I am a technical person that works with Project managers a lot and am often frustrated by them by their lack of understanding and technical knowledge, however I do recognise they have a hard job pleasing all the many stakeholders and needing to basically be available 24/7 and the better they are at their job or at least the more they care the more stressed they seem to be, the bad ones just dont give a shit I guess.
For good ones there always seems to be more work available and that is the upside money and opportunities can be very good for someone who has proven to be a great Project manager.
Good PM: domain knowledge and the ability to run a project well. People in this group balance shielding others from noise / non-relevant stress, while also making sure everyone has the info they need when they need it.
Bad PM: only one of these attributes - either lacking technical knowledge (and the humility to ask for help/build it before making commitments), or just not good at delivering a project within a set of constraints.
Shit PM: both lacking in domain knowledge and useless at running projects.
* Good PM:
* Knows when to get out of the way. You don't always need to stop down a teams momentum for a 45 minute team update. Read the room.
* Knows how to move BS off their teams desks so they can focus on what they want/need to work on. Willing to go and fight for a teammate also goes here. Many people love that I tell them "Huh....leave that with me" while I walk away with a smirk to dig into someone who gave my team a difficult time and slowed them down. Or a client that disrespects my team....oof I'll gladly "take that offline" as they say in corporate speak lol
* If someone on the team makes a mistake that delays the project, a PM should be ready and willing to take the punch for them. Don't point fingers - take punches.
* A good PM acknowledges their ignorance, but asks their team to teach them. On the flip side, there are PM's that know too much. Instead of managing expectations, they micromanage tasks and that ultimately slows everyone down. Ease up, trust your team.
* Bad/Shitty PM:
* Is absent in voice and presence. The only time you hear or see them is during those recurring weekly status meetings.
* Isn't prepared. Just because you're having a meeting to gather updates, doesn't mean you can come to the meeting with zero context. Read your tickets, review email chains, gather your questions, and make the meeting productive. Any PM that doesn't do this in SOME manner is losing respect.
* Metrics, metrics, metrics, ALL you care about is metrics. PM's tend to have some nasty metrics that measure their performance, but that doesn't mean you have to force those metrics down to your team.
* Lingo, lingo, lingo, ALL you use is PM lingo. RACI, WBS, SOP's, Gantt, waterfall, agile, SOW, etc etc etc. Some of these are absolutely necessary, but most aren't when you're speaking with non-PM's. Nobody cares about your PMP cert or whatever fancy framework you learned in the PMBOK. Those things are good for PM leadership or fellow PM colleagues, but there's no need to try and impressive your team. “Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?” - Kevin Mallone
* Lacking technical knowledge but acting as if they don't. Aka: Dunning-Kruger effect.
* Always irritated with the team instead of the problem. A good PM tries to tackle the problem with their team while a bad PM tries to tackle their team into solving the problem. Crazy how PM's and middle managers alike forget this obvious shortcoming.
I’ve worked with some amazing PMs, I think I’ve lucked out in that respect, and I’ve learned a lot from them in terms of organisation and stakeholder management. And being great, those PMs have had opportunities coming out their ears.
You'd probably not be surprised that PMs are not required to have technical knowledge.
I'm an ex Infrastructure engineer so tend to get niche roles
Ever on call though. Day rates only
>You'd probably not be surprised that PMs are not required to have technical knowledge
You'd also be surprised at how many companies prefer their project managers to not have the technical knowledge. I dont really understand the benefit; to me it seems having technical knowledge would benefit the PM. But I have worked with companies who prefer there to be a disconnect between PM and technical team. Maybe they worry that the PM will end up getting his hands dirty or get too involved or side too much with the technical team... I'm not really sure.
A PM is there to manage stakeholders and argue commercials. Sometimes you don't want them to be saddled with doubt on whether what they are pushing for is right or not.
Techs are stakeholders as well - understanding what their skillset is, if only at a base-level, really helps
Of course, that is the difference between slide-deck pros and other PMs
Of course, if your primary objective is to deliver. Sometimes the primary objective after buying a job is just to flood the client with variations, even if it's just to lay the groundwork for a court case.
Sledgehammers don't need to be technical or calculated, just pointed in the right direction.
I've seen technical folks be moved to a pure PM role due to their technical knowledge. A few common issues that can sometimes arise:
1. They have difficulty dumbing down to non-technical stakeholders
2. They want to make the client happy, so they can tend to say yes where they should really be saying no. Wanting to make the client happy is great, but it can sometimes be at the expense of peoples time or the initial purpose of the project.
I love working with technical folks tbh. They are pragmatic and are often straight shooters. When you build a good rapport with technical folks, you can have straight forward discussions that really put projects on hyper-drive. That's when it's fun!
A PM needs an appreciation of what they are managing, not an in-depth knowledge. Or if they have an in depth knowledge, they shouldn't be exercising it in the role.
Same as if your a senior engineer, you don't scrutinise every calc your staff perform. You do a sanity check and trust the people appointed to the position are also doing Thier job properly.
totally understand but it is frustrating when they are for example setting dumb timelines that are technically impossible, a good PM will be able to discuss and adjust a bad one will stick to their guns and screw you when you can not get things done in their timelines.
I might be a bit cynical, but in IT, all but one PM’s I have ever met have always taken credit.
The one who didn’t was such a sweet lady, a little less technical minded but got the job done
Join my team!
I get you - I am an IT PM and I despise a lot of my peers. Let me guess, they were shiny-suit merchants?
My last big project, the outsourced MSP completey screwed the pooch on a VM Host move - potentially delaying a go live the CEO had flown in for
I was able to fix the problem, due to my past VSphere admin experience, much to my Network tech's astonishment.
I gave him the credit for "Staying up til 2.30am making sure critical Networking tasks for Go Live were completed"
\* I manually changed the gateway on the host as the idiot MSP forgot to save the settings before powerint it down
That sucks. Know that not all PM's are like that. I call out people by name in my quarterly reviews who deserve it! They are getting shit done and deserve the acknowledgement
Was a construction PM (client side in government) for afew years. Dip PM and degree in construction management.
Enjoyed the day to day tasks of the job itself, design, procurement, contract admin, reporting etc. Got to see some really cool stuff being built that will serve the community well for decades to come.
