Program Manager Skills that Bad PMs Lack
Several interesting observations are in Perry Wilson’s post in which she compares good PMs to bad PMs who achieve success by way of luck. It prompt me to share my thoughts on this topic in this post. First, I agree with Perry that only an experienced project manager can answer specific questions such as “What are the current issues in the project?” To know the list of open issues and to recall the list when asked, a good PM has to stay on top of the issues and this requires experience and skill. You can easily detect bad PMs by asking them about details of the project and the list of open issues.
At the same time, Perry states, the lucky PM would struggle to figure out who to blame. Here I have to disagree. My experience tells me that bad project managers are usually outstanding in finding who to blame. Often it is amazing to observe how reliable their memory is and how easily they recall everyone who erred. They can easily detail how others caused the failure of the lucky PM’s project. Again, referring to my post on lessons learned from failures vs. experience gained from successes, it is very easy for humans to remember negatives and mistakes. Inexperienced PMs use the skill that nature gave us to point fingers at others.
However, bad PMs fail to step back and honestly analyze what went wrong and which mistakes could have been avoided. Analyzing details and understanding their impact on the overall project plan requires experience and skills observed in good project managers. My recommendation when trying to detect a lucky PM is to focus on asking specific questions about the project.
Short list of factors contributing to project success
Program vs. Project Management in Program Manager Position
Thanks for the mention. I agree, I was probably being nice – bad PMs have no problem finding anyone to blame – in fact, it seems to me they have a blame plan as part of the project plan.
Have a great PMing day.
“Blame plan as part of the project plan”
I will use it in project plan reviews.
I like how you put it. This is a catchy phase!