Project Management

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The Career Path to Technical Project Manager

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Michelle Daigle PgMP®,PMP®, PfMP® Practitioner| Genetec Verdun, Quebec, Canada
I recently had an IT Project Manager share that they'd like to start taking technical courses to become a technical PM. All of the technical PMs I've met have gone from technical to project management, and not the reverse.

What are your thoughts on this? Is either direction viable, or is this a career path less travelled?

Edit: Please note that the essence of this thread assumes there is such a role as technical project manager, and is to solicit input on career path direction, specifically. Technical to PM, or PM to Technical. Which is the natural progression for companies that have Technical PMs, and is either path a viable option? In my experience it's only from Technical to PM, and not the reverse.
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Adrian Carlogea Australia
Jul 14, 2016 11:27 AM
Replying to Grace Tang
...
I know a lot of companies who are looking for Technical PM expect their candidates to have technical background with project management experience. When I was studying for my PMP, almost all of my study-mates have technical background who wanted or asked by their employers to pursue PMP so that can assume a leading role at their current job.

From my personal experience, being a PM does not require technical skills, my former boss needs a PM to lead a team, all the technical aspects are managed by the engineers. I learned about the technical/engineering stuffs while working as a PM there.
In my opinion leading a team that performs a certain work also involves taking decisions of technical nature. If you don't have a technical background or your technical abilities are not as good as other team members then you will never be able to provide full leadership to the team.

If you are working on building the products or the services that are going to be delivered by a project then you will not care too much about project management related issues but instead your main concern will be the technical aspects of the work. Team members expect their leaders to guide them in their actual work something that PMs without a technical background can't do.

In conclusion a project manager with no technical background will only be able to lead or manage a team to a limited extent and many aspects of the project are going to be managed by other people (technical leads, team lead, technical managers).

The above situation however, at least in the IT industry, doesn't seem to be an anomaly but rather the general rule.
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Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
Fully disagree with you Adrian. What you discribed is a,Project leader role not a,Project manager role. But at the,end to decide if,you react to actual market demmands or to create your future. The same for,organizations survival
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Adrian Carlogea Australia
I am not sure what is the difference between a project leader and a project manager but I do believe that a leader is someone that takes decisions that other people either follow on their own will or are more or less forced to follow.

In an engineering/technical project many decisions that have to be taken are technical in nature and only technical experts can take them. Some of this decisions are crucial for the outcome of the project.

If the PM has no technical background then he will not be able to take some of the crucial decisions that will determine the degree of success or the failure of the project.

I know that in many industries and organizations project managers are not supposed to get involved in the technical aspects of the project but this situation will severely limit the ability of the PM to lead the team.

A PM with no technical background will play mainly a supportive role for his team and there will be far less instances where he can take decisions that the team members must follow. In this situation the PM will help the team or the technical leads to take decisions rather than take the decision on his own.

This does not mean that a non-technical PM can't be successful it simply means that his success will depend on other people upon which he has very little control because of his lack of technical expertise.
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Sungjoon Park Coral Springs, Fl, United States
Dear Adrian,

I think that most of PMs in any domains have necessary technical background to perform the project and lead the team. However, it doesn't mean that all PMs should act as experts in technical decisions, and it may not be possible for PMs to make such decisions if the projects are complex and cross-functional, without proper consultation with the technical experts who are whether in or out of the projects. Technical expertise is merely one of requirements to take project manager role based on the project needs.
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