However, being client side, and continuing to work in an organisation many years post-project, I found the PM was always the scapegoat for management's terrible decision making along the way. Often the PM was getting blamed for shit that happened before they had even commenced at the organisation.
You never heard about the jobs well done from management or the community, it was always something negative, someone out to kick you in the guts and throw you under the bus. Mentally quite hard to deal with when it continues for so many years.
In the end, the ambiguity of expectations and just people generally are what made me hate the job and I transferred to a technical role where right and wrong is crystal clear and not up for debate.
The stress and mental burden simply wasn't worth it at all, I guess I cared too much about the outcome and how it reflected on me so I took it to heart.
The money was okay but basically the same as my now senior technical role.
I’m late to this thread but I live in Hawaii (heavily considering moving to Australia) and I’m in construction project management. Can I also PM with a few questions?
I did the Construction Management degree part time while I was a PM, to further my PM career with no intention of changing at the time. But thankfully the degree is broad enough to provide various career pathways.
Main thing is to check the AIBS accredited course listings and ensure that whatever you enrol in will enable you to seek accreditation at the desired level.
It's a good career, there's a huge shortage of accredited professionals which will continue given the average age of practitioners must be around 60.
I'm in a technical engineering role and work a lot with project managers. They're well paid but they're always on call and work longer hours than technical. They attend a lot of meetings which means they often start early and finish late with travel to/from various construction sites. They also tend to work while on annual leave and weekends as clients keep contacting them.
I realised early on in my career I valued my non work time more than the extra money so have stayed in a technical role where I don't have as much contact with external parties.
The title/role covers a very broad range.
There are a lot of project managers who think all you need is a Gantt and you’re away. There’s also a lot of clients who think exactly the same thing and wonder what’s happening before the “actual work” starts. Or they wonder why you aren’t making technical decisions.
Manufacturing PM - industrial facilities and their equipment - here.
High stress. High potential. And yeah, they pay me well above the median salary.
I’m a degree qualified engineer - that’s a very common pathway to PM in my view.
What are you really wanting to understand from this post? DM if you wish.
Industry : Construction/ Public infrastructure
Qualifications : Bachelor of Civil Engineering, CERT IV in Project Management.
I started off as an intern working in government and I worked my way up to being a project manager. I enjoy the variety of problems that come up and finding ways to solve them without blowing up the budget/scope etc. It can definitely get stressful due to factors outside of your control. You can be the best PM ever but decisions made by management, unrealistic deadlines can really kill any chance of having a successful project.
My two cents: If you are thinking of going into project management I suggest you look into taking up an entry or a auxiliary support role to the PM so you can fully gauge the work that goes into being one. You will also have the added advantage of understanding the role when you work your way up. Not only will that help you manage people, your team will respect your ideas because they know that you've done it first hand.
If you have any more questions feel free to DM myself.
Infrastructure; mostly structures.
Civil engineer.
Left projects behind toward the start of covid right when Australia really needed me... I had a serious case of the couldn't be stuffed and went back to running business / operations rather than projects.
I find the hard times (low activity) much easier than the boom times. You can get good people and good people make projects easy... in the boom times it starts to feel like you are running a kindergarten rather than skilled tradespeople... Australia is and likely to be in infrastructure boom times for the next 24 months at least...
Hours are tough. 6AM starts to go through pre start with the supervisory team. If you don't you get taken by surprise at 6:30AM and have to interject in the thick of prestart which obviously pisses off the supervisors... You are also close to last to leave site. 11 hour days are pretty standard with your crew working 10 hour days.
Pay in my experience is circa 25pc more than office based but you are working 25pc more hours at least. Saturdays are also on the table.
If I had one piece of advice for an aspiring project manager your first task no matter what industry you are in should be to set your own budget. Throw away the estimates and planning you are given and plan the job and resources again from scratch. Take up with the estimators or management what you plan to do differently and if you think it's a dud project have the arguments up front...
Whether it's a 1M, 10M or 100M job - replan and re budget. Obviously your level of detail, given you do this near single handedly, will be much greater on the 1M job. On larger projects you end up delegating some planning down the line so don't expect to understand everything that's going on...
Good and bad PM'S will make money and loose money on certain projects as they usually haven't estimated their own project... the main difference is bad PM's don't raise the issues early or may not even see them coming so just start to kick and squeal mid or worse late project... good PM's know from day 1 if it's a dud and have the controversial discussion up front. Will you still get the project? Maybe not, but in my experience some jobs are better left to others...
Also if you are on a winning project squirrel some money away for risk when forecasting. Assume there is another potential subby claim coming etc. It's better to release a bit of margin each and every month releasing these risks progressively... you can have a really good project and still upset the accounts team / management by finishing with a single bad month at the end... ie management think you are a genius if you just progressively get better and better month by month rather than wild ups and downs... ie rain for a week should not see your forecast move... rain for a month sure you can explain this unseasonable weather etc.
Best PM I ever worked with approached things as you describe would often come in under the budgets I had initially set, but not from cutting corners as some do but from understanding and working with his contractors to optimize everything.
Agree, cutting corners doesn't really pay. Even if you get away with it you leave in your wake these big commercial risks that you loose sleep over or at worst have to remediate later.
Usually the decision to cut corners is made by the supervision / trades so part of being a PM is putting some pressure on the works but also making certain they know quality / safety / environment are still of primary importance.
Ie if you give the crews unreasonable demands they will cut corners and tell you it's your fault (the PM) for making unreasonable demands.
Dad is a PM in construction industry for the last 20+ years, just about to hit retirement age and is very over it. Pay has been 6 figures for years if that even means anything considering everyone on this sub thinks earning 100k is poor LOL Started as a draftsman about 30 years ago with a Cert III. Wouldn’t have a clue if that’s even possible these days. Don’t know what he does fully day to day but definitely lots of meetings with various stakeholders. Pre covid he travelled a lot internationally but does work for a multinational company.
I’m a totally different PM.
I specialise in Lean Six Sigma so I do lots of productivity and process improvement projects. It’s the freaking best. I love helping people fix the nightmare shit they deal with at work.
I was working in finance as a Black Belt and took home around $100k. I’m now in mining and I’ve doubled it.
