Great Career Options for Great PMs

I wanted to do my last big post on bridging from these ideas of what constitutes a great PM to what it can mean for someone’s overall career.   Of course it seems obvious that if you’re a great PM, you’ll get more opportunities.  Certainly  you’d seem like the person to call for bigger and hairier and more complex projects.   But I bring this up because of the unexpected career paths I’ve seen people take based on a foundation of PM ability.

Examples of what I mean:

My own career path:  Engineer – to  functional group lead  – to line Director and release manager – to multi-site PM – to contract project manager – to PM and development methodology creator and project coach – to  head of project management support group – to Interim manager for SQA and regulatory groups – to consulting business owner – to consultant/acting VP of product development  – to web business owner…

A colleague named Barbara:   Software configuration management coordinator – to  project manager for small vendor RFP effort – to software program release manager for post-development product integration – to program manager for major corporate software initiative – to development manager for new software installation product….

Colleague named Pete:  software developer – to software group manager – to software project manager plus member of development process improvement committee – to head of new PMO/project support group – to director of projects

Colleague named Warren:  hardware engineer – to software developer – to software quality assurance consultant – to project management consultant – to project methodology consultant  – to consultant/ actiing Director of projects for a product group – to program manager for medical products  – to Director at a web start-up  – to VP of engineering at a medical startup.

Neil:  Development engineer – to customer support engineer – to project manager for multiple projects in a small services company – to  GE corporate consulting on projects – to manager of organizational effectiveness including PM coaching, development processes, executive assistance – to member of organizational development group for major computer company supporting projects and processes.

Each person above had a really interesting mix of career experience – a series of positions that was not planned out for any of them, but evolved based on their performance, abilities etc.   From what I know of each of them, their opportunities came about because of their PM Greatness in particular areas that fit their environments and led to excellent performance of the job at hand, and the opportunity for the next great challenge.

So to summarize some key Great PM Opportunities distilled from these career paths:

Roles in PMOs:   One great opportunity is to get a role helping support project managers.  What Great PM traits matter?  Process-savvy and flexibility, the ability to understand different project environments and advise new PMs on the nuances of becoming a great PM in every situation, rapport with management…

Functional management roles.  As noted above, there are savvy PMs who have moved from functional roles, to project management roles, and eventually back to the functional world – but in elevated positions.   The same qualities that made them great PMs led directly to them being trusted and desired in more responsible functional/ business positions – qualities such as their understanding of the business, rapport with cross-functional groups, and the ability to make or influence tough trade-off decisions. 

Consulting and contracting, whether to run or coach specific projects or help with overall improvement goals.  In my experience, our past performance, credibility, and demonstrated ability to learn trump whether you’ve managed a specific project type before.  Courageous and can-do attitudes, building a got-it-done track record in the new client, and the rapport great PMs build inside clients often leads to a stream of additional opportunities – clients asking  “Hey, can (your name here) do that for us too?”

So what is it about Great PMs that gets them these opportunities?  I think it’s the aspects I’ve tried to cover in these posts this week.  By way of a summary, here are key building blocks of the great PM (my opinion!)

• Results on past efforts
• Known for doing a good and thorough job
• Increasing judgment, maturity

Business understanding – Understand the key drivers

• What customers need and related priorities
• Business strategy, project drivers
•  Able to make tough tradeoffs

Communication Skills and Savvy: Communicate the right info at the right time, with courage and with appropriate detail and style

• To Executives- bottom line, hard truths
• To Functionas groups- sensitive to their issues
• To Team- providing context and motivation