IT Project Management V.S. Technical Roles

[IndyColtsFan]

if i were still in the PMO i could probably get them paid for. now its just me and the emc subscription that get to huggle in the night. considering i had a couple years in to get my partway, it's probably worth it to pay some out of pocket and renew for the next 4 years then re-evaluate again..

Did you self-study for the PMP or take a prep course? I bought the PMP Prepcast to use as my 35 hour course (need to take the quiz to get the cert) and have Rita Mulcahy's book. I've seriously thought about paying someone for assistance with the application.

 

[Stuxnet]

A lot of wisdom in this thread. Let me highlight some key points:

Folks that can really make money are highly tech skilled people that are good PMs.

This is very true. There is, in general, a shit-ton-and-a-half of disrespect for the PM profession, and in my opinion, it's well earned. Most PM's are, as someone else said, glorified secretaries/babysitters. The PM role was probably invented by a slacker VP who didn't feel like doing the less glamorous aspects of his job, such as project tracking and meeting with department leads/heads. That's not to say there aren't companies/projects that legitimately need PM's, but a lot of PM's exist because a Veep has his chin raised a little too high.

But if you're technically inclined and have direct experience in the fields of those on your project, you can tell when you're being BS'ed and when you're not. You'll be able to work more closely with these people, too, and provide a better service to them; one that goes beyond "are you done yet? I need to update my spreadsheet." You'll also inherently have more of their respect because you possess an actual skill that can produce something.

you often are accountable for projects but don't have any actual authority

This man speaks the truth. The worst aspect of being a PM, no matter how good you are, is that you have more accountability than anyone on the projects, yet you have the least (read: ZERO) amount of authority. If someone isn't getting the job done, and you're at least talented enough to be able to pinpoint them as the problem (difficult if you don't have the technical background), the most you can do is start sending emails and copying their manager, their manager's manager, and your manager. Then you have to wait to see what those with authority over this other guy (who has authority) decide to do about it.

At the end of the day, though, if the project fails, it's usually your head that rolls down the street. The leads likely just move on to the next project. One of the largest obstacles a PM has is they're given deadlines/timelines before leads/SME's have actually assessed and staffed the project. So you're told the project has 6 months, THEN the project's leads are assembled at which point they tell you it's going to take 9 months due to critical path constraints (critical paths that you would have been able to work out on your own, had you had their background/expertise), and now you're fucked. You tell the VP, and he replies "get it done or I'll find someone who will." He's pissed at YOU. He's not even thinking of the leads' assessments. That sucks.

I've worked at a software development company of about 50 employees that had one permanently staffed. At the media company I now work at with about 300 employees, we have 6 project managers working full time hours.

The key point here is that developers are far more in demand than PM's. PM's like to tell you that they're in the hottest field, but anyone being honest with themselves can see (and reason) that that's not the case at all. Consider a medium-sized IT project: You have 1 PM, say 2 - 4 developer leads/architects, and then 2 - 4 programmers for each lead. Just going by the numbers, does it really hold water that there are more PM jobs then technical jobs? "But they can be outsourced to India!" I've been hearing that for 10 years, and it's rarely the case... and I've had an Indian PM or two

Also, turnover in the PM field is extraordinarily high. Over the years I see few developers get fired, but many leave because the water coming out of the water fountain isn't cold enough. They're in such high demand that they are highly mobile by choice. I rarely see PM's quit - though I see a ton of them get fired. Not because of personal faults or anything like that, it's just the do-or-die nature of the job. Turnover between the two fields is probably close to equal, and yes, you see a lot of PM job listings... but odds are, the guy who held that PM job before it was posted probably got fired. That developer posting? 50% chance it's a new position, 25% chance the guy who had it last got fired, and 25% chance the guy quit for greener pastures. Numbers pulled from my ass, yes, but highly influenced from what I've seen myself and heard from others (including PM's).

I can't speak for construction, telecom, etc., but in IT, PM salaries are on par with Technical Leads. As a Solutions Architect or Software Architect (similar but different roles), you can (and should) be making more. In my area, PM's and Leads make $90k - $100k. Solutions Architects are making in the neighborhood of $95k - $110k, and Software Architects are making $100k - $150k. That said, if your criteria for a career path is how to maximize your salary, you're going to be miserable. If you're thinking of being a PM as an IT exit strategy (and almost every one of us IT people has looked down that road), that's fine. Just know what you're getting into. If you haven't worked on many projects with a dedicated PM, then I strongly suggest that you find a way to get yourself on those projects so you can see firsthand what a PM's job entails. It's stressful as hell. A good PM is worth his weight in gold, but there are just so few of them.

