Scenario: PM working in a Matrix organization:
There are few caveats or disadvantages in this role and organizational position.
The PM is moving from one project to another and thus will not have mastery of any single platform or product. Because of this he/she will tend to be seen as a facilitator or coordinator. Unfortunately it is forgotten that facilitating and coordination is a key task and competancy of PM.
PM is sharing the responsibility and powers with Functional Manager or Tech lead. Essentially there will be a lot of overlap of work with PM taking most of the responsibility of co-ordinating, HR management and budget management, issue management, risk management, communications management work. The Functional Manager and Tech lead can also claim that he/she was doing the same things that PM said he/she did. So then how do external evaluators within the firm differentiate between what was the contribution of a PM viz-a-viz Functional Manager/Tech lead.
If there is a multi year program. If a Program Manager takes and runs this on-going successful program, then this Program Manager will be asked what did he/she do differently? Keeping and ensuring a success of a successful program or project is not considered enough by many.
People understand and identify products, application platforms so they can understand and rate an Functional Managers competancy, but are not exactly sure how to evaluate a project managers competancy.
Projects within a firm are not a choice of PM. Case being a PM finishes a $1mil project first and then is handed over a responsibility of $500K project. Does this mean that PM is less competent. But if this happens during a performance evaluation time window, then it adversly impacts PM's promotion or pay.
PM within a strong matrix or balanced matrix is working with lot of senior managers and stakeholders. On paper it does seem that it provides PM an opportunity to connect to these people. But when the promotion and pay raises are being considered think who will get a preference. Members of the Functional Managers team or PM who may have done 2 projects for that functional manager? Same will be the case for other stakeholders too. They have more stake to give promotion to people in their teams with whom they will be constantly working instead of a PM who works off and on some of their projects.
Unless an organization has a clear career path for PM and Program manager, it makes it very challenging for PM or Program manager to get promoted or get a pay raise.
A PM or Program Manager runs Project after Project or Program after Program.He/she keeps on doing it as that is the job. At the time of promotion or pay raise, one can question - this person has been doing projects what did he/she do different? Mentioning Scope/Schedule/Cost/Quality are good but would seem repetative and thus a perception that this person is just repeating and doing the same things again and again. When Project of Program benefit is mentioned, the audience feels that it is not PM that did the work, it is the team on the ground that did the work. So here also PM seems to be at an disadvantage. Think of it from a Functional Manager perspective, this person owns the product of the project after the project is complete. Audience in this person's assessment will feel that this person is responsible for the creation and maintaining the product and thus apparently seems to be better suited for promotion/pay raise.
Generally a PM is selected for a project. PM is usually not in a position to select a project. So depending on the size of the project, the team may be 5 people or 50 people. When a PM is evaluated for promotion, the evaluators are not able to clearly attribute or decide on what is number of people that a PM can and is managing. While for a functional manager this number is well known and generally more the number of people you manage better your chances of getting promotion and pay raise.
There are few caveats or disadvantages in this role and organizational position.
The PM is moving from one project to another and thus will not have mastery of any single platform or product. Because of this he/she will tend to be seen as a facilitator or coordinator. Unfortunately it is forgotten that facilitating and coordination is a key task and competancy of PM.
PM is sharing the responsibility and powers with Functional Manager or Tech lead. Essentially there will be a lot of overlap of work with PM taking most of the responsibility of co-ordinating, HR management and budget management, issue management, risk management, communications management work. The Functional Manager and Tech lead can also claim that he/she was doing the same things that PM said he/she did. So then how do external evaluators within the firm differentiate between what was the contribution of a PM viz-a-viz Functional Manager/Tech lead.
If there is a multi year program. If a Program Manager takes and runs this on-going successful program, then this Program Manager will be asked what did he/she do differently? Keeping and ensuring a success of a successful program or project is not considered enough by many.
People understand and identify products, application platforms so they can understand and rate an Functional Managers competancy, but are not exactly sure how to evaluate a project managers competancy.
Projects within a firm are not a choice of PM. Case being a PM finishes a $1mil project first and then is handed over a responsibility of $500K project. Does this mean that PM is less competent. But if this happens during a performance evaluation time window, then it adversly impacts PM's promotion or pay.
PM within a strong matrix or balanced matrix is working with lot of senior managers and stakeholders. On paper it does seem that it provides PM an opportunity to connect to these people. But when the promotion and pay raises are being considered think who will get a preference. Members of the Functional Managers team or PM who may have done 2 projects for that functional manager? Same will be the case for other stakeholders too. They have more stake to give promotion to people in their teams with whom they will be constantly working instead of a PM who works off and on some of their projects.
Unless an organization has a clear career path for PM and Program manager, it makes it very challenging for PM or Program manager to get promoted or get a pay raise.
A PM or Program Manager runs Project after Project or Program after Program.He/she keeps on doing it as that is the job. At the time of promotion or pay raise, one can question - this person has been doing projects what did he/she do different? Mentioning Scope/Schedule/Cost/Quality are good but would seem repetative and thus a perception that this person is just repeating and doing the same things again and again. When Project of Program benefit is mentioned, the audience feels that it is not PM that did the work, it is the team on the ground that did the work. So here also PM seems to be at an disadvantage. Think of it from a Functional Manager perspective, this person owns the product of the project after the project is complete. Audience in this person's assessment will feel that this person is responsible for the creation and maintaining the product and thus apparently seems to be better suited for promotion/pay raise.
Generally a PM is selected for a project. PM is usually not in a position to select a project. So depending on the size of the project, the team may be 5 people or 50 people. When a PM is evaluated for promotion, the evaluators are not able to clearly attribute or decide on what is number of people that a PM can and is managing. While for a functional manager this number is well known and generally more the number of people you manage better your chances of getting promotion and pay raise.
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