area) but with very little success. It seems I need to be the SME as well.
My question is, how does one get around this catch 22? I am an experienced PM but not so experienced in "IT PM". My projects always had an IT component (don't they all?!) but the scope of my projects were much broader.
I know there are a lot of poor PMs out there but that's in any profession. Why on earth would I want to have so much expertise in one area (i.e. I'm the SME) and then turn around and try and manage projects? If I'm an SME, I would think I would want to be doing the actual work of the SME; not dealing with how do I get my stakeholders to agree on the scope of the project or how do I get my senior leadership's support or any number of the project management parts of the project...
Would anyone care to comment? I am being forced (because I like to eat and drink well, pay my bills, travel, and live a decent life...) to go into business for myselt and return to working with nonprofits. This is not necessarily a bad thing but I do feel pigeon-holed. I would really like to broaden my horizons but it seems as if that "isn't allowed" in this current environment...
Would love to hear your comments. Saving Changes...
Pamela:
You've uncovered the elephant in the room for IT. There are lots of articles out there about IT these days; it is tough for a PM to be in IT and not be a SME. Soft skills have been on the rise; so don't think that every organization wants an IT PM to be a SME. PMs should focus managing the project and should never be in the critical path. Besides, the majority of problems on projects is not technology; it's people.
I've been in IT for over 26 years; the industry is tough for women in IT and tough trying to break into IT PM. However, you made your case already "My projects always had an IT component (don't they all?!) but the scope of my projects were much broader." You have experience; make sure you resume makes this experience shine.
If you really want to be in IT, get ready to roll up your sleeves, sell yourself, develop thick skin, understand technology, the business and your customers.
So, I'll recommend a different perspective/approach for you. Focus on your vision, leadership and investing in an introspective of who your are, what are you most passionate about and what kind of leader you want to be.
Here's my action plan for you:
1. Follow my blog "Extraordinary Leadership" , it's audience is for IT Project Managers but any PM who wishes to step up to the next level of leadership will benefit.
2. Invest in yourself; what is your vision of where you want to be in 5 - 10 years. Develop a personal development plan.
3. Join social networks like Linked In, Facebook and Twitter and invest in updating your resume, presence and network opportunities.
4.Try to fill this gap with volunteer work, part time jobs or go to school to take a course.
5. Find one or more mentors
6. Research companies you want to work for; look for good fits.
Once, you are ready, brush off your resume and go search for jobs that are the right fit for your talent.
Saving Changes...
In answer to your question: "how does one get around this catch 22?", I'll say opportunity and luck. I'll talk a little about my personal experience here. I never wanted to be a SME because 1) I learned early on that there's always someone better, and 2) I didn't want to find myself stuck with one particular domain. So I built my skills in Project Management as a jack-of-all-trades, never working for the same business twice. I've sampled entertainment, distribution, banking, sourcing, and currently telecom. And it was a tough sell - hiring managers are always looking for people with previous experience in their company's field. However, I turned my versatility into my strength: it is precisely because I have no background in telecom that I can tell my currently employer how things are done in other industries, and bring this kind of creativity into an otherwise stale IT department. I believe, from reading your profile, that you possess the same kind of strength and will definitely bring value to any company - you just have to convince them.
Oh, and as a side note, if my budget gets approved I'll be hiring PMs for 2012 - feel free to apply if you don't mind relocating :) Saving Changes...
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Pamela - great post. And great replies too. I would only add that domain knowledge, in whatever field, is actually quite important. In the last Gartner PPM Summit, the head of PMI, Mark Langley, participated in an executive roundtable and gave out a number of excellent advisements. One of those advisements, regarding the PM profession, is that if we continue to talk (PM talk) only in terms of Scope, Time, and Cost - then project management will fail us. Mr. Langley went on to state that in addition to the old PM triangle (Scope, Time, Cost) a new view of that triangle needs to consider:
Technical project management
Business acumen [in the context of the project]
And (3) technical leadership.
As a domain, IT has its own set of business acumen required as do other domains such as sales, marketing, R&D, engineering, construction, HR, customer service, legal, finance, etc. It is not so much of a catch 22, rather a need to have and continue to develop that balance that Mr. Langley talked about - project management, business acumen, and technical leadership. For example, if you wanted to be a project manager in construction, you would need to know something about construction.