 

[Stuxnet]

Ok, and what difference does it make if you make $50K, $100K, or $600K? In the above example, all would be hurting eventually. When people make more money, they tend to spend more money. There are lots of people who make more money than me who are nowhere near the level of financial security I enjoy.

There was a study last year that concluded that $75k/year was the "happy point." More or less than that, and people were more likely to be dissatisfied.

But the OP has made it pretty clear he only cares about money and social status. He's shallow and or deluded, and just might need to experience it all in order accept it.

Also, we all have different standards of living. When I was 24, I was happy to work 80 hours/week in order to the climb the ladder. Today, there had better be a damn compelling reason for me to work past 45 - 50 hours... and I bill hourly! Time with my family is far too precious.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

There was a study last year that concluded that $75k/year was the "happy point." More or less than that, and people were more likely to be dissatisfied.

Yes, I was going to mention that study but I couldn't remember some of the details. Thanks.

But the OP has made it pretty clear he only cares about money and social status. He's shallow and or deluded, and just might need to experience it all in order accept it.

Also, we all have different standards of living. When I was 24, I was happy to work 80 hours/week in order to the climb the ladder. Today, there had better be a damn compelling reason for me to work past 45 - 50 hours... and I bill hourly! Time with my family is far too precious.

Exactly. I'll be 42 this year. The days of working regular 80 hour weeks are long, long gone.

 

[Elbryn]

Did you self-study for the PMP or take a prep course? I bought the PMP Prepcast to use as my 35 hour course (need to take the quiz to get the cert) and have Rita Mulcahy's book. I've seriously thought about paying someone for assistance with the application.

i'm a cheap bastard i took a pm class as an mba elective to qualifyand then self studied using library books. signed up to the pmi as a student then registered to take the test. got audited, had to have all my project hours signed off by my manager. rita's was one of them and they all had sample tests on cd of which i did take all of them before the real test time.
that said, the test itself is a multiple choice test and the passing percentage wasnt all that high.. it's imminently passable like any test of that nature.

 

[DT4K]

I see senior .NET positions right now for about 120+. I"m not seeing higher. I also don't see PMs as making too much over that as well. I'm not sure if it's worth it. I guess the benefit is your removed from the workload and just delagate work!!!

What area are you seeing these kinds of salaries in?
I'm just curious because I'm in a fairly low cost of living area and rarely see anything over 100, even for senior positions.

I was thinking about moving from development into PM work, but after running a couple of projects, I decided that was NOT what I wanted to do. So now I'm trying to move into more of a technical architect role.

 

[jamesbond007]

I recently passed up an opportunity to work as an IT PM for the company I'm at now, but I just cannot see myself doing what my boss does/did. As others have already stated, he's on the phone all day long, has other execs barking down his throat, is in meetings, obligated to answer the phone at any hour...blah!

I'm making a comfortable living doing what I love: working on computers, setting up networks and P2MP links, servers, VMs, and dealing with end users. I get a lot of personal satisfaction when I know I can help someone and make their life easier at times and showing them quicker or more efficient ways of doing their daily work. When they feel good, I feel great.

Not every day I can go home without a headache - it can be very demanding at my job and I deal with frustrated people a lot, but it's worth it because I enjoy what I do and I look forward going to work. I hope most of you can say the same!

 

[IndyColtsFan]

i'm a cheap bastard i took a pm class as an mba elective to qualifyand then self studied using library books. signed up to the pmi as a student then registered to take the test. got audited, had to have all my project hours signed off by my manager. rita's was one of them and they all had sample tests on cd of which i did take all of them before the real test time.
that said, the test itself is a multiple choice test and the passing percentage wasnt all that high.. it's imminently passable like any test of that nature.

What I plan on doing is to meet with former managers and show them my application to get their sign-off BEFORE I submit it. That way, if it is audited, there won't be any surprises for me.

 

[steppinthrax]

What area are you seeing these kinds of salaries in?
I'm just curious because I'm in a fairly low cost of living area and rarely see anything over 100, even for senior positions.

I was thinking about moving from development into PM work, but after running a couple of projects, I decided that was NOT what I wanted to do. So now I'm trying to move into more of a technical architect role.