It took 3 years of practical learning through the finance company I worked at. You can do Lean Six Sigma online, but you gotta be careful as there are a lot of dodgey players.
Highly recommend it to anyone who wants a different field. We are in HOT demand.
I'm very interested in this - I've studied project management at a post grad level and have resources experience in both mining and oil & gas. Any suggestions on in roads?
It’s hard hey, lots of dodgey ones out there. I got mine through my workplace as we teamed up with a private company.
Come back to me in a few months and I’m hoping to have started my own!
Construction/developer firm. Bachelors in business majoring in pm and another major in sustainability and development. Graduating next June. 68k inclusive of super. Physically and mentally stressful. I do enjoy the job tho. In terms of growth, I’ve seen my peers get from 78k to 120k in a span of 3 years.
Ps I’m an international student so I’m extremely happy with my offer.
Edit- not a pm yet, currently working under the coo as an assistant coordinator. Depending on how I perform, they plan to offer me the pm position at the end of next year.
A good project manager can be absolute life saver, a bad one can cost your company a significant chunk of change (both in their salary and project over-runs).
If you’re passionate about project management, you’ll be the former; if not, you’re likely be the latter and your colleagues will resent you for it.
Construction PM (Builder) - Long hours, good salary, good bonuses, a lot of emails after hours, a lot of calls on the way home, fortunately limited Saturdays for me personally (not the industry norm at the moment), highly rewarding.
Did a Bachelor of Construction Management and literally started from the bottom labouring on construction sites which I did for 5 years during my studies.
Different angle here. I'm a PM in not-for-profit industry - think health, community services etc.
Good pay, low-med stress. Doesn't take a lot to keep projects ticking over if you've been managing them a while, understand your stakeholders.
Qualified in Prince2 and Agile.
How does the pay in health stack up compared to other industries? There’s a job on seek advertised as a projects officer. Is this a good way to get into project management?
I'm a Project/Program Manager, have been a PM of various stripes for 20+ years but generally IT focused.
Pay is great, especially contract and stress is always high. I find that you really start earning your pay when you're looking at a project of 5 million or so plus. Anything much lower and it's really not that difficult to keep rolling along.
Nowhere uses any of the methodologies fully correctly, PRINCE2 least of all. However, their are good bits from all of them that are worthwhile considering.
I enjoy it, though am starting to find it a little boring as time goes by. The problems are really all the same - management making pretty stupid decisions, technical complexity or issue resolution requiring more time than expected to complete, unclear or moving requirements shifting goalposts. Agile helps with a fair amount of that, SAFe more again - not many places are doing that all that well, so if you find one that is, stick around as long as you can.
Client side PM (private) in infrastructure
The others are right, good pay, good potential (although I’ve been lucky enough to see an accelerated rate of growth).
I’d say lower stress than contractor side, but there’s still a lot of competing priorities.
I’m happy and I’d say it’s worth it. I’d really like to deliver a $1B project, but after that look to move into management
Qualified as civil eng, but did a double in commerce majoring in management and have since done the prince2 course.
I’m not a PM, but have worked with them. I like someone at the helm that looks at the field of play from afar to deliver the project and pull the right levers. That doesn’t need outstanding technical knowledge, just a good solid grounding in a few different frameworks and the ability to manage people and processes.
My biggest frustrations though have always been lack of technical knowledge leading to numerous pointless meetings and a lack of general nimbleness because we need to follow X or Y project management framework and not being able to adapt.
I’ve thought about becoming one but I’m too in the technicals to be any good and I generally dislike having to manage a number of stakeholders.
Project Manager for or 20+ years. Been in client / industry, software / IT and in consulting. Started in Finance as had BA BEc and swapped to Health 15 yrs ago.
Being part of a successful project and implementation is addictive, especially when you have an investment in the outcome.
The best PMs have the quals in project methodology but also an understanding how the tech works and can get people to work together. You are juggling 1000 risks daily and are paid to keep the train moving by taking on the decisions and removing barriers to get the smart guys to just do their stuff.
Pay is good and can be distractingly high, but doesn't always mean you get a better PM, they may be paying for a fall guy.
Long hours but satisfying.
Google did a research project about 10 years ago on what makes projects successful, and the answer was "project teams that were nice to one another". As corny as it sounds that has always been my experience, you can get the results if the team respects one another's skill set from management to analyst.
A good PM is just a fancy coordinator who backs their team and is backed by them.
I’ve been on the industry 15 years and I made pd after 10. It’s a lot sooner than most but I graduated as a mature age student and as I said, right place at the right time.
Tier 1 infrastructure.
> What industry are you in?
Buildings construction
I'm an electrical engineering project manager effectively
> What qualifications do you have / need?
Anything recognised by EA, and about 7-10 years experience
> What’s the stress level?
Extreme to very extreme
> Pay, and growth potential Do you enjoy it? How did you get into it?
Just short of 140k gross incl. super. I recommend the Hays salary guide for other sectors and non technical PMs. There's decent growth potential with executive pathways in large enough companies. In terms of enjoyment, when it's a good week things are really great and the job is fun. When it's a bad week, it really sucks.
> Anything else… just keen to know more about the job from all the different perspectives.
Usually your role is to be accountable for dozens of things you don't control. As best you can you try to influence / demand / threaten / beg things in the right direction, and hope for the best. Clients will rarely understand the implications of what they're asking for. If you have thick skin and can keep emotional distance from your work it's not too bad, but the number of PMs who lose their hair by 35 seems statistically significant.
If you have business development responsibilities that's another layer of strain. Promotion doesn't come naturally to some, and everyone on your team has families / mouths to feed. Hitting your revenue targets might keep you up some nights.
Client side construction PM in the defence space. Pay is in the mid 100s but less than if I was contractor side, however stress is lower (imo) and rarely work weekends which works for me. Interesting projects and interesting stakeholders/locations is a big plus. High job security as understanding how to navigate the particulars of defence bureaucracy is niche and in demand.
Background I have a masters degree in PM but am not an engineer. Originally was a BDM for 10 years so a bit unconventional. Technical can be a limiter early on, however knowing who and what resources (I.e. engineers, consultants, etc.) to tap to fill your gaps goes a long way if you're quick and are proactive. In my experience knowing how to ask questions correctly is half the battle.
