Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
Apparently I do, because I've only once had a team leader/project manager who actually knew what 'being realistic' was. If I, the dude who has to make the thing (and who has made similar things before), tells you that it takes 2 months if all goes well, then it's just stupid to set a deadline at 4 or 6 weeks and then be utterly surprised that stuff isn't finished or isn't working correctly.
I haven't seen it once; I've seen it countless times, and always by people who did not 'deserve' to be a project manager i.e.: someone who took some sort of management courses or education, and then got to manage in a field he never worked in and often even didn't understand.
A good project manager always comes up from below (having done the work himself, THEN turned manager), and not from above (having no experience in the field and only theoretical management knowledge). You said so yourself: the skills to be a PM can be approached from any of the various subjects, and while it can be taught in institutions that path will not normally provide the requisite experience.
Of all the project managers I ever had, only one had worked in the field himself for more than 10 years, and he was the only good one.
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Exactly.
In my industry one of the requirements for middle management IT positions is "One or more years of successful experience in the next lower pay grade or equivalent." Education in lieu of experience is PhD for the pay grade below mine, and there is none at my level.
So we tend to produce good PMs, our problem is we tend to lean toward "Functional Organizations" and the managers and supervisors of the various subdivisions are loath to provide top notch resources so we we get to work mostly with their misfits. The better ones understand that the better the product we give them the easier their job is, so their support is a bit better.