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Career change - project management, is it a cusy life?

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    Career change - project management, is it a cusy life?

    Hi,
    I have a good technical background in primarily Wintel infrastructure and have worked for multiple organisations of mid size (around 5,000 users). Most of my experience has been with a small consultancy doing project delivery and implementation - from gathering requirements, writing project proposals to design, implementation and project handover. Most of my projects have been between 2 weeks and 6 months, with a mixture of using project managers or handling it ourselves

    I'm coming up to the big 40 and am getting a little tired of it, I'm thinking of a career change, maybe technical team lead or project management. Even though I've worked on and managed multiple projects, I've never had the actual title of project manager, what's the best way of going about to effect a career change? From what I can gather it's mainly get yourself into a large organisation and look for internal promotion opportunities.

    In addition, what's the life of PM like? Would it be too simplistic to assume that they're generally 9 to 5 guys and there's less chance of being called out at 1am for a server failure?

    As an infrastructure consultant, the worst part of the job was getting briefs like "learn everything you can about system X in 3 days, then your task is to deliver a 2 week project in 1 week" - I'm guessing this sort of stuff comes up in PM roles as well?

    The other thing about infrastructure is that it changes every year (or few months if you look at Azure), so there's a constant change with certifications and systems, whereas something like project management has a slower rate of change.

    #2
    herding cats with unrealistic deadlines. F that!

    Tried it hated it.
    Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

    Comment


      #3
      Do you like dealing with people?
      "You’re just a bad memory who doesn’t know when to go away" JR

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by SueEllen View Post
        Do you like dealing with people?
        If "dealing with" means dropping into giant concrete mixers, before pouring into motorway bridge foundations, then yes.
        First Law of Contracting: Only the strong survive

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          #5
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBr3MM9_zd4

          Cushy.
          Will work inside IR35. Or for food.

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            #6
            Lol, nice video - OK, I guess that puts things into perspective a little!

            Doh! Typo in title, is there a way to change that post creation? Major fail for the spelling police and pedants.

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              #7
              Originally posted by Biggles78 View Post
              Lol, nice video - OK, I guess that puts things into perspective a little!

              Doh! Typo in title, is there a way to change that post creation? Major fail for the spelling police and pedants.
              The best project managers are big scary intense people. Like some mafia boss. If you look like some kind of server room wimp, you won't make it.
              First Law of Contracting: Only the strong survive

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                #8
                Originally posted by _V_ View Post
                The best project managers are big scary intense people. Like some mafia boss. If you look like some kind of server room wimp, you won't make it.
                There is also the passive aggressive blame shifting risk management approach I prefer.

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by _V_ View Post
                  The best project managers are big scary intense people. Like some mafia boss. If you look like some kind of server room wimp, you won't make it.
                  The best ones I've met are calm, measured and highly intelligent. Their uncanny ability to see what needs to be done is admirable.

                  But, most of the PMs I've met are not like that. They're useless over-promoted techies with no clue, who think that yelling at the team gets things done.

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                    #10
                    You do need to be a bit of a sociopath to be effective as a PM!
                    http://www.cih.org/news-article/disp...housing_market

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