You mentioned that you are trying to break into other areas of PM. That is a great thing to do..! Perhaps you can find a sweet-spot of areas of PM that are both of high interest to you and that are high in demand..! Toward that aim, the advice below from Julien and Naomi is outstanding. Good luck..! Saving Changes...
Wai Mun KooPMO Director| Intergraph PP&MSingapore, Singapore
Ideally, the project manager should just need to focus on the PM triangle and the usual project management stuffs.
Ideally, the project manager should have a team that consists of business analysts, SMEs, technical architects, change leaders etc. to take care of the business requirements, processes, technical issues, challenges in change management etc. while the PM should just focus on nothing but managing the project.
Unfortunately, all these ideals will not happen in real life situation. Companies are tight in resource and budget and PM may have to double up roles of business analyst of technical architect. PM also needs to be familiar with the domain of the project and understand the lingua franca in order to speak in the same frequency as the SMEs and technical architects. Unfortunately, there are so many unfortunates that will be too much to fit into this reply.
If we take a step back, and ask a similar question on the CEO, the leader in an organization instead of a project, will we still think that the CEO needs domain knowledge? Apparently, we have seen many great, or not-so-great, CEOs hopping from company to company and one domain to another domain. They do so even if they are newbies in that domain or they are thrown into an untapped new domain. So why CEOs can do so without any problem of having the need to know the domain while PMs will usually need good domain knowledge in order to excel?
I believe the key difference between CEOs and PMs is the former is more of a strategical role while the latter is more of a tactical and operational role where you will need a lot of domain knowledge in order for you to work efficiently and effective in the field with the team. Having said that, there is also another factor to take into consideration - i.e. the culture of the organization and its organization matrix. I do believe that there will be organizations who will want to take in PMs who are strong in PM skills but lack of in domain knowledge. But I would say, this is still quite rare in current job market. Saving Changes...
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Great post, Wai Mun. I am sure that I am in agreement with you far more than not. I would offer that in my experience, I have rarely seen a CEO move from one company to another without the requisite domain knowledge. Bear in mind, domain knowledge does not have to be only knowledge of an industry. For example, a CEO might possess great turnaround and financial skills as a domain. Another might possess strong skills in M&A or taking a company public. While another CEO might be an expert in innovation and bringing new products to market and acquiring investors along the way, and on and on. Rarely does a Board of Directors hire a CEO with no domain knowledge in the particular domain that the company needs and Board of Directors is seeking to hire.
I would also offer a different view about the idea that PMs only need to focus on the PM triangle - scope, time, cost. For one, plan-driven project management is just one approach for the management of projects. Think of this (plan-driven vs complex adaptive systems) as one dimension. Another dimension is the degree to which projects are formal and subject to governance verses the degree to which projects are informal or business as usual (BAU) and not subject to formal governance. Take these two dimensions, plan driven vs. complex adaptive systems (CAS) and formal vs. informal and you have a 2x2 analysis grid and set of four quadrants. Many thought leaders (Robert Handler of Gartner, Harrison Owen of Open Space Technology, all of the Agilistas, and others) advocate that what the formal project management community has espoused by way of plan driven project management techniques (scope, time, and cost) is only appropriate and effective for one of these quadrants and ineffective for the other three.
Bottom-line, the idea that PMs need to only concern themselves with the traditional project management kinds of things will likely lead even the best of PMs to one day be asking themselves that now famous question, "Who moved my cheese..?"....!
But getting back to Pamela's original post, I quite agree that there is this seemingly contradiction about needing to be an SME in a given domain in order to be a PM in that domain. If it helps, at that same Gartner Group PPM Summit, the head of PMI, Mark Langley, commented that technical project management such as that contained in the PMBOK Guide only represents 40% of the skills a PM needs and what a PM has to be able to do. Hence, that other 60% (what ever we wish to call it) is quite important. Saving Changes...
Wai Mun KooPMO Director| Intergraph PP&MSingapore, Singapore
Great comment Mark. I especially like the 4 quadrants part.
Now back to Pamela's question. I believe this is a contradicting problem that many PMs will come across once or twice in their career. I have a colleague who would like to work in the banking industry. However, no matter how hard he has tried, he just couldn't land himself a post in the bank just because he has never worked in a bank before (again a catch-22 problem). I believe this is a common phenomenon in the job market and I have posted a blog entry specifically on this here - "Where Have All The Talents Gone?"
Now, how should we address this? I believe the comments from Mark, Julien and Naomi do provide some good advices on this. Saving Changes...
