A Brief Summary of the Skills of an IT Project Manager
There are a huge number of project managers on the market with different levels and experience. But can all project managers on the market be IT project managers?
If you look at the market for project manager candidates, everyone has a wealth of experience. There are candidates with experience in construction, medical projects, aerospace. The level of responsibility and requirements in these industries is God willing. Are these candidates familiar with IT? In most cases, if you ask whether it is worth inviting such a specialist, the answer will be ‘what difference does it make whether he knows IT or not, he has experience and knowledge of methodology - and that is the most important thing. He will be able to build us a system for working on projects’.
Let’s look at whether IT knowledge is required for a project manager who has to take on this role to organize the development and implementation of an IT system.
Case
So we have an IT system to be developed, a new IT project manager coming from a completely different industry and a team of specialists.
Let’s look at this case through a dialogue between the CTO and the project manager, hereafter referred to as the PM.
CTO: - PM, where do you start the project?
PM: - With the definition of the goals and the needs.
CTO: - OK. Anything else?
PM: - Make a development plan.
CTO: - Right. And what will be the stage of development? How will we break down the tasks?
PM: - Do I have to do that? I’ll ask someone.
CTO: - Like who?
PM: - A programmer … probably.
So far, things are going quite well, considering that we have a person who is far away from IT. In fact, the programmer is well aware of the development stages and can give advice and help. But to help the newcomer, let’s refer him not to the programmer, but to a system architect (architect), or an employee who fulfils this role. So our PM comes to the Architect:
PM: - Hi Architect. We are going to have a new project that
I am going to supervise, but I am a new person in IT, can you tell me
what the development stages are?
Architect: - Creating the ToR (Terms of Requirements) and developing the functionality
according to it.
PM: - That’s it?
Architect: - Well, testing.
PM: - And what happens if the ToR is adjusted in the course of the work?
Architect: - I don’t know. You give me the ToR and I work to it.
The PM thanks the Architect for his help, and notes that there are two items, ToR and Development. He takes this information to the CTO:
CTO: - So what does development consist of?
PM: - We take the ToR drawn up by the customer and give it to the architect.
He evaluates it and defines the conditions for implementation, the stages of readiness.
At these stages, we test and control, and if successful, we show the result to the user.
And everything seems logical and generally correct, but only to a PM who is far away from IT. When we hire a project manager in an IT company, the first thing we should ask him/her is: What is the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)?
An information system, like any other system, needs to be commissioned. And like any other system, it will make mistakes that are very costly.
PM Test Cheat Sheet
If you are interviewing a non-IT PM, you need to make sure that:
- that the candidate understands the software lifecycle and can build a development plan around it;
- can understand not only the specific tasks, but also what happens ‘before’ and ‘after’ each of them;
- has the ability to see the project as a whole, the interconnectedness of its various parts, what can be done in parallel and what must be done in strict sequence.
If a candidate meets each of these criteria, then they are a good fit for you. But how do you make sure they meet them? Here are some sample questions and expected answers:
- What stages of development specification can you name?
- Formulation of the customer’s functional requirements.
- Formulation of the task for the infrastructure, which is the result of developing requirements for fault tolerance and redundancy.
- Establishing a map of interaction with other systems.
- What are the stages of software development?
- Assign tasks to developers.
- Establishing a plan for acceptance of the work.
- Testing (piloting).
- Create a migration plan.
- What are the stages of commissioning?
- Stress testing.
- Preparation of methodological materials.
- User training.
- Filling in reference information and setting up user access.
- Data migration.
- Data reconciliation.
- Start of operational work (piloting).
- Support during the initial start-up period.
- What is the plan for handing over the system for support at the end of commissioning?
The IT system involves 3 levels of support:
- Infrastructure support and monitoring of server status.
- Functional support and monitoring of its operation in case something goes wrong.
- Consultative support, i.e. answering questions about the operation of the system or a particular functionality, and collecting needs for further improvement.
Each of the tiers should have its own SLA (speed of response to address).
Conclusion
If your candidate hasn’t answered a question completely, hasn’t mentioned all the steps, it’s not a problem. He may just be over-excited. He will come across them one way or another as the work progresses. It’s important if he doesn’t name something - talk to him to see if he understands the need for it. If the candidate has no idea at all what needs to be answered for each of the questions - all bad. It’s even worse if he or she is projecting past experience onto the current one. In such a case, there will inevitably be constant conflict in the team, leading to an exodus of developers. A competent technical specialist will always find a place in the IT market where project management does not disturb his comfort zone.