What is already a project manager?
“We are installing the XYZ software and we need to hire a Project Manager. Go hire me one.”
How many times have you gotten a job requirement that looked like this? How often have you seen job requirements that left you scratching your head wondering what to look for when hiring a project manager? Or worse yet, one that makes you feel bad in search of the impossible dream.
There is great confusion with this position and what is expected of it. And that leads to an overload of the wrong type of applicant. Or worse yet, hiring the wrong person for the job.
In this article, I am going to address the question “What is a project manager?” I will also give you some instructions on how to select the appropriate individual.
So the first question is, “What is a project manager?”
In a simplistic answer, a project manager is simply a person who leads a temporary effort or project to completion. Of course, that does not explain why there is a difficulty in identifying skills. We need to examine the issue a little more closely.
So let’s start by asking another question: “What is a project?”
The Project Management Institute (PMI) has a long and pleasant answer that involves duration, business, and effort. But a more understandable answer begins by looking at the normal operations of a business.
Most efforts in a typical company focus on repetition and continuation. Constantly looking for new clients. You are repeatedly taking orders and shipping products. You are looking for new candidates, reading resumes and hiring people. Over and over again, in an endless cycle. Each process can end, but it just leads to the next cycle. Change is the enemy, the great disruptor of cycles. Beginnings and endings must be avoided at all costs.
A project, on the other hand, has a different beginning and ending. And it has a unique process (and product) that will never be repeated in exactly the same way. Change is part of their nature. Change is built into the process. And change is often at the center of their efforts.
So a project manager is a manager who focuses on the temporal and on the change. Most managers focus on the center of the life cycle: keeping things in balance and slowly improving. However, this manager focuses on the entire life cycle with special emphasis on the edges: building the team, identifying its processes, and dissolving the team.
So what should you look for in a project manager?
There are some basic characteristics and skills that all project managers should have. The ability to plan a project, build a team, and focus on the task at hand. And, of course, the ability to dissolve the project team smoothly while preserving what you have learned.
But that’s where the similarity ends and the source of the difficulty begins.
Project managers are often hired based on their knowledge of the specific topic. In essence, they are mistaken for experts in the field.
It’s easy for people to identify positions by project topic. Then look for an IT project manager with experience in XYZ software implementation. Unfortunately, that requirement is based on a basic misunderstanding of the nature of the skills required.
Project managers, by their nature, deal with organizational silos. They represent a senior manager (often a director or vice president) called a sponsor. They function as an extension of (or assistant to) that person doing detailed work that could quickly overwhelm the sponsor. Project managers bring together people from different silos to carry out the project. Expecting them to be experts in the field is unrealistic. After all, no one expects the CEO to be an expert in all aspects of company operations.
Instead, the key is to identify the number, extent, and nature of the silos involved. Effectively, you will hire a senior manager who is expected to lead a small division consisting of one person from each of the silos. It is not a practical manager that you are expected to code in JAVA or HTML.