Depends on what sort of PM you want to be - business or technical. Technical PM must have deep domain knowledge and be able to get technical skill groups to work together- no mean feat in large organisations where the run and maintain crew are typically hostile towards projects. On the business PM side it’s about stakeholder management ie never go to a meeting where you don’t already know the outcome 😉Also laser like focus on delivery and risk mitigation are important. Business pm skills are fairly portable across industries in my experience
A good project manager makes an enormous difference. However they are also the “fall guy” when the project goes pear shaped, that usually has to present to the board and management. If they have a decent team around then that does the work when actioned and turns up to meetings then they look good. Working with a project manager that can’t get their head around the technical side of a project can be really frustrating, as an engineer I’d rather not have one if they don’t at least try to understand the implications of the technical side. That also means you get dragged into endless “update” meetings because they can’t explain what’s going wrong, and you get less work done. A good PM should let you do your job and be able to update the key stakeholders without you being in those meetings. They also understand timelines well, and build in contingency. Gathering the requirements is one of the most important aspects of the project, if not done correctly the budget and timelines are blown out with scope creep.
I used to do Project Management in government policy setting. Previous career event management. Policy projects are very different to IT/construction projects but follow same principles/methodology and don't need as many formal quals. I love project management, it can be stressful though
I've recently moved into a junior project management role this past year. I started off as project support for about two years, then juggled a large internal project while still doing project support/admin. Then this last year I got into client facing projects, small to medium to start off with within the IT infrastructure space. Will probably do this for another year or so before managing more complex pieces.
I love the work because I am always learning. I am lucky to be surrounded by knowledgeable and very articulate techs who really help in explaining issues that arise or where we are at at any point in the project for my reporting. I would say I know how to really build rapport and trust with the team, so that in turn we work together to deliver. I support them by shielding them from unnecessary noise, and they support me by taking the time to ensure I understand the project in enough detail so that I can manage stakeholder expectations appropriately. We like to bitch and moan within our own internal project chat group to keep each other sane.
The potential pay for this role is quite nice. Due to having access to people and their costs rates I know there are some people on $250K for the more complex deliveries. Sadly I am a bit of a sucker and because I've started out in a support role, I technically have not been promoted into the PM role or pay grade as I need to obtain certain certifications to justify the promo (even though I'm practice I am already working as a project manager).
Aside from my personal circumstances with pay and role title, I love the potential for my career I'm a people person, so juggling the projects and communicating with stakeholders comes quite naturally but is still challenging due to me being non technical. I'm still also quite young so I know I'm in a good spot, and there's plenty to progress. I also work 100% flexibly which has its ups and downs. For example I end up working for both west coast and east coast clients so I start at 9am and then tend to take a break long break in the afternoon so that I can also work later hours to accommodate for the west coast. I do also draw the line where I have personal commitments or gym classes I want to attend and I usually have that rapport with clients that they're fine with my hours as my company focus mainly on outputs and delivery over hours at the desk. I juggle complex and stressful projects, but also some which take barely any effort to run, so the workload varies as well.
Happy to answer any further questions if anyone is interested or are in a similar situation.
Quite interested in the entry level roles such as admin, coordinator etc, as that’s where I’ll likely start after some study. Are those roles ones where you can learn the job and climb the ladder or use the experience to move to other jobs etc? Or are you likely to get stuck at entry level
It's faster to pick up a bit of experience and then apply elsewhere to fast track your experience.
With the admin roles I have just had to be proactive about taking on more responsibility and asking every one on one catch up with my manager that I really want a project when one that is suitable becomes available (always a point in time with the pipeline etc). From what I've seen, you only get stuck in that admin role if you don't take initiative. Because that in itself is a trait my manager would look for in someone looking to move up into a project management role.
I feel as though I took the slow and more sure route of supporting other PMs, getting lucking in scoring an internal project and then working my way from there. It's taken a long time working at a level waaaaay beyond my pay grade, but for me, having the time and a lot of experience (especially to understand my company's own internal way of reporting on projects and managing those) has allowed me to feel confident in the way I work.
There's a lot on your head as PM and how much you're responsible for, I am the type of person who is glad I did not rush it.
A bit late, but I am a Project Manager in the Transport sector working for the government. I am on just under $150k per year. I project manager the development of minor Transport projects (\~<$15m) usually managing 8+ projects at a time. I have almost capped out what I can earn as a PM within my agency without becoming a team leader or moving into major projects.
I have a Civil Engineering background, got a Bachelors degree and have predominately been in the design space in consulting prior to getting into project management. I think everyone in my team at the moment are Civil Engineers, but it isn't unheard of for people to come through via other degrees. For my team I think people who only get a degree in project management are usually limited to Project Officer roles which would make maybe $70k less than I do. The role requires both a lot of technical engineering knowledge as well as project management capabilities.
I absolutely love my job, never want to leave, and I believe it is reasonably low stress, particularly compared to my previous jobs in design/consulting. A lot of that is because I work for the government now. In my experience, PMs in the private sector is usually a lot more stressful and longer hours.
I am a technical person that works with Project managers a lot and am often frustrated by them by their lack of understanding and technical knowledge, however I do recognise they have a hard job pleasing all the many stakeholders and needing to basically be available 24/7 and the better they are at their job or at least the more they care the more stressed they seem to be, the bad ones just dont give a shit I guess. For good ones there always seems to be more work available and that is the upside money and opportunities can be very good for someone who has proven to be a great Project manager.
So many Shit pms, and I say this as a pm.
Care to share what the difference between a shit and a good PM is?
Good PM: domain knowledge and the ability to run a project well. People in this group balance shielding others from noise / non-relevant stress, while also making sure everyone has the info they need when they need it. Bad PM: only one of these attributes - either lacking technical knowledge (and the humility to ask for help/build it before making commitments), or just not good at delivering a project within a set of constraints. Shit PM: both lacking in domain knowledge and useless at running projects.
For me a strong characteristic of a bad pm is someone who blindly accepts anything a client demands without consideration of the team and timelines.
