How would you help team if needed? Can team assign tasks to the PM?

Danny -

And that is why the PMP exam bears little connection to what happens in real life. Having written questions for the PMP exam three times going back to the early 2000s, the perspective has always been of a PM with sufficient political or formal authority to be able to make a significant percentage of decisions on their own.

This is NOT the reality in many industries and organizations, especially those where the project is run within a balanced matrix, weak matrix or functional organizational structure.

Kiron

Kiron Bondale ,it seems like there is some misunderstandings with PMP latest content. Additionally, discussing something that occurred 20 years ago may not be relevant, as it could be based on outdated content or suggestions. Although the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification might be scenario-based, Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) or PMP is not authored by one or two individuals, instead, it is a collective body of knowledge based on the best practices recommended by experts, which grounded in real-life best practices, especially in the latest version.

Having recently passed the PMP & PRINCE2 project management certifications, I'd like to share some insights. A Project Manager indeed has the authority to make some significant decisions independently, starting with the official acceptance of the project charter or project brief, according to PMP and PRINCE2 best practices. Neither certification suggests escalating issues to senior management simply because the team is busy, as managing team workload efficiently falls within the project manager's domain. Unless it is necessary.

In real life, project managers must lead the project and be familiar with project resources, including stakeholders, scope, cost and time. Therefore, they need to develop relevant skills to address various issues and balance the constraints. While it's common to encounter busy teams in real-life scenarios, it's essential for leaders, including project managers, to learn how to balance resources effectively. Escalating every busy issue to leadership is not always necessary unless there is a compelling reason. Even in organizations where project managers have weaker influence, managing resources is a skill they should be familiar with.

To summarize, project managers need to develop the skills to address issues, lead project, empower team, and remove obstacles for project success. Escalating issues like "the team is busy" may not align with PMP best practices, as managing time, scope, and other resources efficiently is a skill everyone needs to learn in life. Before resorting to escalation, it's crucial to strike a balance and learn how to effectively manage available resources. In real-life situations, every scenario may vary, making it even more important to apply best practices, particularly regarding essential skills such as resource allocation, whether in the workplace or in personal life.

I agree with you Kiron. In project management real world, the structure of the organization. Years ago, I worked in organizations that in transition phase, they managed projects in a centralized manner by departments where there was no role at all to project managers. When I joined, the position was just created, and I had to escalate too many issues to the upper management as they need to know everything, and they still have the context of centralized management.

Danny -

My final word on this is the following.

Although escalation should not be a PM's first course of action, the inability to escalate in a timely manner has been a cause of many project issues that I've witnessed over my career. And I have worked in a number of organizations where PMs were extremely limited in their ability to manage resources and had to lean on their sponsors to help them out. That had nothing to do with their skills or ability to influence but rather the relative power of the PM role to functional managers.

Kiron