One of our bloggers asked about the level of technical expertise required of project managers.
10 years ago, most organizations felt their project managers had to be the most expert member of the project team. The PMs were the technical gurus and the theory was they would have influence to direct the team due to their technical mastery. This didn't work too well when the team was bigger than 2-3 or when they involved people from non-technical areas who thought the guru was a geek.
This thinking provided a nice career path for subject matter experts but far too often the technical experts wanted to do the technical work of the project. This was just fine on very small projects with one to three people. However, as the size of the project team increased the technical guru had to move into the people management business and deal with other functional areas. Very often the gurus were not too good at cross-functional stuff and did not want to manage people in the first place.
Today, many organizations have suffered through the mis-management and failed projects led by technical gurus. They recognize that project management is a separate set of skills and that a project manager can control a team made up of people who are more technically expert in their disciplines than the PM.
So I'm a strong advocate of having PMs who are expert in managing projects and don't feel they need to know more than everybody on the project team.
Regards,
Dick Billows, PMP
President 4pm.com
7 comments:
I have seen the same thing happen in Denmark; but I think there is another explanation also to consider. You simply could not produce enough Guru’s to cover the need for project managers and that set unwanted limits for growth.
PM should have enough technical knowledge to understand project requirements (simply, not to be fooled). Too much technical knowledge often influences personal bias towards making certain project decisions, which is a sign of bad project management. The depth of technical knowledge should not interfere with PM's impartiality regarding the project decisions.
I agree that the PM needs some technical knowledge. For example, if you are managing a software development project, it helps if you understand some of software development methodologies and even some coding to be able to speak intelligently to the team. If you are managing a project to open an office in a foreign country, it helps if you understand the culture and political aspects of that country.
Of course, the most important aspect of any project is the management of the people.
It all depends on what you mean by 'technical' and the type of project. I would rather have a non-technical PM who is great with managing people than a very technically oriented manager that is horrible at other aspects of PM.
I work as a general project manager and have no problems in managing technical people. I can concentrate at management and leadership issues and people never ask me technical questions which saves me a lot of time :-)
A project could be anything. Just need not be viewed from an IT prespective. Project Management has nothing to do with Technical Skills. It is to do with People Management, Resource Management, Scope Management, Requirements and Risk Analysis etc. A PM needs to have the skills to understand the requirements of his clients and direct the Project (that includes all of the above) to its success. A good PM cannot be fooled due to his lack of detailed knowledge on the subject matter. It is just a matter of his skills to make a good discussion on the subject matter and make sense out of it by way of good judgement, curiosity and questions and trust. As a commentor above has stated, detailed tech.knowledge could lead to bias and unwanted interference.
I'm a PM in software development and was not a coder (except for 4 semesters in grad school). At our office we have a concept of a technical architect who "consults" on projects. He approves the concepts and helps when coders get have set backs. That leaves me with managing the customer and all the project management details.
This also helps in formulating the project schedule. When a developer estimates his/her work, the technical architect can review for accuracy. I then add a line in the schedule I call PM float. This is time added so that changes in scope can be accomodated.
In IT organization there are some project managers. I would say less than some have no technical backgrounds and I can say with 100% certainty that their projects struggle a lot more than those being run by a PM with a technical background. What is good management? They should have at least good technical back ground.
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