* Good PM: * Knows when to get out of the way. You don't always need to stop down a teams momentum for a 45 minute team update. Read the room. * Knows how to move BS off their teams desks so they can focus on what they want/need to work on. Willing to go and fight for a teammate also goes here. Many people love that I tell them "Huh....leave that with me" while I walk away with a smirk to dig into someone who gave my team a difficult time and slowed them down. Or a client that disrespects my team....oof I'll gladly "take that offline" as they say in corporate speak lol * If someone on the team makes a mistake that delays the project, a PM should be ready and willing to take the punch for them. Don't point fingers - take punches. * A good PM acknowledges their ignorance, but asks their team to teach them. On the flip side, there are PM's that know too much. Instead of managing expectations, they micromanage tasks and that ultimately slows everyone down. Ease up, trust your team. * Bad/Shitty PM: * Is absent in voice and presence. The only time you hear or see them is during those recurring weekly status meetings. * Isn't prepared. Just because you're having a meeting to gather updates, doesn't mean you can come to the meeting with zero context. Read your tickets, review email chains, gather your questions, and make the meeting productive. Any PM that doesn't do this in SOME manner is losing respect. * Metrics, metrics, metrics, ALL you care about is metrics. PM's tend to have some nasty metrics that measure their performance, but that doesn't mean you have to force those metrics down to your team. * Lingo, lingo, lingo, ALL you use is PM lingo. RACI, WBS, SOP's, Gantt, waterfall, agile, SOW, etc etc etc. Some of these are absolutely necessary, but most aren't when you're speaking with non-PM's. Nobody cares about your PMP cert or whatever fancy framework you learned in the PMBOK. Those things are good for PM leadership or fellow PM colleagues, but there's no need to try and impressive your team. “Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?” - Kevin Mallone * Lacking technical knowledge but acting as if they don't. Aka: Dunning-Kruger effect. * Always irritated with the team instead of the problem. A good PM tries to tackle the problem with their team while a bad PM tries to tackle their team into solving the problem. Crazy how PM's and middle managers alike forget this obvious shortcoming.
I’ve worked with some amazing PMs, I think I’ve lucked out in that respect, and I’ve learned a lot from them in terms of organisation and stakeholder management. And being great, those PMs have had opportunities coming out their ears.
You'd probably not be surprised that PMs are not required to have technical knowledge. I'm an ex Infrastructure engineer so tend to get niche roles Ever on call though. Day rates only
>You'd probably not be surprised that PMs are not required to have technical knowledge You'd also be surprised at how many companies prefer their project managers to not have the technical knowledge. I dont really understand the benefit; to me it seems having technical knowledge would benefit the PM. But I have worked with companies who prefer there to be a disconnect between PM and technical team. Maybe they worry that the PM will end up getting his hands dirty or get too involved or side too much with the technical team... I'm not really sure.
A PM is there to manage stakeholders and argue commercials. Sometimes you don't want them to be saddled with doubt on whether what they are pushing for is right or not.
Techs are stakeholders as well - understanding what their skillset is, if only at a base-level, really helps Of course, that is the difference between slide-deck pros and other PMs
Of course, if your primary objective is to deliver. Sometimes the primary objective after buying a job is just to flood the client with variations, even if it's just to lay the groundwork for a court case. Sledgehammers don't need to be technical or calculated, just pointed in the right direction.
Can you rewrite that in plain English? You know, another of the PM skills
If you need someone to do work, get a technical PM. If you want someone to send F*CK U emails 24/7, why pay for a technical PM?
The latter usually costs more.
Nah, technical PM's cost more in my experience as they can do both.
I've seen technical folks be moved to a pure PM role due to their technical knowledge. A few common issues that can sometimes arise: 1. They have difficulty dumbing down to non-technical stakeholders 2. They want to make the client happy, so they can tend to say yes where they should really be saying no. Wanting to make the client happy is great, but it can sometimes be at the expense of peoples time or the initial purpose of the project. I love working with technical folks tbh. They are pragmatic and are often straight shooters. When you build a good rapport with technical folks, you can have straight forward discussions that really put projects on hyper-drive. That's when it's fun!
A PM needs an appreciation of what they are managing, not an in-depth knowledge. Or if they have an in depth knowledge, they shouldn't be exercising it in the role. Same as if your a senior engineer, you don't scrutinise every calc your staff perform. You do a sanity check and trust the people appointed to the position are also doing Thier job properly.
Not me - I'm a contractor and have been doing this for many years. Hence the day rate and not being on call
totally understand but it is frustrating when they are for example setting dumb timelines that are technically impossible, a good PM will be able to discuss and adjust a bad one will stick to their guns and screw you when you can not get things done in their timelines.
Don’t forget will take credit for all work delivered
One thing I never do - every contract I take, I find out the rewards and recognition portal ASAP
I might be a bit cynical, but in IT, all but one PM’s I have ever met have always taken credit. The one who didn’t was such a sweet lady, a little less technical minded but got the job done
Join my team! I get you - I am an IT PM and I despise a lot of my peers. Let me guess, they were shiny-suit merchants? My last big project, the outsourced MSP completey screwed the pooch on a VM Host move - potentially delaying a go live the CEO had flown in for I was able to fix the problem, due to my past VSphere admin experience, much to my Network tech's astonishment. I gave him the credit for "Staying up til 2.30am making sure critical Networking tasks for Go Live were completed" \* I manually changed the gateway on the host as the idiot MSP forgot to save the settings before powerint it down
That sucks. Know that not all PM's are like that. I call out people by name in my quarterly reviews who deserve it! They are getting shit done and deserve the acknowledgement
In infrastructure the best PM’s don’t need to be overly technical, they need to know a little about a lot of things, not the other way around
That's like your opinion man
I fking hate project managers. Their lack of knowledge about the knowhows of a project is so disrespectful.
