what are the risk of hiring Non IT project manager on IT project manager job?

Hi Edward.

I am not sure about constructions but from what I've seen in IT projects it does not matter too much if the PM does not really knows what software engineers do even if the project involves software development.

The IT experts working on projects communicate directly with the customers in order to determine what needs to be delivered, there is no need for PMs to tell them what they have to do, as they already know much better what they have to do. At most PMs can just facilitate the communication between the experts and the customers but they don't really have to understand the technical details from these discussions.

As far as I've seen the PMs in IT are more focused on the financial part of the project, as they have to ensure that the work that is about to be performed is going to be paid. So PMs work with the customers in order to determine what can be delivered with the available budget.

IT PMs usually see the project's tasks in a very abstract manner. They don't care about the technical details of the task, but all they want to know is the effort needed to complete the task and if the task can be split between more people that could work in parallel.

During the execution of the project the IT PM supervises the work but not from a technical point of view, instead the PM has to ensure that the team does not work on items that are not on the project scope or if the customer wants additional things, the PM has to ensure that those additional things are going to be paid.

In theory there is no need for the IT PM to really understand the work that is being performed but if he does not understand the work then he will have to blindly trust the team to provide all the information he needs. Such PMs can't check if the information provided by the team is accurate or not as they don't understand the work performed by the team members.

In my opinion the IT PMs should have a background in IT but apparently many companies see things differently.

Hi Adrian,
Thank you for your response. I am not saying all PMs should be technical, only advocating that we should be realistic about the job market and place ourselves in a better position to be successful at what we do.

Many organizations and even others on this forum have complained of green PMs or Paper PMPs. I believe the so-called Green PMs/Paper PMPs are PMs who are out of their depths in disciplines that they have not be exposed to. I used the construction and software development analogy because those are the two that i could think of at the moment i was responding to this discussion.

It appears to be logical that PMs can adapt and work in any discipline without having technical knowledge. They are only responsible for managing people, processes and technology. It is however not realistic to hire the best resources when you don't even have an inkling of what they are supposedly doing. Projects fail for many reasons but having someone who is green or a Paper PMP reduces the chances of success and should be avoided.

Your words, "At most PMs can just facilitate the communication between the experts and the customers but they don't really have to understand the technical details from these discussions" is a dangerous and not realistic statement to put out there. As PMs, we have a responsibility to earn the respect of our stakeholders and project team, this is not possible when we are thought of as green or Paper PMP. Not having some experience in an area makes it harder to staff the right people to get the job done right, we may not know the relevant questions to ask and in some cases create unnecessary work and cause friction among everyone involved.

I cringed when i read "IT PMs usually see the project's tasks in a very abstract manner. They don't care about the technical details of the task, but all they want to know is the effort needed to complete the task and if the task can be split between more people that could work in parallel". I do hope that as a PM that you care enough about the work to not only look at it in an abstract manner. You are responsible for ensuring all required work is properly decomposed and assigned to the right SME. I would think that in doing that we are looking at things a little more than in an abstract way.

I am not advocating PMs become the technical SME, writing code or inspecting it, writing technical SOPs or doing any technical work or writing of any sort. We should educate ourselves to not be clueless about the work that is required and it is achieved by understanding the work, dependencies and being in a better position to engage.

Hi S Rajasekar

On many of the IT projects on which I have worked (not as a PM) the project managers were responsible for managing the plan but they didn't provide the actual information used in it. The actual definition of the tasks that had to be performed as well as the effort estimates were produced by the technical experts working on the team.

The PM had to find the right people that could provide the information needed in the plan and once found ask them to provide the information. PMs had to gather information from different project stakeholders and integrate it into the plan.

If the plans ended up not to be realist it was because either the technical experts provided bad information (for example unrealistic effort estimates) or the project sponsor pushed for deadlines that were not possible.

In order to manage the project plans in this way it is not necessarily required for the PM to have a background in IT because it is not necessary for him to actual understand the details in the plan. Most of the PMs who I have worked with saw the project tasks in a very abstract manner just as work that needs to be done in a specific time-frame. It was not them who defined the tasks or the estimates.

The only problem is that if the PM has no background in IT, either as an IT PM or an IT technical expert then he will have to blindly trust the team with no chance of identifying any problems with the information provided for the plan.

If someone plan and track based on just by others input he/she will be just a "Task Master" not a PM in my opinion

If someone gives inputs should have basic understanding/knowledge to see whether that make sense or not and ask questions to validate. also it helps in risk analysis/response and predictability, if no relevant skill/knowledge until issue/risk happens will not know due to lack of skill/knowledge

In IT itself there are lot of differences in projects like, Application Support Project, Maintenance Projects , IT infrastructure projects ,Product Development Projects, Managed Services project...etc

PM role is not just only gathering information and collate ,doing communication , facilitation delegation. there should be rationale/understanding on every thing what we do that can only possible if you have relevant skill/knowledge else will be like a machine/executable- Input - Processing with defined step - Output (if some thing goes wrong will need to point the input)

Thank you Edward. I enjoyed reading your message. However it appears that project management is becoming a profession in its own right. Project managers are slowly starting to become professionals in the field of project management rather than experts in a certain line of work who have moved to project management in the same line of work.

This means that project managers will no longer be linked to a certain industry. However being a professional only in project management and not in other lines of work means that you will not be able to get into the technical details of the worked performed and you will have to blindly use the information provided by others while you manage a project.

Thank you for your message S Rajasekar. What you said is exactly my opinion too, however my experience working with PMs has proven to be completely different. I can't generalize my own experiences but I have been working in IT for over 8 years for various companies (as a contractor/consultant).

I believe that the PMs who I have worked with could have very well come from the constructions industry as they have never gotten into the technical details of my work.