Why Are PMs Such A Miserable Lot?

January 29, 2008 @ Project Shrink: The Blog from Bas de Baar

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This is a guest post by Craig Brown. He usually writes in a more serious tone about project management, requirements management and business analysts at www.betterprojects.net.

Are they really? Probably not everywhere and probably not all the time but there are force at work that keep our project mangers scowling.

  • Other people’s money: Dealing with that responsibility can be stressful for many people. It’s good practice to treat your client’s money as if it were yours, but really, if you have $5 million, would you waste it on a software project? No wonder our PM’s feel the pressure to perform.
  • Business is serious: That’s right. Our business is very serious and our stakeholders and shareholders are important people who we want to impress. The way you manage your project won’t make a blip on the stock market indicators, but you have to share some of our burden.
  • As the project’s manager you are in charge, right? Except for the following things: You rarely pick your team, you usually don’t get to choose the solution, or the project management approach. And your stakeholders, who all have history in the organisation and are probably playing politics 70% of their working life will not spare a second on screwing you behind your back if it suits them. Of course you like your job.
  • Are we on track: Measuring vapourware is a time consuming job that often takes much of a pm’s week, as well as causing countless interruptions to the various project team members while they are trying to work.
  • Lucky I am accountant: In this business of corporate projects almost all pm’s come from an accounting or a marketing background. None come from a software or engineering background. The plus side of this is that they all understand project budgeting and love spending Friday’s putting together project financial reports. The downside is that none
    of them understand the complexity involved in software development. Oh, sorry, that’s the sponsor.

Work doesn’t always have to be so hard. If you are finding yourself under pressure at work and one or more of these scenarios sounds all too familiar it’s time to put your hand up and say “I’m not perfect. Someone give me a hand.” It will be the beginning of the best week you’ve had in months.

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Why Are PMs Such A Miserable Lot?


This article is syndicated from Project Shrink: The Blog . The original article is available here. Read more in Project Management News, Project Shrink .

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