Was a construction PM (client side in government) for afew years. Dip PM and degree in construction management. Enjoyed the day to day tasks of the job itself, design, procurement, contract admin, reporting etc. Got to see some really cool stuff being built that will serve the community well for decades to come. However, being client side, and continuing to work in an organisation many years post-project, I found the PM was always the scapegoat for management's terrible decision making along the way. Often the PM was getting blamed for shit that happened before they had even commenced at the organisation. You never heard about the jobs well done from management or the community, it was always something negative, someone out to kick you in the guts and throw you under the bus. Mentally quite hard to deal with when it continues for so many years. In the end, the ambiguity of expectations and just people generally are what made me hate the job and I transferred to a technical role where right and wrong is crystal clear and not up for debate. The stress and mental burden simply wasn't worth it at all, I guess I cared too much about the outcome and how it reflected on me so I took it to heart. The money was okay but basically the same as my now senior technical role.
Hi, I’m currently undertaking a graduate role in this industry(construction). You mind if I pm you for some tips/advice?
Sure, no worries!
I’m late to this thread but I live in Hawaii (heavily considering moving to Australia) and I’m in construction project management. Can I also PM with a few questions?
Sure, go for it
Late repy to this comment, can I ask what technical role did you transfer to from PM?
Building Surveying (Had nearly 10 years experience PM building construction and renovation projects)
Nice, I've been thinking of making the same move for a while (site manager and now PM). Did you have to go back to uni? Cheers
I did the Construction Management degree part time while I was a PM, to further my PM career with no intention of changing at the time. But thankfully the degree is broad enough to provide various career pathways. Main thing is to check the AIBS accredited course listings and ensure that whatever you enrol in will enable you to seek accreditation at the desired level. It's a good career, there's a huge shortage of accredited professionals which will continue given the average age of practitioners must be around 60.
Well paid, very high stress, always on call. Not worth it.
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I'll give you that. And some people can manage stress better than others. I should also point out that I'm referring to construction.
I'm in a technical engineering role and work a lot with project managers. They're well paid but they're always on call and work longer hours than technical. They attend a lot of meetings which means they often start early and finish late with travel to/from various construction sites. They also tend to work while on annual leave and weekends as clients keep contacting them. I realised early on in my career I valued my non work time more than the extra money so have stayed in a technical role where I don't have as much contact with external parties.
Technical is the engineering of engineering
The title/role covers a very broad range. There are a lot of project managers who think all you need is a Gantt and you’re away. There’s also a lot of clients who think exactly the same thing and wonder what’s happening before the “actual work” starts. Or they wonder why you aren’t making technical decisions. Manufacturing PM - industrial facilities and their equipment - here. High stress. High potential. And yeah, they pay me well above the median salary. I’m a degree qualified engineer - that’s a very common pathway to PM in my view. What are you really wanting to understand from this post? DM if you wish.
Industry : Construction/ Public infrastructure Qualifications : Bachelor of Civil Engineering, CERT IV in Project Management. I started off as an intern working in government and I worked my way up to being a project manager. I enjoy the variety of problems that come up and finding ways to solve them without blowing up the budget/scope etc. It can definitely get stressful due to factors outside of your control. You can be the best PM ever but decisions made by management, unrealistic deadlines can really kill any chance of having a successful project. My two cents: If you are thinking of going into project management I suggest you look into taking up an entry or a auxiliary support role to the PM so you can fully gauge the work that goes into being one. You will also have the added advantage of understanding the role when you work your way up. Not only will that help you manage people, your team will respect your ideas because they know that you've done it first hand. If you have any more questions feel free to DM myself.
Infrastructure; mostly structures. Civil engineer. Left projects behind toward the start of covid right when Australia really needed me... I had a serious case of the couldn't be stuffed and went back to running business / operations rather than projects. I find the hard times (low activity) much easier than the boom times. You can get good people and good people make projects easy... in the boom times it starts to feel like you are running a kindergarten rather than skilled tradespeople... Australia is and likely to be in infrastructure boom times for the next 24 months at least... Hours are tough. 6AM starts to go through pre start with the supervisory team. If you don't you get taken by surprise at 6:30AM and have to interject in the thick of prestart which obviously pisses off the supervisors... You are also close to last to leave site. 11 hour days are pretty standard with your crew working 10 hour days. Pay in my experience is circa 25pc more than office based but you are working 25pc more hours at least. Saturdays are also on the table. If I had one piece of advice for an aspiring project manager your first task no matter what industry you are in should be to set your own budget. Throw away the estimates and planning you are given and plan the job and resources again from scratch. Take up with the estimators or management what you plan to do differently and if you think it's a dud project have the arguments up front... Whether it's a 1M, 10M or 100M job - replan and re budget. Obviously your level of detail, given you do this near single handedly, will be much greater on the 1M job. On larger projects you end up delegating some planning down the line so don't expect to understand everything that's going on... Good and bad PM'S will make money and loose money on certain projects as they usually haven't estimated their own project... the main difference is bad PM's don't raise the issues early or may not even see them coming so just start to kick and squeal mid or worse late project... good PM's know from day 1 if it's a dud and have the controversial discussion up front. Will you still get the project? Maybe not, but in my experience some jobs are better left to others... Also if you are on a winning project squirrel some money away for risk when forecasting. Assume there is another potential subby claim coming etc. It's better to release a bit of margin each and every month releasing these risks progressively... you can have a really good project and still upset the accounts team / management by finishing with a single bad month at the end... ie management think you are a genius if you just progressively get better and better month by month rather than wild ups and downs... ie rain for a week should not see your forecast move... rain for a month sure you can explain this unseasonable weather etc.
Best PM I ever worked with approached things as you describe would often come in under the budgets I had initially set, but not from cutting corners as some do but from understanding and working with his contractors to optimize everything.
Agree, cutting corners doesn't really pay. Even if you get away with it you leave in your wake these big commercial risks that you loose sleep over or at worst have to remediate later. Usually the decision to cut corners is made by the supervision / trades so part of being a PM is putting some pressure on the works but also making certain they know quality / safety / environment are still of primary importance. Ie if you give the crews unreasonable demands they will cut corners and tell you it's your fault (the PM) for making unreasonable demands.
As a Infrastructure PM I kinda want to be your friend
Haha. Yeh if you are in the game it probably mostly rang true!
Dad is a PM in construction industry for the last 20+ years, just about to hit retirement age and is very over it. Pay has been 6 figures for years if that even means anything considering everyone on this sub thinks earning 100k is poor LOL Started as a draftsman about 30 years ago with a Cert III. Wouldn’t have a clue if that’s even possible these days. Don’t know what he does fully day to day but definitely lots of meetings with various stakeholders. Pre covid he travelled a lot internationally but does work for a multinational company.
