ICPM

If I had to guess at a percentage, I would say that more like 40-50% of operational executives have a dismissive attitude towards formal project management, although the number seems to be decreasing. There are still a majority of director and above level people who seem to not perceive value in formal project management. I see the trend towards realizing project management adds value as positive reinforcement for my decision to enter the discipline.

But I digress. Back to the article in PM Network, I found a few points insightful and worth sharing here. First, the report by Gartner classifies IT project managers in 4 categories:

1. Novice - Some project experience, lacks formal training
2. Apprentice - Some project experience, shows initiative towards managing projects, has sought out and attained some formal training, ready to manage a low-risk project.
3. Journeyman - 2 years of project management experience or more, formal training in scope and risk management, advanced scheduling and best practices.
4. Master - 5+ years successfully managing projects, usually PMP or other certification attained.

Only 15-20% of project managers are in the Master group. I would place myself either in the high Apprentice or just barely Journeyman category. I've had a good amount of formal training and several years of managing projects, albeit projects managed without knowledge of the discipline of project management.

I feel the categories above are a bit tenuous, as I have met project managers who by the definition above would fit into the Master category, but do not display what I would refer to as Mastery skills in managing projects. The last box in the article goes into five characteristics of masters that I feel are much more accurate:

1. Diplomacy - ability to manage the business relationships effectively
2. Strategic Vision - ability to see the big picture and eliminate "silo paradigms"
3. Policy Responsibility - seek process improvements and question existing policy constraints
4. Collaboration - cross-functional leadership skills
5. Risk Management - advanced risk management goes beyond a risk management plan checklist

I would like to add a few to this list:

1. Effective Planning - see my previous post on Alpha Project Managers and how they spend twice as much time planning as non-alphas.
2. Superior Communication - Again a reference to Alpha PM's - This goes with diplomacy and collaboration, but everyone knows the successful project management comes mostly from excellent communication.
3. Decisiveness - the ability to make tough decisions quickly and stick to your guns
4. Conciseness - the ability to drop pretenses and execute. Many junior project managers I know seem to throw around a lot of jargon in meetings to try and wow those not educated in the discipline. Masters I have worked with drop the unnecessary, speak on the client's level, and get to the point.