14
To answer the question literally ("how much experience is required..."): none whatsoever. I know project managers who has had no technical experience and are dealing great with their jobs.
If you asked me whether I require technical experience when hiring, or working with, PMs, my answer would still be negative.
Having said that, technical experience in ...
13
The Project Management role grew from needs to coordinate in the traditional environments. If the title sticks around, the role still has to change. I've seen PMs take on higher level coordination, become a PO, become a SM or design a new role altogether. This is all depending on your organization, quality of agile adoption and access to coaching. If not ...
11
According to glassdoor.com, the average PM salary is $66,048 while the average programmer salary is $43,658.
However, the relative salaries are going to depend greatly on perceived programmer skill, PM duties, company culture and negotiation skill.
Successful project management is a science and in demand skill in its own right (PMs require both project ...
11
The key to motivation is to remove the money from the table. So you have to pay enough so the developers don't think about the money, and then to rely on intrinsic motivators such as recognition, self-development, etc. If you use percentage or even mixed model, you focus people on the money, and not on the product. On the other hand, it's great to share with ...
10
I think it is necessary. As a team leader you have to speak in front of your team, at meetings, at special occasions, like customer visitation or open house and the list goes on. It really makes a bad impression when a team leader cannot speak for 5 minutes. It shouldn't be a commencement speech, but I think a good team leader must be able to give at least ...
10
Developers are always going to tell you their work is harder/more important than PMs or BAs. And PMs will say their work is harder/more important, as will BAs, as will Accountants, as will Legal, etc. At the end of the day, on a team everyone's work is important because without it the team is more likely to fail. The relative importance will vary from ...
9
Comparing one job family with another in an attempt to make sense of it is futile. In that other question, the justification that one should make more money because they "work harder" shows a lack of intelligence, analysis, maturity, and general wherewithall.
First, hard work is relative and subjective. That would be an argument that would never end. ...
9
Once you become a real Scrum Master, you shift your career focus from development to people management. Most of the organisations don't fully understand the role of the Scrum Master, and they function as a Technical Lead, so there is still place for doing development time to time in this scenario.
The real Scrum Master has hardly any time to do development. ...
8
The It depends pretty much answers all of your questions because they really depend on the context.
My first advice is to change your questions by adding the why do I to the beginning. For example, "Why do I want to have one meeting per week?" Because I have to write a report once a week to my boss? Or, because I would like to know about the daily life of ...
7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pxe_TG43G0
This little video was created by a man named Dave Wood from Canada.
I would dig deeper into this issue as something more sophisticated than a communication issue. This is more of a teaming issue, sounds like, and the way various personalities mix and work together and your communication issues are symptoms, ...
7
I was working with a similar setup and it wasn't that bad at all. We knew what to expect, and somehow we felt that our work has a purpose, because we needed the money at that time.
Unfortunately, when one brings up the money based motivation topic up, the other immediately pulls Daniel Pink's book, which is excellent book, but how one interprets is very ...
7
Similar to other answers, they key thing to understand here is that:
Money is a motivator, but only up to a certain point.
Once people's basic needs are taken care of, money is no longer a major motivator.
Other factors (such as esteem and self actualization) become more important progressively.
Contrary to some of the other answers, this thinking is not ...
7
I think the different levels can relate to the Agile Onion as described by Simon Powers.
Entry level: Can implement the tools and processes, but doesnt have a good understanding why the processes, practises, principles and value's exist. Could lead to cargo-cult Agile.
Intermediate: Can work on a team level, but does not yet have the experience to change ...
6
I'll take the opposite position than Zsolt and say no, a PM does not need to be a public speaker.
While I agree with his premise, my view is that the PM needs to be a 'leader' more than a speaker. So the PM needs to spend their time honing their leadership and influence skills.
Public speaking is sometimes a part of this, but I've known some great leaders ...
6
Project Management is Process Management
Whether you are a traditional PM or an agile practitioner, project management is about managing process. Like any knowledge domain, the deeper your understanding of the underlying processes and procedures you're dealing with, the better you will be able to manage process flow and identify risks and impediments to ...
