Project Management-- a good, well-paying job?

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: HotChic
A regular PM in my area (Seattle) will probably make $75-85k. In our company, that involves 60+ hour weeks. You WILL bust your balls in project management. A program manager (that is, a PM over other PMs) will make in the 100k range, but you have to be a kickass project manager to even have a shot at that.

What I would recommend is to go get yourself some business analyst work for 6 months to a year right now and see if you like it. It will give you a break from school and give you a chance to decide whether you like the work.

Personally, I like what I do. I stress like crazy about lots of it, but it really does keep me occupied and I'm never bored.

What she said.

A lot of the time you feel like the Sword of Damocles is suspended above your head, some of the time there's nothing to do because of being in between projects, but overall it really does keep one's mind engaged.

ZV

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: HotChic

Originally posted by: HN
as a PM, you won't do much, or any, programming. it's a lot of resourcing, scheduling, meetings, dealing with clients, dealing with engineers who know their ****** (as well as engineers who think they're the ******). it's a lot of work.

oh, and you really, really have to be a people person.

True stuff. And if you're not a people person, you need to learn to hide your impulses to strangle stupid people. Hide them very well...

Or channel them towards vendors...

You know you're doing project work when people only notice the times you don't have a nervous twitch.

ZV

 

[acemcmac]

I got offered a job between baltimore and DC in project management. I went all of the way down there to interview for an afternoon and when I finally found out the pay they were offering, I damn near spit out my coffee. 32k for the Baltimore/DC metro.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: acemcmac
I got offered a job between baltimore and DC in project management. I went all of the way down there to interview for an afternoon and when I finally found out the pay they were offering, I damn near spit out my coffee. 32k for the Baltimore/DC metro.

That's a joke. I make more than that doing BA work on projects (my title is one step down from HC's, I haven't been in this field as long, plus she's a kickass analyst).

ZV

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: acemcmac
I got offered a job between baltimore and DC in project management. I went all of the way down there to interview for an afternoon and when I finally found out the pay they were offering, I damn near spit out my coffee. 32k for the Baltimore/DC metro.

Was the project managing that the right envelope made it to the right mail box?

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: FoBoT

Originally posted by: Parrotheader
its helpful to have one or two people who know the grand design of what's going on and can prioritize tasks accordingly.

ours must suck, they don't seem to have a CLUE about details of the design, sure they make these GIANT excel spreadsheets of requirements, but they don't UNDERSTAND any of it

they just make excel sheets, visios, powerpoint and hold conf. calls and meetings out the wazzoo all the while with 3 blackberries glued to their heads

they don't write any code, they don't develop any processes , they don't write any documentation

That is true of the PMs I know who didn't start out doing development work. Totally clueless about how the product works, and it's evident.

 

[spidey07]

It's a very well paying job. High stress though.

Here's the pros:

1) get to organize a decent undertaking and utilize business adminstration skills
2) pays really good
3) You get to tell other people what to do, hold their feet to the fire when they don't meet your target and then bad mouth them to the resources boss if the resource doesn't do as he's told.
4) You get to take credit for all of the work done. It's your project and your success.

cons
1) resources can be uncooperative at times - just go back to escalating to their management (or better yet, go to their bosses boss first and complain) and you'll be fine
2) stress, it's your butt if something goes wrong. normally you can just blame this on the resources boss.

 

[radioouman]

The GANTT chart will run your life! You will begin to measure your success in life by percentages tabulated in the left column in Microsoft Project.
Don't forget about the critical path method!

Yeah, basically you don't do any actual work. You control others. Just wait until you find a company that wants to hire more project managers because their projects aren't coming off successfully. HIRE MORE TECHNICAL PEOPLE!! Not project managers!

 

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by: radioouman
HIRE MORE TECHNICAL PEOPLE!! Not project managers!

you are obviously NOT part of the system
don't let the PM's catch you spouting such blasphemy

 

[Tiamat]

project management, for example, in engineering type firms is no cake walk. i am sure that it is no cake walk for any field. You are pretty much very close to the vice presidents of the company in terms of hierarchy and you will be working 10hr days as the normal run of the mill week, and more for busy times. You don't do much leg work (actual lab work/programming), and you mostly spend your day in making presenations for the people who will fund your projects. Progress reports on your projects etc given often as well! This is what I got from my prior boss who was promoted to project management.

