When your parents had their second most awkward conversation with you (after, you know, THAT one), which started, “So, son/daughter/non-binary, what are you going to do with your life?”, I suspect none of you suggested becoming an IT Project Manager. There are no GCSEs or A-levels in Project Management. Luckily. It regularly fails to appear in Top Jobs or careers lists, and I suspect that for most people it is down there with Sanitation Inspector and Armpit Sniffer as “Thanks, but I’ll pass” opportunities. If you’ve ever wondered what an IT PM does (me neither), or how to spot a good’un, read on.
What’s your Problem?
In the good old days (i.e. any time before you were around, however old you are) if something needed doing your leader told you to do it, and you, as the line manager, did it. See Don’t Step in the leadership for how this is still supposed to work. As things got more complicated (normally by introducing computers), you’d assign one of your minions to do it. They would loudly complain about being taken off their day job (sleep-testing desks) and try to find mini-minions to sort it out. Inevitably, it didn’t get done so you got bollocked by your leader. Next time it came along you requested a dedicated (new) minion to make it so. Thus, was born the role of Project Manager.
Do What?
If you bring in a PM, what are they going to do? Presumably, not your job (though in many cases they could and should), or that of your minion who has coveted the test sleep desk. If it was quick and easy, you would already have finished. So, it is almost certainly complicated, big, political, new, expensive, or important – mostly likely all of the above. Therefore, what a PM is going to do is:
- Sort out what needs doing
- Get it done, on time, to budget, at the right quality
- Deal with all the necessary riff raff (colleagues, suppliers, customers)
- Allow you to take the glory for success
- Fall on their sword (or your knife in their back) if/when it all goes horribly wrong
7 Effing Quintessential Qualities of a Perfect PM
- Focus: The Perfect PM focuses on the outcome, and makes it happen. The result is everything; excuses are for wimps; everything else is collateral damage
- Force: I’d rather have someone who can quote Machiavelli’s The Prince than any number of PRINCE2, PMP, CAPM, etc qualifications (other than a cat-herding diploma). Projects are ultimately about making people do things they don’t want to do, NOT managing a Gantt chart
- Failure: You should get someone who has failed spectacularly rather than Ms Perfect or Mr Newbie because failure is the best teaching tool; the bigger the catastrophe the better the learning. You can tell the right PM by their scars, the haunted look in their eyes and their determination never to repeat that fiasco
- Firefighter: As the old mis-quote goes: ‘No plan survives first contact with the enemy’. In business projects the enemies are the people affected, the data underpinning assumptions, and the crap technology involved (i.e. all tech). The PM’s job is to run around and put out the fires with whatever liquid comes to hand
- Facilitator: The people challenges are mainly ego, indifference, and prioritisation. A good PM will nudge everyone with a long pointy stick to make them do what’s needed, in spite of whatever “governance” there is
- Fall-guy: The PM is a no-win role as they get fired if things go badly, are ‘released’ at go-live, and will be blamed for eternity for anything not originally in scope. So expect them to have lots of padding, particularly after lockdown
- Features: Other characteristics to look out for include spider-sense, impatience, rhinoceros skin, attention to detail, bat hearing, stress sponge, sadism AND masochism
For those of you who’ve fallen into the world’s oldest newest profession, I salute you!
John ‘Peter Piper” Moe
Recycled Bullsh-IT 
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