6
From personal experience in the UK (and particularly in the not-for-profit sector) I would say that PMs and Developers of a similar level of experience and seniority tend to earn a similar or equal amount.
The skillsets are very different so it's pretty hard to compare the two roles fairly. You also have to take into account current market conditions and ...
6
It will be very hard to break into Project Management "cold" - You will definitely need enough experience in the field/sector you are applying for to be able to talk credibly about it and this can only take time and experience.
One way in might be to begin working in a PMO (Project Managment Office) perhaps as a PMO administrator- That way you can learn the ...
5
Factual Answer
I don't know a truly canonical answer for this, as I have not researched it exhaustively. However, salary and market surveys can provide some factual answers, although you certainly have to discount for bias--especially bias based on who sponsored a given survey.
For example, here's one data point:
http://www.scrumology.net/2011/05/12/csm-...
5
I can only second what David has said. Remember, only about 25% of the world communicates the same way you do.
To sum up the issue I think you are having I would point to a great quote my Mark Horstman, of Manager Tools. He uses this quote to sum of Peter Druker's Communication Chapter in his management book.
"Communication is what the listener does."
...
5
One thing I've done is to highlight what I've done/led in each project phase (Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitor/Control, Close-Out). This was suggested to me by a professional recruiter that was helping me out in applying to a large aviation firm as a PM. I used the same approach to get my foot in the door with my current employer (large financial ...
5
I would argue whether two-person project requires extensive project management knowledge. Actually, it is more about some basic planning and organization and a lot of collaboration. Fortunately the latter mainly between two people.
Leaving aside a crucial part of collaboration with your peer, the rest of project management effort should likely boil down to ...
5
I would be wary about giving an absolute answer to this because the meaning of a job title can vary hugely from organisation to organisation and sector to sector. In my own sector - digital/software development - I would say that Project Coordinators normally report in to Project Managers who may, in turn, report in to Programme Managers.
In my experience ...
5
The answers to those questions depend heavily on your company/institution/hierarchy. I think we can only respond in the context of PMI (although I'd love to hear from a PRINCE practitioner or other non-PMI organization).
Work performed as a project coordinator almost certainly qualifies as job experience towards PMP certification (I'm only hedging because ...
5
Probably not. The main job of a PM is to drive all the stakeholders in the same direction, which is sometimes more diplomacy and communication than actually project organisation.
Scrum is a methodology to deliver product in accordance with requirements. However, a project is usually not limited to simply delivery a product, it may involve business, ...
5
Job titles mean whatever an organization wants them to mean. However, in my experience a Product Owner (or, in less agile environments, a Product Manager) is often responsible for a single product or a closely-related suite of products.
Advancement within Product Management is generally into managing a portfolio of products. In some companies, a Product ...
5
This is always going to be a subjective measure because it is not a binary decision-it is not like an exam that you have either passed or not.
Having said that, in most situations I have come across it is decided through defined (and somewhat arbitrary) combinations of:
years of experience in Project Management
experience with different team sizes (i.e. ...
5
In my organization many PMs get very little say in Human Resources decisions for their projects. The functional manager says who they can spare that fits the criteria and that is who the project manager gets. This said I don't think there is anyone who doubts our PMs are in fact PMs. I think the same holds true for costs. If you are managing projects you ...
4
If Failure is Assured, Fail Early
If a project has failed, and isn't salvageable from a business perspective, then it should be canceled. This is a cost control measure, and certainly one of the objectives of effective project management.
While it's better to identify at-risk projects early on in the process and take corrective action, once a project has ...
4
Let me quote PMBOK v.4, page 255:
As you see, "the sender is responsible for making the information clear and complete so that the receiver can receive it correctly". You fail this task, since you know that your receivers are not patient/educated/polite enough to listen to you.
I would suggest to use a different type of "encoding". Instead of verbal ...
4
In some companies, the project manager is seen more as a coordinator. it will depend on the job functions.
In general though, my experience, is that PM is the pre-entry to management positions that are part of the company hierarchy and hence more valued.
Companies may or not have a technical and management career path, you should ask about it and it will ...
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