In Response to Joanna Rojek-Giffin's October Letter to the Editor – On the Subject of Project Management Career Trends

10 October 2009

Dear Editor,

While I do not propose to be able to forecast the entire bandwidth of development in the PM profession, I’d like to add a few observations to the discussion:

• PMP required: as a consultant who works with PMOs and is often involved in an advisory capacity in the hire of project managers I have observed a trend fueled by the current economic crisis that has seen many project managers laid off. While about a year ago most job postings stated that PMP certification was desired for a PM position, these days the PMP certification has become a pre-requisite, because enough PMPs are available and actively looking for jobs. I see a danger in this, because companies are neglecting to develop the next generation of project managers. If a project manager requires several years of active experience before they can become certified the current job market does not allow junior PMs to gain this experience, because they will not be offered employment as a project manager to begin with, being crowded out by personnel that is already certified. This is a worrying and short-sighted trend, because once the economy picks back up, we will have a generation gap in the PM profession with seasoned PMs that eventually retire and that cannot be replaced by successors. I foresee a true shortage of capable PMs and certified PMPs a few years down the line.
• Core PM skills will become required management and work-life skills, rather than a specialty. With a severely reduced work-force and the mandate to do more with less it has become paramount for everyone to work smarter rather than harder. This means that to plan, prioritize and organize work and to monitor and control progress is not just something that is done by a specialist PM, but by every employee whether they are performing project work or operational work. I believe project management skills will move into the realm of core workforce skills, just like time-management, presentation skills, dealing with different personalities or effective communication and meeting management.
• Project Managers as such will become more specialized, i.e. skilled in particular project management techniques such as SCRUM or Agile, or perform particular and specialized tasks such as Risk Managers, Quality Managers etc. Industry knowledge will also become more of a prerequisite, particularly in Healthcare and other industries that are facing a lot of project work stemming from regularization and where knowledge of industry-specific project constraints becomes crucial for project success.

I hope these observations prove useful. I would love to continue to participate in this discussion and find out about the opinions of other practitioners.

All the best,

Eleonore F. Pieper PhD, PMP, CPF
Olicana Consulting
Allen, Texas, USA
469 556 4657
consulting@eleonorepieper.com
www.eleonorepieper.com

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