Everyone asks for a strong project manager... When they get him they don't want him!
By definition, a manager is “the person responsible for planning and directing the work of a group of individuals, monitoring their work, and taking corrective actions when necessary”.
The Project Manager in the field of Software Development is a very special type of manager… I mean this when I think about the people who really care about their work and carry it out as it should be… From my point of view, I think these people are very rare to find. They are always put under the stress of delivering successful projects despite all obstacles related to pleasing their clients, top management and teams.
Super Man-ager
Or in other words, the Invincible Hero known as the Project Manager should possess a countless set of qualifications… He should have the:
- Wisdom of Confucius
- Brilliance of Albert Einstein
- Courage of Gandhi
- Endurance of Jacob
- …
The PM should also be able to contain all situations, resolve conflicts, understand people’s minds, and be familiar with psychology. He should be able to lobby and align with all parties with very good communication skills. He should always be calm even in the most stressful situations. He should be immune against committing mistakes; his mistakes can cost the whole project!
In addition, the PM should be on call most of the times, and should answer client calls at any time, while taking decisions quickly and maintaining a very good memory.
To summarize, a PM should possess all types of soft skills and baby-sitting skills, and if not possible, he can carry them in a bag on his back!
Some PMs are held accountable for weather forecasting and for bad weather too!
PM Job
In addition to the above qualifications, which are all related to the PM’s personality, the PM has to possess some technical skills related to his job. For more info, please refer 
To which I would suggest adding the following qualifications in order to make this job more interesting. Actually, this is what I expect this job will require the in the future:
- Fluency in 17 different languages
- Knowledge of all software development languages
- Mastering martial arts
- Experience in the usage of weapons
- Able to drive cars, boats, sub-marines and of course rockets and anything else that might be created in the future!
What a difficult job! And above this, the PM has to produce output! I am not sure what other people are then doing in the project after this! (just kidding 
I sometimes wonder why would such a skilled person want to work as a PM?!
Why Does Everyone Want to Become a PM?
On the contrary to what I see in the PM’s job and what I think about it being a very difficult one, many people think that the PM job is the easiest of all jobs. They also think they are managers by default, “We are all managers”! They underestimate the responsibility and experience this job requires, they only look at the Orders Giving part and ignore all other parts!
By the way, a good manager is never welcome, especially from the people who wanted him in the first place!
| Warning: A True PM’s life is an endless series of sufferance. |
Types of PMs
Throughout my work in this field, I ran into different types of PMs. Some of them I really appreciate, respect, and wish we can have the chance to work together again… While the other Some, I can refer to for humor purposes only!
Good PMs, in other words True PMs, respect their teams and fully understand their responsibilities. They know how to plan, follow up and take corrective actions when necessary, they are proactive and never leave things to chance.
On the other side, some PMs don’t even understand their job, they know nothing about their teams, clients… and surprisingly, the projects they are responsible for!! They are always busy doing nothing, as a friend of mine used to say, they assume that their role is only to make others work while they enjoy the warm sun on the beach! And they think that is a clever thing to do as managers are not supposed to work! Just for the record, many managers favor this type of PMs while teams and clients always suffer and complain about their ignorance and careless irresponsible attitude.
PM Evaluation
Here comes the very difficult part about this job, which is the evaluation/assessment of the PM. Some of the PM’s managers and who are responsible for his evaluation don’t possess half of his skills… and can’t do half of his work! They don’t know how such people should be evaluated. They sometimes perform the evaluation based on the results of the projects, some other times based on personal relationships, and most of the times, a PM don’t get actually evaluated, it’s just a paper work task that has to be carried out from time to time. But to be fair, some managers understand what PMs are doing, and they try their best to help them develop themselves with honest and objective to-the-point assessments. Unfortunately, these people are very rare to find.
Comments