I'm going to take a different approach to this problem. I have lots of IT experience as that is the track that I came up through however IT is changing so fast my previous technical experience is no longer relevant.
However, I do understand the fundamentals of IT projects and the level of uncertainty they contain, I know the different System Development Life Cycles and the rigor needed in the various testing phases and whether they are relevant for a particular project.
If you understand these due to your exposure to the IT components of your projects then I would add them to your CV. Include some of the IT techno babble that the agencies use as key words in their searches to find project managers with the relevant experience. Quote system names, vendors, operating systems, methodologies, eg Agile,, waterfall etc. I once worked on an SAP project (10 years ago) and to this day I keep getting calls from agencies asking if I would be interested in SAP projects!
I have an appendices to my CV with all the technical details so I don't clutter up the main part, but don't forget to mention the IT component in the main part as well. For example "I managed a process improvement project that required changes to the XYZ Oracle system and the implementation of a ABC Business Process Management System by ACO....."
One word of warning, don't overstate your experience as you will get caught out, say you are familiar with ....., that you relied on a technical lead for the detail etc etc.
Good Luck
Julie Saving Changes...
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Another tidbit of very sage advice from Julie Goff. I highly agree with Julie's comment about not overstating experience on a resume (or at all for that matter). Accuracy is a good policy. Saving Changes...
Pamela RobbStrategic Program/Project Leader| E2M Project Management PartnersSterling, Va, United States
It is amazing how fast and slow life can move! When I posted my questions back on Oct 31, I felt like my job search was excruciatingly S-L-O-O-O-O-O-W! I have never EVER had a job search take so long and even though my recent search was overshadowed by this insane recession, I still had trouble grappling with how hard it was to find a job doing something I am really good at!
Well, soon after my post, I experienced a flurry—no, let me accurately describe this—a HURRICANE of job search activity (hence my delay in responding to all of you.) It was as if the levies broke and opportunities started pouring in. Opportunities that were NOT in nonprofits (my previous industry). To make a long story short, I became the front-runner for three separate jobs in three different industries. Only one of them was an opportunity I found; the second one found my resume online; and the third was from a recruiter I had met several months ago for another gig. Each one remarked how they wanted a PM that had the well-rounded experience of actually managing the project. Neither wanted an SME above the PM skills. They acknowledged the importance of understanding the industry or of understanding IT, but to them, it was NOT more important than getting the project from start to finish in a timely manner, with quality and within the constraints that THEY had to deal with. I’m skipping over a lot of stuff I discovered from interviewing with these three potential employers but, it seems that they were all in agreement that it isn’t all about scope, time, and cost and that there are some very real aspects about their projects that requires someone with a fair amount of strategic and business acumen to coordinate it all.
I ended up choosing a PM role that will have me working on multi-million dollar IS projects for a large global law firm (3000 staff; at least 1500 attorneys in 15 cities throughout the globe). It’s a 6-month contract but of all the potential employers, this one offered the best opportunities now and the best leverage for future positions.
So, to Wai, Naomi, and Julien’s points—I am so glad I persevered and as Naomi put it, “stayed out of the critical path.” Thank you all for your wonderful and insightful responses. Naomi—excellent advice about how to manage a job search—things sure have changed, huh? Luckily, I’ve done and continue to do everything on your list (with the exception of following your blog—I would love to read it… can you send the address or location?) And Julien—about that “side note;” let’s keep in touch! I will be in Marseille in early May 2012, managing the New Practitioner CoP’s conference track at the PMI EMEA Global Congress. I don’t know if you are planning to attend but if not, perhaps I could build in some time to take a quick trip up to Paris on the TGV. If anything, it will give me another opportunity to practice my French (which I’m hoping to learn fairly quickly!)
Happy holidays to each of you as well as those reading this thread. Here’s to a New Year filled with promise and possibilities!
Saving Changes...
Pamela:
Great news! I'm so happy that you have found the right fit and thought about what you were looking for going into the job search.
You never know where your next job will be coming from. Now that you're on the right path here is more information for you.:
* Follow my blog right here on gantthead.com - Select blogs from the menu bar and navigate to my blog Extraordinary Leader http://www.gantthead.com/blog/Extraordinary-Leader/ * Join Project Managers each week on Twitter Fridays 9:00 am PST by following the hashtag #PMChat - great group of PMs who are passionate about PM and making a difference
Connect with me on Linked In - http://www.linkedin.com/in/naomicaietti
"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
