THERE HAS NEVER BEEN a better time to be an IT project manager. According to every survey on the subject, there are more than 300,000 vacant IT positions in the United States alone. This labor shortage has created such a demand for their services that major corporations are behaving like sports teams wooing the elite athlete with inducements like signing bonuses and escalating salaries. Added to that are other perquisites such as stock options and sabbaticals, benefits never dreamed of in the days of the slide-rule-carrying, pocket-protector-wearing PL/1 programmer.
Once hired, these high-potential recruits are provided with a virtual smorgasbord of developmental opportunities, including project management certification training programs, international assignments and degree programs. Many of the companies with whom we work have gone the extra, and hard, step of establishing a career ladder in project management, thus providing the IT professional a new route to the top of the organization.
By providing these opportunities, corporations are not only recruiting the best and the brightest, they are also encouraging the person to stick with the company rather than jump from job to job solely for an increase in salary. Many studies show these types of programs have more influence on an individual remaining with a company than the size of the paycheck. In short, the opportunity to continue to advance one's career in project management through comprehensive development programs is currently being offered to thousands of individuals in many of the world's largest IT corporations.
J. LeRoy Ward, PMP, is senior vice president for ESI International, responsible for its worldwide training and educational programs. He has been a member of PMI since 1990. This article summarizes a presentation Mr. Ward gave at the ABT Leadership Conference in June 1999.
An emerging global trend in the IT project management field is that organizations are making substantial investments in the development of IT project managers and providing them with a path to the executive ranks. This trend not only signals a radical change in the way organizations view project management as a discipline, it also heralds in a new perspective of the IT professional, who has long been viewed as a “mechanic” with no particular interest in the business of the corporation. It is certain to change the shape of organizations for years to come.
In the past, there was only one way to rise to the top of an organization: one had to go into management. Although it took some time to sink in, corporate management recognized, oftentimes at the expense of failed projects, that there was no correlation between technical genius and management competence. In fact, there was a substantial body of anecdotal evidence that suggested that the more technically oriented a person was, the least likely he or she was to be a good manager. So a second career path was created in organizations to enable the technical professional to advance in his or her career without having to move into management.
We are now witnessing the development of a third career path within organizations. Executives at companies such as Compaq, ABB Asea Brown Boveri, Motorola, NCR, and others are among the leading thinkers on the business of project management professional development by structuring career paths for their project managers. The establishment of a career path is overwhelming evidence that the position of project manager has moved beyond being a necessary role. It is a critical position in these and many other companies.
A New Route to the Top
A “representative” career path in project management and the underlying competencies would be the following: associate project manager, project manager, program manager, director of projects, vice president of projects.
Most organizations that have a career path in project management use a four to five position hierarchy that takes a project manager from an entry-level position to the executive ranks. Each level of the path requires certain entry and exit criteria that may consist of any one or all of the following requirements: education, training, certification, experience, and demonstrated competencies associated with the position.
Underlying the hierarchy are the competencies required to achieve each level or position in the career path. In most organizations that have established such a career path, the competencies are the same for each level of the hierarchy. The distinguishing factor is the level of application of those competencies from one level to the next.
A note here about certification: Certification is typically required to advance to mid-level positions and higher. Many organizations use the PMP® credential from PMI® as their certification achievement. An emerging trend in many organizations is “internal” company certification that includes earning the PMP as a subset of the overall requirements. In many organizations, advancement from one level to the next, especially at the higher levels, requires individuals to develop a portfolio of documentation of their education, experience, and certification; portfolios are subsequently reviewed by a committee. Additionally, the committee interviews candidates before a determination is made as to whether or not the individual has fulfilled the requirements necessary for advancement.
Project Management Competencies Required to Get to the Top
Let's take a look at eight “common” competencies across a number of organizations. Certain competencies have been combined for ease of description.
Project Management “Nuts and Bolts.” Most organizations use the nine areas of the PMBOK® Guide to define project management “nuts and bolts” and can measure one's knowledge of these areas by requiring them to earn the PMP® credential. Organizations require demonstration and application of this knowledge on a variety of projects in a variety of circumstances. Project managers often begin their careers working on project teams, advance to team leader, run small projects, and then gradually assume projects of greater size and complexity.
In addition to the “nuts and bolts,” organizations look for experience in two other areas as well: tool usage and experience in working with a methodology of some type. Anyone engaged in project management today should be comfortable using one of the many software tools available and should demonstrate that they have used a methodology of some type, whether it be a project management process or a systems development model.
