I have 7 years experience in Oil & Gas industry as a geologist and have spent a few years in leading some projects. As a technical person by background with PMP certificate, how do I make a smooth transfer to project management roles without being negatively affected by my SME experience,i.e any strategies to take the advantage of the SME for landing the project management role? Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Unfortunately the market in general (talking about what I saw beyond my country or region) search for subject matter expert to work as project manager because at the end some organizations wants to cover both roles. That is not my personal work experience and in my personal opinion is something is changed quickly (I am seeing it including my actual work place). Everybody that started as PM and are SME in a field has a tendency to apply what known to solve a situation. Is a human being tendency. When you see that it does not work (which is most of the time) you will change that behavior. It does not work because each initiative is totally different because the environment. Saving Changes...
If you are a PMP and have enough projects available in your organization, I would have thought your SME experience would be an asset to those projects. Saving Changes...
Dumpa VikasAssistant General Manager (Projects)| ATHENA CHHATTISGARH POWER LIMITEDHyderabad, Telangana, India
looking forward for opinions from the peers, as i also fall in the same catergory.
From my expericene, the majority of the industries are looking for the PM's with same field experience and leaving very low opportunities to migrate.
The best way to transfer smoothly to PM roles is to show the expertices with the tools & techniques and putforward your measurable achievements on project constrains overthe time period. Saving Changes...
Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
Be clear on your resume that you are looking to leverage a combination of skills to advance into a new role and why. Sculpt it to represent project management skills in conjunction with your other experience and demonstrate how that combination will make you a strong candidate as a project manager. Remain vigilant when speaking to recruiters to ensure the new potential organization is looking for a project manager, not an SME.
From there, it is up to you to not let the SME in you take the lead instead of letting the person with that responsibility to do their job. Be the leader, influence your team, help with recommendations when you see fit. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
First, a PMP in most oil & gas company has no or little value. Your SME is more valuable.
Second, do not expect a PM position, that is not likely anytime soon in this industry.
I am not sure if you work for a project owner or service provider. Try to get a role in estimating department or planning and scheduling. Maybe a filed engineer assignment. You will need to learn new skills but that will be worth it.
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2 replies by Chetan Thakkar and Jiulin Guo
Feb 19, 2018 9:50 AM
Jiulin Guo
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Hi Mounir, that's an interesting view. The PMI standard brings a lot of my leading the well planning project memories back to the surface. Certainly the projects can run better if fully using the standard. Would be interesting to know the reason why the situation you mentioned (i.e. not likely to implement the PMI standard) in the oil & gas industry.
Feb 26, 2018 6:37 PM
Chetan Thakkar
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I actually thought, O&G is one of the domains with very close Engineering association, and very much relevant to the PMI's PMBOK framework, unless not adopted well due to organization readiness..
In-fact, I thought, anytime you have an investment in the form of a 'Project', PMBOK tools and techniques are the de-fecto standards that one can think of for any domain for hiring a PM for the project... Although, I feel, the SME experience certainly helps in managing such project but not adequate without following the structured methodology.
Look at your domain expertise as a strength rather than a weakness. As you may not have a lot of pure PM experience, you might want to start with finding projects within your SME domain that are not overly complex.
And I'd definitely echo Andrew's caveat - make sure the company you are joining isn't expecting you to be both a PM and a SME simultaneously to save them some costs!
Kiron
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1 reply by Jiulin Guo
Feb 19, 2018 9:40 AM
Jiulin Guo
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Kiron, that's right. Thanks for the suggestion! The job description has to be PM driven (not some kind of hybrid responsibilities) and also make sure that I won't unintentionally dig into technical details...
Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
My personal experience is that when I decided to pursue a PM career (after a successful project in my expertise) I stepped out of my industry and subject matter expertise and looked for a challenge to lead a project in another industry. It certainly helped that I could show a good project. Saving Changes...
Anish AbrahamPrivacy Program Manager| University of WashingtonAuburn, Wa, United States
In my opinion it is vital to have a SME on a project, at the same time depending on the project, there is no risks associated with putting that individual in a dual SME/PM role. I have done this in the past and it worked fine for me. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Anish, good for you that it worked.
The risk I have seen materialize is that if the PM is the SME, delegation becomes harder as it is anyhow, second opinions/options tend to get fewer, and in critical situations, the PM/SME gets overloaded as he focuses on SME tasks. The project is suffering and eventually a real PM is coming in. Seen that many times.
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2 replies by Anish Abraham and Jiulin Guo
Feb 16, 2018 3:37 PM
Anish Abraham
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Thomas,I agree with you. It may not work on all projects and of course the PM’s view of the project is much broader than the SME’s.
Feb 19, 2018 9:31 AM
Jiulin Guo
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Thomas, thanks for the view. I guess as a PM with SME the key is to have the ability to set the SEM aside and focus on people. There may be a chance for me to step in but not always. Developing the wisdom to tell when needed is critical. From this point, may be stepping out of my industry into a different one won't be a bad option.
Saving Changes...
Anish AbrahamPrivacy Program Manager| University of WashingtonAuburn, Wa, United States
Feb 16, 2018 2:50 PM
Replying to Thomas Walenta
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Anish, good for you that it worked.
The risk I have seen materialize is that if the PM is the SME, delegation becomes harder as it is anyhow, second opinions/options tend to get fewer, and in critical situations, the PM/SME gets overloaded as he focuses on SME tasks. The project is suffering and eventually a real PM is coming in. Seen that many times.
Thomas,I agree with you. It may not work on all projects and of course the PM’s view of the project is much broader than the SME’s. Saving Changes...
