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Focus
on project management skills
Many
technicians lack the basic skills to coordinate projects and
think modularly about their individual work allotments or
code, sometimes at the cost of missing the “big picture,”
writes MOHAN BABU
An
interesting item of research published in Computerworld (US)
caught my attention recently—it was about the acute lack of
project managers in US IT departments. This research really
hit home since the failure of many of the “gloom and doom”
projects can be attributed to the lack of proper project management
rather than to any other cause. Meta Group, the Stamford-based
IT research company, was recently quoted saying that more
than 75 percent of 219 IT executives interviewed indicated
that a lack of in-house project management skills was a major
issue for them. Similarly, a researcher with Forrester concurred
with this research saying: “A lot of unofficial training is
going on where people take on the role of project managers.”
However, most executives also concurred that providing project
management training to IT focused staff was a big “challenge.”
In
the years that I have spent in the field, I have noticed that
techies, especially the hard-core, hands-on types, are management
agnostic and run for miles to avoid the mention of project
management or quality assurance. So much so that the current
trend towards XP (eXtreme Programming) where “self-managed”
team work directly with users to build prototypes and take
modules to production in smaller cycles, may be an effort
to minimise the overheads generally associated with project
management. Perhaps one of the reasons why some companies
lack project management skills is because they tend to hire
IT professionals from the same pool of talent, with similar
skills, feels Martin Colburn, CTO of National Association
of Securities Dealers.
A
major reason why some techies abhor project managers is probably
because they (the project managers) try to go by the book
and try to enforce some structure to projects, even when deadlines
are tight. Ignorance of the basic need for project management
among techies may be another reason for this yin-yang between
managers and techies. Many technicians lack the basic skills
to coordinate projects and think modularly about their individual
work allotments or code, sometimes at the cost of missing
the “big picture.”
Trained
and qualified project managers are expected to bring this
“big picture” view to projects they manage. This is especially
true of large-scale projects where smaller development teams
work on individual modules and someone needs to coordinate
the efforts of such teams, analyse the risk, mitigate them
and ensure that the deadlines are met and the deliverables
confirm to the specifications laid down in the initial analysis,
satisfying the end users.
Maintaining
a “big picture” view while fighting daily fires, ensuring
the focus of the entire team, is the forte of a skilled and
trained project manager. Interestingly, those in project management
roles come from varied backgrounds, not necessarily from a
development or technical background as many envisage. Some
project managers are also qualified in formal project management
methodologies, especially the PMBOK (Project Management Body
of Knowledge) prescribed by the Project Management Institute
(PMI) one of the foremost bodies in the industry. The organisation
also conducts a formal certification exam and PMI certified
project managers continue to be in demand.
Are
Indian outsourcers at risk?
Do
Indian outsourcers have the project management bandwidth to
manage the large-scale projects that they are continually
bidding for? Many project managers working for large Indian
companies have risen from the trenches, growing from developer
to tech lead and then project manager. While they may have
a strong technical background, many lack formal training in
project management. As Indian companies look to scale up the
value chain, hiring and nurturing quality project managers
will gain importance. This is especially crucial since the
available pool of managers will also be wooed by multinationals
entering the Indian IT or outsourcing market.
An
opportunity in disguise
This
renewed focus on project management in the industry, may be
an opportunity in disguise for Indian companies. It is an
opportunity to leverage our technical skills with the right
project management training, enabling our techies to manage
large-scale global projects. This capability will also help
Indian companies to bid for larger international projects
up the value chain if we can show our execution capabilities
and management prowess. In the process, we may also be able
to “export” our project management expertise to China, Philippines
and Ireland—other hotbeds of IT outsourcing.
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