https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles/638987/PM-Development-Strategies
Sometimes these days, it feels as though everyone is a project manager. Certainly, most roles are expected to have some basic project management skills, and there are always a number of small projects underway that aren’t considered large enough to be assigned a formal PM, but that still need managing effectively.
But that doesn’t diminish the importance of formal project managers. In fact, project management is an in-demand profession. That’s wonderful, but it does require organizations to think about how people are able to progress their careers into, through and potentially beyond project management.
When I was starting out as a PM, most people came into the role from other roles on the project team—a technical lead or maybe a business analyst. And career paths were then largely limited to within project management itself—you got the chance to manage larger teams and budgets as you progressed.
Thankfully we’ve moved on from that, but what we have now is a highly complex matrix where people can move in many different directions as part of career progression. That complexity makes it hard to develop development strategies, but those strategies are needed both for the good of the employer, and for the success of employees.
No single right answer—but a consistent strategy
I’ve often described a project management career progression as a rock wall, not a ladder. That is, you don’t ascend through different levels one rung at a time, but rather you move sideways at time, potentially backward for a while and ultimately make it to the top (whatever that means to you).
From a practitioner’s standpoint, this can be frustrating because it makes it harder to identify a clear progression toward your career goals. Does that lateral move to a similar position in a different department help you achieve your long-term goals or not? Is a small step up worth taking now, or should you hold out for something larger in a few months?
There’s rarely a single right answer to any of those questions, and that’s what can be most frustrating. It’s also where you need to be able to rely on your employer to help you make smart decisions. And that hasn’t been possible in many businesses because they don’t know either—they don’t have a strategic approach to developing and promoting project managers. That has to change.
Regardless of where someone sits on their career journey—just starting out and looking to break into project management, an experienced PM looking to move up, or a senior program manager looking to apply their skills in other business areas—the organization should have a strategy for helping that career progression. And that strategy must be based on developing the overall organization’s business leadership capability.
The ultimate goal of talent development and management is to grow future leaders of the business. While hiring some executives from outside is good—it injects fresh thinking—the heart of business leadership should be grown internally. That helps ensure there is a deep understanding of the business, the industry and the operating environment. It ensures the business history is understood so that it can inform the future, and it provides the cultural “heart and soul” that represent those intangible elements that make an organization a living thing.
Obviously not everyone at lower levels of the enterprise can make it to the C-suite, but the more quality candidates the business can develop, the greater the chances of finding the best possible person when opportunities arise. And if that means that you develop some people for your rivals, well, that’s the nature of business. If the entire industry is strengthened, that benefits everyone.
Specific to project management, this environment can be supported when employers focus on creating:
- A diverse background of people entering project management roles. IT has always been a common background for PMs and it will continue to be, but that must be balanced with PMs from backgrounds that include sales and marketing, finance, engineering, product development and any other area of the business that has people who are interested in a career in project management. One of the best PMs I’ve ever met started her career as a corporate lawyer.
- Exposure to many different business areas, project types and team locations. While not every project manager is capable of leading every project, it is important to provide PMs with as much experience as possible within the project management field. That will not only help them out as PMs, it will also provide a broad base of understanding of the business, which will help them later in their career. I expect modern PMs to understand both waterfall and agile approaches, at least conceptually, and to understand how those approaches can work together in hybrid methods. They should also be given opportunities to work on varied types of projects with teams from all geographical and business areas.
- Integration between project leadership and other business leadership roles from a career standpoint. General business managers frequently move across multiple business areas as part of their development and career progression. The same should be true of project managers—rather than them being pigeonholed as “only” PMs. Modern project management has a large element of business management in it, and individuals who can develop both areas in parallel will become better leaders, delivering more value to their employers.
- Building on the point above, the creation of established career paths from project management to business leadership positions. Instead of viewing project management as a destination (with career growth limited into more senior project, program, portfolio or PMO roles), businesses must formalize paths that lead from project areas to general leadership roles (for those who wish to take that path).
Essentially, this is a shift by employers from viewing project management as a self-contained discipline that comprises a number of project, program and PMO-related roles to a recognition that today’s project managers are part of the overall management of an organization. Projects can no longer be treated as separate entities; they are an integral part of how business gets done, and that changes the role PMs perform.
This evolution has occurred as a result of both the acceleration of the rate of change in business—more projects are now happening to deliver more change—and as a result of the shift in expectations of project managers to enablers of business outcomes instead of just deliverers of constraints. Both of these changes are necessary and positive steps, but the management of PM career paths have been slow to catch up to this evolution of the role, and that’s what is causing the current restrictions on PM career advancement.
Making this adjustment will take time, and it will need engagement from organizational leaders, from HR/learning and development staff, and from project managers themselves. The solution must be strategic and long-term. It isn’t about interviewing more project managers for senior roles, it’s about improving the quality of career management at every step of the process—from finding the best candidates for junior project management positions (where “best” considers, skills, experience, career aspirations, potential and business needs), through to developing the strongest future leaders of the organization regardless of which part of the business they are currently working in.
The fundamental challenge that needs to be overcome is one of understanding. Businesses aren’t consciously excluding project managers from leadership roles, and they aren’t trying to prevent PMs from taking on other leadership challenges. Rather, the career development infrastructure hasn’t yet caught up with the way that project management has evolved. And even where there is recognition that the current PM career management model is out of date, the huge diversity of roles that require some degree of project management capability makes implementing a solution difficult.
Conclusions
Most organizations have traditionally struggled to develop effective career management and development programs for their PMs. Undoubtedly, that has cost them in lost opportunities and the erosion of talent as individuals have become frustrated by their inability to fulfill their potential. Today’s project managers are much more” business leader” than “project manager,” and the skills they need to succeed as PMs are highly transferable to other roles in the business.
Unless organizations can develop and effectively implement a comprehensive talent and career management strategy for PMs—from start to finish—they will continue to lose high-quality employees, with an ever-increasing impact on their ability to deliver. Solutions can’t be developed without involvement from all stakeholders, but solutions have to be developed right now.