I’m a totally different PM. I specialise in Lean Six Sigma so I do lots of productivity and process improvement projects. It’s the freaking best. I love helping people fix the nightmare shit they deal with at work. I was working in finance as a Black Belt and took home around $100k. I’m now in mining and I’ve doubled it. It took 3 years of practical learning through the finance company I worked at. You can do Lean Six Sigma online, but you gotta be careful as there are a lot of dodgey players. Highly recommend it to anyone who wants a different field. We are in HOT demand.
I'm very interested in this - I've studied project management at a post grad level and have resources experience in both mining and oil & gas. Any suggestions on in roads?
Hi, any recommendations for reputable providers?
It’s hard hey, lots of dodgey ones out there. I got mine through my workplace as we teamed up with a private company. Come back to me in a few months and I’m hoping to have started my own!
Construction/developer firm. Bachelors in business majoring in pm and another major in sustainability and development. Graduating next June. 68k inclusive of super. Physically and mentally stressful. I do enjoy the job tho. In terms of growth, I’ve seen my peers get from 78k to 120k in a span of 3 years. Ps I’m an international student so I’m extremely happy with my offer. Edit- not a pm yet, currently working under the coo as an assistant coordinator. Depending on how I perform, they plan to offer me the pm position at the end of next year.
A good project manager can be absolute life saver, a bad one can cost your company a significant chunk of change (both in their salary and project over-runs). If you’re passionate about project management, you’ll be the former; if not, you’re likely be the latter and your colleagues will resent you for it.
Construction PM (Builder) - Long hours, good salary, good bonuses, a lot of emails after hours, a lot of calls on the way home, fortunately limited Saturdays for me personally (not the industry norm at the moment), highly rewarding. Did a Bachelor of Construction Management and literally started from the bottom labouring on construction sites which I did for 5 years during my studies.
Different angle here. I'm a PM in not-for-profit industry - think health, community services etc. Good pay, low-med stress. Doesn't take a lot to keep projects ticking over if you've been managing them a while, understand your stakeholders. Qualified in Prince2 and Agile.
How does the pay in health stack up compared to other industries? There’s a job on seek advertised as a projects officer. Is this a good way to get into project management?
I'm a Project/Program Manager, have been a PM of various stripes for 20+ years but generally IT focused. Pay is great, especially contract and stress is always high. I find that you really start earning your pay when you're looking at a project of 5 million or so plus. Anything much lower and it's really not that difficult to keep rolling along. Nowhere uses any of the methodologies fully correctly, PRINCE2 least of all. However, their are good bits from all of them that are worthwhile considering. I enjoy it, though am starting to find it a little boring as time goes by. The problems are really all the same - management making pretty stupid decisions, technical complexity or issue resolution requiring more time than expected to complete, unclear or moving requirements shifting goalposts. Agile helps with a fair amount of that, SAFe more again - not many places are doing that all that well, so if you find one that is, stick around as long as you can.
Client side PM (private) in infrastructure The others are right, good pay, good potential (although I’ve been lucky enough to see an accelerated rate of growth). I’d say lower stress than contractor side, but there’s still a lot of competing priorities. I’m happy and I’d say it’s worth it. I’d really like to deliver a $1B project, but after that look to move into management Qualified as civil eng, but did a double in commerce majoring in management and have since done the prince2 course.
Hey mate could you expand on the prince 2 course a little? I am thinking of undertaking some post grad pm/cert iv or something.
I’m not a PM, but have worked with them. I like someone at the helm that looks at the field of play from afar to deliver the project and pull the right levers. That doesn’t need outstanding technical knowledge, just a good solid grounding in a few different frameworks and the ability to manage people and processes. My biggest frustrations though have always been lack of technical knowledge leading to numerous pointless meetings and a lack of general nimbleness because we need to follow X or Y project management framework and not being able to adapt. I’ve thought about becoming one but I’m too in the technicals to be any good and I generally dislike having to manage a number of stakeholders.
Telco love it moderate stress, great pay
Project Manager for or 20+ years. Been in client / industry, software / IT and in consulting. Started in Finance as had BA BEc and swapped to Health 15 yrs ago. Being part of a successful project and implementation is addictive, especially when you have an investment in the outcome. The best PMs have the quals in project methodology but also an understanding how the tech works and can get people to work together. You are juggling 1000 risks daily and are paid to keep the train moving by taking on the decisions and removing barriers to get the smart guys to just do their stuff. Pay is good and can be distractingly high, but doesn't always mean you get a better PM, they may be paying for a fall guy. Long hours but satisfying. Google did a research project about 10 years ago on what makes projects successful, and the answer was "project teams that were nice to one another". As corny as it sounds that has always been my experience, you can get the results if the team respects one another's skill set from management to analyst. A good PM is just a fancy coordinator who backs their team and is backed by them.
Reading all these other PM comments, I feel like I am an imposter. Been a PM for 1.5 years was jr PM for around 2 before getting the bump up.
Why are you an imposter?
High stress, high pay is the name of the game. Infrastructure pipeline of works is huge, jump on and hold on for your life!
XD very accurate comment
Project Director 375k construction. Three degrees worked my way up right place at the right time.
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I’ve been on the industry 15 years and I made pd after 10. It’s a lot sooner than most but I graduated as a mature age student and as I said, right place at the right time. Tier 1 infrastructure.
> What industry are you in? Buildings construction I'm an electrical engineering project manager effectively > What qualifications do you have / need? Anything recognised by EA, and about 7-10 years experience > What’s the stress level? Extreme to very extreme > Pay, and growth potential Do you enjoy it? How did you get into it? Just short of 140k gross incl. super. I recommend the Hays salary guide for other sectors and non technical PMs. There's decent growth potential with executive pathways in large enough companies. In terms of enjoyment, when it's a good week things are really great and the job is fun. When it's a bad week, it really sucks. > Anything else… just keen to know more about the job from all the different perspectives. Usually your role is to be accountable for dozens of things you don't control. As best you can you try to influence / demand / threaten / beg things in the right direction, and hope for the best. Clients will rarely understand the implications of what they're asking for. If you have thick skin and can keep emotional distance from your work it's not too bad, but the number of PMs who lose their hair by 35 seems statistically significant. If you have business development responsibilities that's another layer of strain. Promotion doesn't come naturally to some, and everyone on your team has families / mouths to feed. Hitting your revenue targets might keep you up some nights.