DC

 

[Zenmervolt]

I'm sure he will let his friends know in some subtle way during social gatherings.

If he's doing shit like that, he's not going have any friends to brag to.

ZV

 

[DT4K]

DC

Thanks. That makes sense.
I'm in Charlotte, where houses were about $85/sq ft at the height of the housing boom and are now in the $50 to $60/sq range.
Senior dev positions here seem to range from 75 to 100, while I've seen PM and dev manager jobs around 100 to 110.

 

[steppinthrax]

Thanks. That makes sense.
I'm in Charlotte, where houses were about $85/sq ft at the height of the housing boom and are now in the $50 to $60/sq range.
Senior dev positions here seem to range from 75 to 100, while I've seen PM and dev manager jobs around 100 to 110.

Right now the market here is hot, I'm sitting next to a guy right now from GA, he'd doing sharepoint. Again 100's.

 

[Ns1]

The key point here is that developers are far more in demand than PM's. PM's like to tell you that they're in the hottest field, but anyone being honest with themselves can see (and reason) that that's not the case at all. Consider a medium-sized IT project: You have 1 PM, say 2 - 4 developer leads/architects, and then 2 - 4 programmers for each lead. Just going by the numbers, does it really hold water that there are more PM jobs then technical jobs? "But they can be outsourced to India!" I've been hearing that for 10 years, and it's rarely the case... and I've had an Indian PM or two

We have outsourced the bulk of our programming jobs to India. The developers are still US based though.

 

[Elbryn]

What I plan on doing is to meet with former managers and show them my application to get their sign-off BEFORE I submit it. That way, if it is audited, there won't be any surprises for me.

that's what i did too, therefore no problems. i'm almost positive i got selected because i registered to pmi as a student, just happened to be a part time student- full time job at the time.

 

[freegeeks]

from who? management? that i might believe. probably not the case with techie colleagues.

LOL indeed

I'm a senior tech and we just laugh with 95% of the PM. They have no real authority and if they come crying again at my desk we just brush them away most of the time. I'm a freelance network engineer, I have worked for a number of large tech companies and they are generally the laughing stock. Most of them are useless anyways. The few gems are actually have a very tech background and grew in that position, most of them however are clueless

 

[Ns1]

LOL indeed

I'm a senior tech and we just laugh with 95% of the PM. They have no real authority and if they come crying again at my desk we just brush them away most of the time. I'm a freelance network engineer, I have worked for a number of large tech companies and they are generally the laughing stock. Most of them are useless anyways. The few gems are actually have a very tech background and grew in that position, most of them however are clueless

my PM would fire your ass

I'm really surprised (other) PM's have so little power based on this thread.

 

[spidey07]

my PM would fire your ass

I'm really surprised (other) PM's have so little power based on this thread.

Not what I'm used to. They are frequently peers of directors and above staff's direct boss and even bosses boss. They carry a great deal of power - they have to in order to be successful in the project, otherwise the resource just blows you off. Normally you make the resources director a stake holder in the project with some accountability and metrics so the directors job is on the line if the project runs into snags and it's his resource that is the problem.

This is why it is critical when you have a resource problem you stop dealing with the resource and deal only with his boss and boss's boss. One of the main aspects of your communication plan is to pin resources that aren't doing their job to the wall - it isn't your job as a PM to make the resource do his job, it's the resources manager who does that. Once you have a problem resource, deal only with his boss or go even higher if it continues to jeopardize the deadlines and deliverables.

Your job as a PM is to not make the resource like you or respect you, it is your job to push the project forward. You are way above the resource in terms of pay grade and responsibility.

 

[freegeeks]

my PM would fire your ass

I'm really surprised (other) PM's have so little power based on this thread.

And then my REAL manager would tell the PM to take a hike
My manager sets the priorities not the PM, my manager has the authority not the PM

I've been in this business for more then 10 years, If you have PM all the time at your desk begging you for some time to have a look at their badly run projects then you get fed up very easily. I just divert them to my manager and he deals with them making 95% of them unhappy because as a tech I only have one head and 2 hands and he sets the priorities.

A lot of PM have this bad habit of inviting you to all kind of meetings because they have no clue themselves, especially with customers meetings. I have no time to do their work and basically babysit them all the time especially when it comes to technical stuff. They are running technical projects so they should have at least an idea but most of them are very good with MS Project and excell and that is it.