Client Relationship and Consulting Skills. Project managers are no longer viewed, and are discouraged from behaving as, “back office” technocrats. Organizations today want project managers on the front line working with clients (either external or internal) in understanding their needs and developing and implementing solutions to satisfy those needs. The ability to listen to and understand a client's needs and develop value-added solutions to address those issues is a core function of the project manager. Yet, IT project managers are not viewed as having these skills.
In an American Management Association/Ernst & Young (AMA/E&Y) survey [InformationWeek, 16 Nov. 1998] more than 300 IT executives agreed that the two competencies they need to develop most in their IT project managers are consulting and client relationship skills. Supporting the AMA/E&Y survey is a January 1998 ESI International study identifying the needs of organizations for an “advanced” series of project management courses. Our clients have requested that we develop a course in consulting skills for project managers. The message is clear: Consulting with, listening to, and advising clients on a range of business solutions are key activities of the IT project manager. And they need to get better at it!
Business and Financial Skills. Today's project manager needs to find a technical solution that not only satisfies the client, but is also profitable or otherwise beneficial to the organization based on a financial analysis of the effort. In the world of contracting, many organizations now require the project manager and sales person to jointly develop the proposal so that each knows the level of investment required to produce the solution and earn a profit. The more successful companies have abandoned the “over the wall” approach to client applications. You know the one: The sales staff developed and priced the solution without detailed knowledge of the viability of the approach. Once the contract was won, the sales staff threw the contract “over the wall” to the project manager to implement in accordance with the contract terms and conditions.
To be an effective partner with sales, the IT project manager needs to know both the business model used by the company to bring its products and services to market and the financials that support the business model. The business model is best described using an example: Assume we are a large IT hardware organization and have been known for our technological prowess for many years. Over time, the margins on hardware have been drastically reduced for a number of reasons. We now find it is more profitable to offer professional services surrounding our hardware rather than it is to sell the hardware itself. We may discount the price of our hardware to a point where we're simply earning our costs for the opportunity to sell our professional services to our client. That's our model of doing business. Every organization has a model they use as their “go to market” strategy. Many IT project managers aren't that knowledgeable in the model, and fewer know the financials that support their organization's approach.
Leadership Ability. This is one of the most important competencies in the group and becomes more important the higher you go in the corporate hierarchy. While leadership can be defined in many ways, it is also defined in very specific ways in many companies. For our purposes, leadership is defined as the ability to be responsible for a group of people to get a specific job done. Some people are at better at this than others; yet, all our clients are optimistic that leadership skills can be taught, learned, and applied for the benefit of the organization.
Leadership training runs the gamut from the extreme, such as reciting poetry to your team in a hot tub, to the mundane, taking a standard course in employment law. Regardless of the type of training or the objective of any specific course, the ultimate objective of leadership training is to help the IT project manager lead a group of people in getting a job done.
“Upselling” Skills. Upselling is the ability of a project manager to recognize an opportunity to sell the customer additional services or products and to capitalize on that opportunity. Customers often expect up-selling to the extent that the customer is disappointed when an organization doesn't take advantage of the opportunity. This was pointed out by one of our clients who, when conducting a post-project review with a customer, was told that, although the project went well, they were disappointed in the relationship. The problem: Not once during the many months that our client was on-site, did they offer the customer any suggestions for further improvement.
My client told me of her frustration with her project managers at their apparent lack of interest in trying to sell more products and services to her clients. In attempting to resolve this issue, she was told by several of her project managers that they did not want to be perceived as “sales” people. She is having difficulty convincing them that they are expected to come forward with new ideas and suggestions to help the customer with the many facets of their business operations.
Reader Service Number 057
Negotiation and Communication Skills. When most people hear the word “negotiation” they immediately think about buying cars, homes, or working out contractual agreements. Yes, these are examples of when negotiation skills come in very handy. But how many times do you buy a car, a house, or negotiate a big contract? Not often, and certainly not daily. Now, how many times do you negotiate with your boss, client, peers, team members, and your family on a multitude of issues? You do it every day! If you are doing something every day you would think you'd be pretty good at it, right? The truth is that the majority of us need some help. We all need the techniques to deal with the car salesperson. We also need the techniques to ensure we can lead a group of divergent thinkers to an end result, deal with a difficult client, and assuage a stakeholder. Call them negotiating skills, “political” skills, or diplomacy; whatever the label, these are skills that people need to get their way or reach a compromise without alienating the other side.