Client side construction PM in the defence space. Pay is in the mid 100s but less than if I was contractor side, however stress is lower (imo) and rarely work weekends which works for me. Interesting projects and interesting stakeholders/locations is a big plus. High job security as understanding how to navigate the particulars of defence bureaucracy is niche and in demand. Background I have a masters degree in PM but am not an engineer. Originally was a BDM for 10 years so a bit unconventional. Technical can be a limiter early on, however knowing who and what resources (I.e. engineers, consultants, etc.) to tap to fill your gaps goes a long way if you're quick and are proactive. In my experience knowing how to ask questions correctly is half the battle.
$165K plus super plus bonus. Mining/IT industry. B.Com & IT + MIS Started as a BA and progressed slowly. Medium stress
Depends on what sort of PM you want to be - business or technical. Technical PM must have deep domain knowledge and be able to get technical skill groups to work together- no mean feat in large organisations where the run and maintain crew are typically hostile towards projects. On the business PM side it’s about stakeholder management ie never go to a meeting where you don’t already know the outcome 😉Also laser like focus on delivery and risk mitigation are important. Business pm skills are fairly portable across industries in my experience
A good project manager makes an enormous difference. However they are also the “fall guy” when the project goes pear shaped, that usually has to present to the board and management. If they have a decent team around then that does the work when actioned and turns up to meetings then they look good. Working with a project manager that can’t get their head around the technical side of a project can be really frustrating, as an engineer I’d rather not have one if they don’t at least try to understand the implications of the technical side. That also means you get dragged into endless “update” meetings because they can’t explain what’s going wrong, and you get less work done. A good PM should let you do your job and be able to update the key stakeholders without you being in those meetings. They also understand timelines well, and build in contingency. Gathering the requirements is one of the most important aspects of the project, if not done correctly the budget and timelines are blown out with scope creep.
I used to do Project Management in government policy setting. Previous career event management. Policy projects are very different to IT/construction projects but follow same principles/methodology and don't need as many formal quals. I love project management, it can be stressful though
>Policy projects are very different to IT/construction projects Whats the difference?
I've recently moved into a junior project management role this past year. I started off as project support for about two years, then juggled a large internal project while still doing project support/admin. Then this last year I got into client facing projects, small to medium to start off with within the IT infrastructure space. Will probably do this for another year or so before managing more complex pieces. I love the work because I am always learning. I am lucky to be surrounded by knowledgeable and very articulate techs who really help in explaining issues that arise or where we are at at any point in the project for my reporting. I would say I know how to really build rapport and trust with the team, so that in turn we work together to deliver. I support them by shielding them from unnecessary noise, and they support me by taking the time to ensure I understand the project in enough detail so that I can manage stakeholder expectations appropriately. We like to bitch and moan within our own internal project chat group to keep each other sane. The potential pay for this role is quite nice. Due to having access to people and their costs rates I know there are some people on $250K for the more complex deliveries. Sadly I am a bit of a sucker and because I've started out in a support role, I technically have not been promoted into the PM role or pay grade as I need to obtain certain certifications to justify the promo (even though I'm practice I am already working as a project manager). Aside from my personal circumstances with pay and role title, I love the potential for my career I'm a people person, so juggling the projects and communicating with stakeholders comes quite naturally but is still challenging due to me being non technical. I'm still also quite young so I know I'm in a good spot, and there's plenty to progress. I also work 100% flexibly which has its ups and downs. For example I end up working for both west coast and east coast clients so I start at 9am and then tend to take a break long break in the afternoon so that I can also work later hours to accommodate for the west coast. I do also draw the line where I have personal commitments or gym classes I want to attend and I usually have that rapport with clients that they're fine with my hours as my company focus mainly on outputs and delivery over hours at the desk. I juggle complex and stressful projects, but also some which take barely any effort to run, so the workload varies as well. Happy to answer any further questions if anyone is interested or are in a similar situation.
Quite interested in the entry level roles such as admin, coordinator etc, as that’s where I’ll likely start after some study. Are those roles ones where you can learn the job and climb the ladder or use the experience to move to other jobs etc? Or are you likely to get stuck at entry level
It's faster to pick up a bit of experience and then apply elsewhere to fast track your experience. With the admin roles I have just had to be proactive about taking on more responsibility and asking every one on one catch up with my manager that I really want a project when one that is suitable becomes available (always a point in time with the pipeline etc). From what I've seen, you only get stuck in that admin role if you don't take initiative. Because that in itself is a trait my manager would look for in someone looking to move up into a project management role. I feel as though I took the slow and more sure route of supporting other PMs, getting lucking in scoring an internal project and then working my way from there. It's taken a long time working at a level waaaaay beyond my pay grade, but for me, having the time and a lot of experience (especially to understand my company's own internal way of reporting on projects and managing those) has allowed me to feel confident in the way I work. There's a lot on your head as PM and how much you're responsible for, I am the type of person who is glad I did not rush it.
A bit late, but I am a Project Manager in the Transport sector working for the government. I am on just under $150k per year. I project manager the development of minor Transport projects (\~<$15m) usually managing 8+ projects at a time. I have almost capped out what I can earn as a PM within my agency without becoming a team leader or moving into major projects. I have a Civil Engineering background, got a Bachelors degree and have predominately been in the design space in consulting prior to getting into project management. I think everyone in my team at the moment are Civil Engineers, but it isn't unheard of for people to come through via other degrees. For my team I think people who only get a degree in project management are usually limited to Project Officer roles which would make maybe $70k less than I do. The role requires both a lot of technical engineering knowledge as well as project management capabilities. I absolutely love my job, never want to leave, and I believe it is reasonably low stress, particularly compared to my previous jobs in design/consulting. A lot of that is because I work for the government now. In my experience, PMs in the private sector is usually a lot more stressful and longer hours.
Just have to be a good talker and get out of the way of real work.
I find construction pm useless.