PM is an attribute

Hi frens,

I aim to articulate a statement drawn from my experiences over the past decades: “PM is an attribute, not a skill, nor should it be a job title.” PM stands for Project Management, or Product Management if you will. The concepts of attribute and skill are borrowed from video games.

PM is an attribute. Some people are born sensitive to people’s needs, or good at taking care of the team or project progress. Willing to have an overview of a project, and digging to some details when necessary. This attribute could be improved through practicing, however mostly based on a person’s personality.

PM is not a skill, though it’s often promoted as is. People may argue that SWOT Analysis, Risk Management, or even Gantt charts are skills can be learned. I would argue those “skills” are too simple to qualify as a skill, compared with accounting, legal, design, engineering, etc. The performance evaluation of those analysis, assessment, and treatment only matters for those interested parties, and it depends on who’s responsible for those reports.

PM should not be a job title. For those who aren’t familiar with the job title, I mean project managers who are responsible for overseeing the team but have no or very few authority, need to communicate with upper management very often, and very likely underpaid compared with team members. That situation seems to be widely popular in our software industry, and I find it weird all the time.

Why wouldn’t upper management, including CTOs, CEOs, or middle managers, handle project management themselves? Individuals with greater authority should shoulder greater responsibilities, rather than delegating tasks to so-called “project managers” who often function more as secretaries in practice.

However, if your PM career starts from recruiting members either from the inside or outside of the company, form the team and build the products, reports the execution results to the upper management, then you are the true manager. And that job position shouldn’t be limited to any of your previous experiences. Because PM is an attribute, not a skill, nor should it be a job title. You are fully authorized and responsible for what the team delivers. You are the true manager.

Your friend,

Denken