Friday, July 21, 2017

Project Management Art versus Science

Tom Sheppard
7/21/2017

When a potential employer goes looking to hire a project manager, they understandably go looking for someone with a professional certification or degree in the subject.  Usually they also have some stated number of years of experience they are also requiring.  These are the beginnings of problems when hiring a project manager.

When a would-be project manager earns a professional certificate or degree in project management, they go after their project management job feeling fully qualified and ready to take on all challenges.  Unfortunately, the science of project management is the foundation for becoming a skillful project manager.  It is not the whole building.

When a potential employer sees a professional certificate or degree, they assume a certain level of knowledge and ability is present.  My experience is that the assumed knowledge and ability is usually far more than what is actually conferred with a professional certificate or degree.

The world of instruction and education for project managers focuses almost exclusively on the sciences of project management.  While that is necessary and good, it is also misleading.

Having earned both a certificate as a "Project Management Professional" and a Masters of Science in Project Management, as well as having a couple of decades of experience as a professional in this field, I can speak to this with first-hand experience.

Degree and certification programs do a pretty good job of teaching the mechanics, the sciences of project management.  This includes some of the more difficult topics such as estimating, contracting, critical path management, evaluation, key metrics, scheduling, resource loading, documenting, gating from one project phase to another, etc.  In addition, they often dive deep into specific project management approaches such as Agile, Six-Sigma, Lean and others.

If the pupil learns well and applies what they have been taught in these programs s/he can become a very good project technician.  They can use those skills and knowledge to make the paper side of the project move smoothly.  However, when it comes to dealing with the people who make a project move (or not), science no longer holds sway.  Now comes the project management artist.

Influencing, negotiating, communicating effectively, managing expectations, building high-performing teams, overcoming objections, managing change and motivating others are skills which are not easily measured in the classroom or on written tests.  The principles can be taught and communicated, but the effective application of these principles, in the right doses and timing depends upon both the situation, the good judgment and skill of the skillful project manager.

Most project managers don't manage projects with multi-million dollar budgets.  Because of that, they seldom encounter the situations where they must perform skillfully and effectively at this higher level or find themselves on the street.  This lack of challenge means that most project managers are utterly unprepared to perform at that level.  When they find themselves in that situation, the majority of them go down in flames, and the project along with them.

I have succeeded at that level as a project manager and I have a proven track record of hiring project managers who succeed at that level.

If you want to learn the Art of Project Management, you can learn from me.  I am not offering a coaching or mentoring program.  I have distilled my learning into a book, which will be available soon.  Until then, you will search in vain to find it anywhere else.  I know, I searched for books on the art of project management and came up empty.  Even the ones that claimed to be on the art of being a PM were actually focused on the science.

About the Author

Tom Sheppard specializes in managing large ($10mm+), high risk, high profile financial services projects.  He has more than 20 years of project management experience, most of it with the top banks in the United States.  He is the author of The Art of Project Management.

He holds a Masters of Science in Project Management from Western Carolina University, a Masters of Science in Management Human Resources from National-Louis University, a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science and Management Information Systems from Park University, and for six years held a PMP certification with the Project Management Institute.

He has been a computer programmer, systems analyst, manager, and project manager.  In addition he has run his own business and is the author of several books and blogs.

You can see Tom's LinkedIn profile here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tsheppard

48 comments:

  1. Your PMP Certification shows a capability in the business and a dominance of venture the board standards. ExcelR PMP Certification

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is an awesome motivating article.I am practically satisfied with your great work.You put truly extremely supportive data. Keep it up. Continue blogging. Hoping to perusing your next post
    ExcelR pmp certification

    ReplyDelete
  3. Writing with style and getting good compliments on the article is quite hard, to be honest.But you've done it so calmly and with so cool feeling and you've nailed the job. This article is possessed with style and I am giving good compliment. Best!
    Project Management Course

    ReplyDelete
  4. Excellent Blog! I would like to thank for the efforts you have made in writing this post. I am hoping the same best work from you in the future as well. I wanted to thank you for this websites! Thanks for sharing. Great websites!
    Business Analytics Training|Business Analytics Course In Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is really very nice post you shared, i like the post, thanks for sharing..
    data science course
    360DigiTMG

    ReplyDelete
  6. I am impressed by the information that you have on this blog. It shows how well you understand this subject.
    data analytics course
    big data analytics malaysia
    big data course

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks. I have been doing PM work for quite a while.

      Delete
  7. You actually make it look so easy with your performance but I find this matter to be actually something which I think I would never comprehend. It seems too complicated and extremely broad for me. I'm looking forward for your next post, I’ll try to get the hang of it!
    PMP Certification
    PMP Course
    PMP Course in Malaysia
    PMP Training in Malaysia
    PMP Training

    ReplyDelete
  8. I think I have never seen such blogs ever before that has complete things with all details which I want. So kindly update this ever for us.data science course

    ReplyDelete
  9. "Very good article with very useful information. Visit our websitedata science training in Hyderabad
    "

    ReplyDelete
  10. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I am looking for and I love to post a comment that "The content of your post is awesome" Great work! PMP Certification

    ReplyDelete
  12. Cool stuff you have and you keep overhaul every one of us
    pmp certification

    ReplyDelete
  13. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  14. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  15. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  16. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  17. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Really an awesome blog, With informative and knowledgeable content. Thanks for sharing this blog with us. Keep sharing more stuff again.
    Best Courses for Data Science in Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  19. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  20. You completely match our expectation and the variety of our information.
    cyber security training malaysia

    ReplyDelete
  21. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  22. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  23. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  24. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  25. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  26. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Data science is very interesting. It is especially helpful when doing a data migration project.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Keeping skills current is very important.

    ReplyDelete
  29. I haven't taken note of any SEO optimization plugins. Just learning SEO myself.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Glad you liked it. Try reading the book.

    ReplyDelete

4 Basics Every Project Management Entrepreneur Needs to Get Right

Photo Credit: Unsplash 4 Basics Every Project Management Entrepreneur Needs to Get Right By Gloria Martinez of WomenLed.org   When y...