Josh pointed me to a post on CIO.com titled The 10 Key Capabilities of Next Generation Managers. Like all good strawman arguments, it's with a statement of the obvious
...shifting business conditions are changing the role of the project manager and the skills associated with it. "Organizations are striving to achieve faster [software] delivery without diminishing quality or increasing cost," she writes. As a result, she observes, they're moving from traditional software development methodologies to more Agile ones.
Really why agile? Getting faster, without diminishing quality and increasing cost is certainly desirable. By why does agile provide this? Is there evidence that agile does provide this? If so in what context and in what business domain?
I have personal experience and samples of others personal experience that agile provides faster response time and sometimes better quality in the "continuous maintenance mode" of commercial IT. PayPal is a good example.
What about standing up SAP or Peoplesoft in a distributed corporate environment? How about developing 21CFR compliant medical software from scratch. Or my favorite, developing and installing flight avionics upgraded to helicopters in the field?
The next classic strawman argument is...
The move to Agile software development "shifts the role of the project manager from a director to a facilitator," writes Gerush, because Agile development methodologies rely on self-managed, cross-functional teams.
Self organized, sure. Self managed. Would the project manager for Chase look forward to self managed teams during the move this week from www.wamu.com to www.chase.com. All my accounts came over no problem. All bill pay history moved. It was a seamless transition from the point of view of the customer. Self managed? I'd be dumbstruck if the teams managed themselves. Self organized? Possibly.
As organizations realize that traditional software delivery methods are bloated with processes and artifacts that add little or no value, they are trending toward Lean Software—and this transition will significantly change how they deliver projects, writes Gerush.
How about a single example? "Little or no value" to whom? SOX compliance be dammed. ARRA reporting through CFR 600 be dammed. ITIL compliance for corporate computing - we don't need that.
"Processes and artifacts, we don't need no stinkin artifacts."
Come on Ms. Gerush, provide some context and domain here. This is pure nonsense in the absence of a business domain and development context.
As companies distribute their software development around the world, the project manager's ability to communicate with and relate to people from different cultures becomes even more important.
When was this not important, even in the same room? A nice tautological argument.
Project managers also need to be more focused on business value.
When did "real" project managers NOT focus on business value. This business value by the way, must be defined by the business owner not the project manager. This business value in held in the business case, which should be derived from the business strategy (Balanced Scorecard is a good starting point), which defined the needed business capabilities. The PM's job is and always was to deliver that business value from the project in terms of requirements fulfilled.
Ms. Gerush's 10 Key Capabilities include:
- Emotional Intelligence
- Adaptive Communication
- People Skill
- Management Skills
- Flexibility
- Business Savvy
- Analytical Skills
- Customer Focus
- Results-Orientation
- Character
This is one of those lists where you've forgotten what the point is and agree with the content. This links the initial poorly formed these with an undeniable outcome. The way out of the "false premise" argument approach" which is a good car sales approach as well - is to invert the argument.
Do you want a project manager that has poor emotional intelligence, is a crappy communicator, stinks at people skills, has poor management skills, is inflexible, has no business savvy, no analytical skills, hates customer, never delivers on anything, is missing core charter?
I know of no one on the planet who would want to hire such a project manager. So what's the point? There is no point. It's the restatement of the obvious in the absence of context and domain. An unassailable argument that is then bridged to "agile."
This kind of stuff wouldn't get a D in the high school forensics class (many types of debate, poetry, and drama). We desire a better assessment of the problem of managing corporate IT projects. Forget the $400 price tag. Look to working project management process in industries you work in.
What to see the basis of complete disaster for corporate IT? Follow this advice.
Notably, technical- and traditional project management skills are absent from Forrester's list of core capabilities for next generation project managers, but not because those skills are no longer necessary. While those skills remain important, Forrester maintains that because the softer skills are more difficult to learn than hard project management skills, organizations may be better off hiring individuals who are strong in those key capabilities "even if they lack experience in accepted project management practices."
I can just see it. The PM has all those softer skills, has character, is flexible, business savvy, etc. But is completely clueless about the effort and risks involved with integrating SAP with PeopleClick for FAR 35.1 compliant time reporting in the ARRA grant management business. Eveyone on the project is self actualized, informed, communicated with and holds the highest integrity in their dealing - but the !@#$ing system doesn't work on the needed "go live" date for the monthly report and the DCMA sends a nasty letter that they'll be on site for next months reporting process audit. Oh yea, we're modern project managers now.
