Project Manager and Project Management

I was a bit surprised when I started working that project managers didn’t do any of the technical stuffs, here in the UK. I said that but in actuality I believe this is the same for most countries too, at least other than in Malaysia.

In my previous experience, project managers are the technical ‘expert’ and are normally from a technical background. In fact, the career progression for engineers are normally from being a senior engineer, and is followed by the jump to management, aka being a project manager. As a result, project managers in Malaysia still retain their ‘technical pride’ and dictates technical decision. I think business even relies on it, allowing and requiring project manager to manage, basically everything.

In comparison to the UK, project managers only manages the project management side. That statement seems unhelpful but let me explain. In project management, the three key factors are cost, scope and time/schedule, which determines the output quality in the end. And I have seen this is what PM normally do here. The always ask scope, scope, scope to the client, and asks when are you going to finish a job to the staffs/engineers, and they’ll authorize any new stuffs you need. So in short, their jobs are what is focused in project management.

Since they are not looking at the technical sides, the engineers/architects will do their stuff. Since if there is no one managing this, it would be chaos, then other managers exist. There are construction manager and design manager for example, that manages the construction process, and design process respectively, which normally in Malaysia (at least in my experience) is the same person as the project manager.

When this is practiced (having several managers position), these managers can focus on their responsibility better. To challenge or compliment to this, there are competencies and courses required. The reason I wrote this is because I’ve met a few people, and myself included, that thought that it is possible to simply apply for a project manager just because I have worked in a project or handled projects before. I’m not really sure the qualification path, but project managers that I have met in the UK attends courses or have degrees in PM.

Instead of this project manager positions, I believe it is better for job seekers to apply for technical positions, one that is closest to working experience and skills that is able to be proven. Also most jobs lay clear the competencies or skills required so even if you don’t have the ‘formal’ qualification for that, but able to prove it during the interview, this would be better.

Thank you for reading.