In a lot of meetings the PM who should be leading the meeting but in reality is a glorified secretary, they have some use but it's limited to keeping track of meeting minutes

The 5% top dogs who actually understand their job earn every penny

 

[Ns1]

Your company must be vastly different then, cuz MGR's here are well below PM's. Seriously, your PM's sound terrible.


Actually now that I think about it, at the organization/project I currently work at it's basically PM -> Lead -> Developer -> Programmer

 

[poopaskoopa]

my PM would fire your ass

I'm really surprised (other) PM's have so little power based on this thread.

Yeah really. I do question some of those PMs abilities from time to time, but I haven't come across one that hasn't been able to impact my schedule through my manager or his manager.

 

[spidey07]

And then my REAL manager would tell the PM to take a hike
My manager sets the priorities not the PM, my manager has the authority not the PM

I've been in this business for more then 10 years, If you have PM all the time at your desk begging you for some time to have a look at their badly run projects then you get fed up very easily. I just divert them to my manager and he deals with them making 95% of them unhappy because as a tech I only have one head and 2 hands and he sets the priorities.

A lot of PM have this bad habit of inviting you to all kind of meetings because they have no clue themselves, especially with customers meetings. I have no time to do their work and basically babysit them all the time especially when it comes to technical stuff. They are running technical projects so they should have at least an idea but most of them are very good with MS Project and excell and that is it.

In a lot of meetings the PM who should be leading the meeting but in reality is a glorified secretary, they have some use but it's limited to keeping track of meeting minutes

The 5% top dogs who actually understand their job earn every penny

But I already have your time committed to my project by your manager and his boss and possibly even his VP, they have already committed support of their departments long before you were even asked about it or knew it was coming. If your manager tries to blow me off, I'll quickly go above him and escalate the resource problem his department is causing and make sure every stake holder is on the e-mail and weekly status report.

These are the things a good PM has to keep up on and especially why they need to be in positions of power to make things happen. Pissing off or blowing off a real PM should have very serious permanent repercussions on your employment. If not then that is an organizational problem.

 

[freegeeks]

Your company must be vastly different then, cuz MGR's here are well below PM's. Seriously, your PM's sound terrible.


Actually now that I think about it, at the organization/project I currently work at it's basically PM -> Lead -> Developer -> Programmer

I have worked as a freelancer for some of the biggest American tech companies on international project. I lived and worked in the Middle East doing big network deployments.
Some PM could not even get my gear into the country so I had to start calling customs and deal with paperwork because my PM was so incompetent.
I can write a book....

 

[freegeeks]

But I already have your time committed to my project by your manager and his boss and possibly even his VP, they have already committed support of their departments long before you were even asked about it or knew it was coming. If your manager tries to blow me off, I'll quickly go above him and escalate the resource problem his department is causing and make sure every stake holder is on the e-mail and weekly status report.

LOL, things must work differently here. Yes, my time was commited and then another priority comes around and my time magically disappears from your little excell file
Around here tech dept are usually understaffed because there is a big shortage of tech people especially in IT. The manager here are concerned to keep their people happy because they know that they are already understaffed and they don't want to lose anymore people. A lot of times that means setting priorities, I hope as a PM that you are pulling a very important project because else you are left with whatever time we can squeeze in.

It's not about blowing off but there is only so much you can do with a limited amount of tech people implementing the solution

The favourite sentence from my boss when they come complaining about resources and commitment is "best effort"

 

[Stuxnet]

my PM would fire your ass

I'm really surprised (other) PM's have so little power based on this thread.

It's been my experience, too. I've NEVER met a PM who had the authority to bring an existing resource onto their own project, let alone fire someone from the company. Not on this planet. All they're empowered to do is beg. It's a sad sight at times.

 

[kranky]

At some companies the functional manager has the power, at others the PM does, and at others it is balanced. If a company's culture is to let the functional manager have the power (like freegeeks') then being a PM would be the worst job imaginable. Where I work the PM has a lot of power. A PM can't get someone fired but they can throw people off the project due to lack of performance, which is usually one step away from getting the axe.

Smart PMs lay out their plans and resource needs early on. If the people on the project determine how long things will take, and if the PM is smart enough to track progress and report problems to the functional manager, the PM pretty much cannot fail. They are still responsible for the project, but when the top executives have seen report after report showing the project team failing to hit their targets, the blame isn't put on the PM.

It's when PMs don't track how things are going and they wake up one day to realize it's a bad situation that they tend to take the rap.