 

[radioouman]

HAve you ever watched "Office Space"? Remember the 7 bosses?

As a project manager, you will coordinate projects and resources (people). You tell those people what to do, and report to your boss. The funny part is that your company will not give you any power to be a manager. You only manage the project. You can't give those people in your project any reviews. You become one of their many bosses. Wait until you get into a company that manages projects using the matrix method, and then your techincal people get about 7 bosses, get pissed off, and leave.

 

[radioouman]

Originally posted by: FoBoT

Originally posted by: radioouman
HIRE MORE TECHNICAL PEOPLE!! Not project managers!

you are obviously NOT part of the system
don't let the PM's catch you spouting such blasphemy

I am the project manager :laugh:





And I hope that you are good at spewing garbage to your customers and your management because you will have to explain the technical side of your projects to both of them but you won't have any real experience in them. Good luck explaining a problem when your explanations came to you via word of mouth.


I'm not bitter, just REAL.

 

[MaxDepth]

:thumbsup: to HotChic
I was recently elevated to Project Manager and have my foot in the door of Program Management. It has taken me 20 years to get to this point. However, I must point out it didn't seem like a straight line while doing so. But I think I am one of the last "old school" management types. I barely graduated from college. I do not have an MBA, nor PMP certification. I worked hard to bring my work in on time and in most cases under budget. There were some dead-end jobs that I jumped from and I have been let go twice, once because of office politcs and the other for moving my work to Brazil.

Nowadays I hear that it is hard to crack into management without a degree or certification. But as for school, most MBA programs welcome outside disciplines. The best schools like Chicago, Harvard, Duke, etc. want someone who has been in business awhile but not necessarily as a business professional. They would rather teach you their style of business and use your experience to grow the management style.

So yeah, I understand burn-out. But try consulting firms if you want change. They will jump you on and off of multiple projects. After programming or similar for the next couple of years, you may want to try being an analyst. This is where you use your programming skills and judgement to architect a business solution - you make the workplans, you develop the timeline and you manage the project - instead of being that cog in the same.

After you show off your skills or get an MBA degree or PMP, then you move into PM work. For the love of God, please be one of the good ones. They say it hard to pass the general PMI cert class, but obviously a lot of idiots did.

Originally posted by: HotChic
I do project management work. My current title is senior business analyst (step below PM, at this point.)

A regular PM in my area (Seattle) will probably make $75-85k. In our company, that involves 60+ hour weeks. You WILL bust your balls in project management. A program manager (that is, a PM over other PMs) will make in the 100k range, but you have to be a kickass project manager to even have a shot at that.

What I would recommend is to go get yourself some business analyst work for 6 months to a year right now and see if you like it. It will give you a break from school and give you a chance to decide whether you like the work.

Personally, I like what I do. I stress like crazy about lots of it, but it really does keep me occupied and I'm never bored.

 

[acemcmac]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: acemcmac
I got offered a job between baltimore and DC in project management. I went all of the way down there to interview for an afternoon and when I finally found out the pay they were offering, I damn near spit out my coffee. 32k for the Baltimore/DC metro.

That's a joke. I make more than that doing BA work on projects (my title is one step down from HC's, I haven't been in this field as long, plus she's a kickass analyst).

ZV

Tell me about it. I was already making almost that much with my college job.

 

[yllus]

Project Management is great, but I'd recommend that if you're managing a technical product, try to ensure you have the technical chops to understand (at least at a high level) what kind of challenges your underlings will face. There's nothing worse than a PM who gives you a blank look when you try to explain why an unforseen issue has cropped up and delayed development by X days or weeks.

It's sort of like the military I imagine. An army always values a general who leads from the front and runs with his men. Realistically, you're going to be too busy to code or spend time in the labs, but it still behooves you to circulate around with the troops in between official status update meetings to create an easygoing "you can talk to me off the record and not get in sh!t" relationship with the people who design and build what you're offering. The effort and time expended in creating that relationship is considerable, but it's much better than the alternative of having a problem sprung upon you at the last minute - it's your ass that needs to appear in front of the rest of the company management team and explain it off.

I really should invest in some books or somesuch on the subject of project management. There's way too many subtleties that have caught me flatfooted in the past.