Beyond negotiations, project managers are increasingly called upon to make presentations to executive management. In many cases the project manager's ability to stand before the “heavy hitters” and present the status of a project and recommend either going forward or terminating a project can be the most important point of the project manager's career—it can be a career-enhancing opportunity or a career-ending fiasco.
Inclination to Take Risks. Executive managers seek people who have the emotional fortitude to tackle the hard jobs and go out on a limb for the sake of the business or the client. Yet, they don't want their project managers to take unnecessary and foolish chances. Professional development in this area focuses on understanding the dynamics of risk, and having a suite of tools and techniques for identifying, responding to, and controlling risks.
Project managers must also be vigilant about looking for and capitalizing on opportunities. Many executives believe that project managers don't devote enough time in identifying opportunities for themselves and their organizations. Opportunities come in a variety of forms and can be assessed and acted upon in much the same way that risks can be. Today's environment requires that any individual in a management role—be it executive management or project management—must be thinking about the future of the company. No longer can people or companies afford to play it safe. Companies and management must be willing to take calculated risks to ensure their competitiveness and survival.
Strategic Vision. Organizations look for project managers who have the ability to see beyond the boundaries of their own projects, to understand completely how the project relates to the corporate objectives and their client's objectives as well. Having this perspective enables the project manager to see what others may not see, to understand the interconnections between one piece of work and the next, and to offer advice and counsel on a matter of which the client is not fully aware.
Reader Service Number 058
I think most people would agree that IT professionals have long been viewed by management as technocrats with little knowledge of or interest in the organization's business needs. As evidence of this one need only look at the backgrounds of the CIO's in their companies; there's a greater than 50 percent chance that the CIO has a general business background rather than IT experience. The Big Five consulting firms have long had recruitment programs for MBAs and not for IT professionals, not withstanding the fact that at least three of the Big Five spend most of their time implementing major ERP systems. Why? Because an ERP application requires an understanding of the client's business—the role of the MBA. However, the actual implementation of the ERP application is the role of the IT professional—the mechanic.
Can some IT professionals make the leap over to the business side? Absolutely! And the companies that have adopted a career path in project management are convinced this can be accomplished by those who have an interest in doing so.
The Benefits
Organizations that have created a career path in project management cite three benefits of this effort: (1) It enables an organization to hire and retain the best project managers. We have three multinational clients who have a combined need to hire more than 1,000 project managers to work on a variety of IT projects on six continents. Their business is booming yet they are hampered in their delivery by a shortage of practicing project managers. A career path sends a strong message to those in search of employment that this organization is interested in their future. (2) Providing training and development to project managers in the competencies listed above will help them make better decisions, leading to more satisfied clients and, it is hoped, more revenue. (3) The organization's reputation is enhanced in the marketplace because the industry will recognize the organization as one that places great significance on the development of the professional project manager.
The Challenges
There are challenges to establishing a career path in project management for the IT professional, a challenge that must be considered before devoting the time and resources to making it happen.
Creating such a program requires a substantial investment from the organization and the individual project manager. The organization must be willing to invest both its time and its money to make sure it realizes the benefits of its investment. Such an effort usually requires the work of a great number of people and the services of outside resources. And the individual must be ready to participate in an effort that can take many years to fully complete—in some organizations, progression to the level of project manager can take up to 15 years.
It requires a detailed coordination and interaction with the human resources department of the organization. Depending upon the company's size, this can take a great deal of time and effort. We are currently working with a client with operations worldwide. They have instituted such a career path, which will ultimately affect thousands of people. Developing this path has required the work of many individuals over a number of years to put into place. The business, financial, and legal ramifications of such a change in the organization's human resource policies are staggering. Yet, this organization was convinced this was the way to proceed and had the backing of the CEO.
It also requires individual dedication to the career path. For many years IT professionals complained of a lack of progression to the executive ranks. Now, organizations have made progression possible, but IT professionals must recognize that a project management career path will essentially take them out of the technical field and into “management.” Can they make the change in orientation?
THE WORLD FOR PROJECT managers has changed, and is continuing to change. There are bigger and more interesting projects; projects that transcend borders, languages, and cultures; projects that are creating businesses and a new view of existing business. And, there are organizations that have recognized project management as a legitimate professional discipline and are willing to give thousands of IT professionals a new route to the top. Jump on board and enjoy the ride.
Reader Service Number 029