What Would Make You Quit Your Job as a Project Manager?
Not sure how many answers I’ll get to this one, but I’m curious about what it would take for you to quit your job as a project manager. What did me in years ago for a company I worked for was the incessant desire to give things away for free in the hopes that something big was right around the corner. The reality was that nothing ever materialized around each corner we turned. We just gave a lot of stuff away for free!
What would cause you to start looking elsewhere as a project manager?
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Wai Mun KooPMO Director| Intergraph PP&MSingapore, Singapore
Quit my career in project management? Probably not. However, I have not really managed any project for the past few years where my focus switched to ensuring projects are being executed smoothly within the organization. Although I wasn't managing any project personally, I was involved in most projects helping to solve problems on a day-to-day routine. Yes, I do not manage project now, but I am still very much deep in project management. Saving Changes...
Wai Mun KooPMO Director| Intergraph PP&MSingapore, Singapore
My apology. There were some problems with my network connection causing me to have submitted the posting several times. Saving Changes...
Werner BeckmannProduct Owner| SIGNAL IDUNA GruppeDortmund, Germany
OK, I''m really late to answer, but I''m currently asking myself the same question. For me, there is a kind of minimum: if my project would finally loose the project character by being turned into ordinary line of business activities, I would decide to look for new opportunities.
For me the fun and exciting aspect of a project is to reach out to new horizons (technology, usability, improvements) - typically line of business processes can''t do that. However, a project needs substantial support by sponsors to reach a certain degree of freedom from outdated standards. If I loose that support, I would leave. Saving Changes...
Well there are more than enough good reasons to quit the project management career. I have been working as a project manager in IT industry and choosing this career path was the worst mistake I made. Companies keep project managers as escape goats to cover up their mistakes and miscalculations. Firing the project manger is the first thing they would do once they start to feel that the project is failed. They don't mind who caused it or what caused it. It is a job with high risk with a low pay. And the biggest reason is the compensation. As project management is not a managerial job, they pay us very less. Compared to software developers and designers the compassion is extremely low. Yet the companies expect the project managers to take the responsible over everything including the programmers who are working in the project. Basically you have to manage a group of people who get paid way better than you. It is not going to work. People do not respect or be obedient to others who are getting paid lesser than them. It is a psychological fact. And everyone knows that a project manger won't be there for a long time in a one company because eventually some project will go wrong and the project manger is the one who would be get fired firstly. So my advice is, if you have enough time left in your life, just quit this job. Just quit it. It is just a waste of time. It is a job which doesn't have a reputation nor financial benefits. Saving Changes...
Yilmaz AhmetogluSenior Project Manager| Department for Business, Energy and Industrial StrategyLondon, United Kingdom
So what would your recommendation be then Dan O? I've been a Project Manager for over 15 years now. The work I do is more PMO than the traditional PM, but I find myself frustrated with it all (as you sound like too). I am also considering a new path, but in all honesty, I am stumped. I don't have any technical specialisation (like being an engineer) and whilst I've been told on several occasions that I am good at what I do, I find it difficult to carry on doing this job. If it weren't for the fact that I have a family to consider, I probably would have just quit a long time ago. And to be clear, I'm still quite new at my current workplace, so I don't think that is the problem. Saving Changes...
