on 8/22/09 10:12 AM, Jeff & Heather Malloch said:

> That said, here is what I feel would help anyone immensely...  Project
> management is a must.  And I mean real PMBOK stuff.

Speaking as someone on the other side, I can tell you for a fact that 
the people who have real IT skills and can also do real PMBOK stuff are 
more rare than Hens Teeth.  Being able to be a good project manager 
encompasses so many soft management and team leadership skills that are 
almost never found in someone who has deep IT skills.  Anyone who 
expects to get all of both is likely to be very, very sorely 
disappointed.  They're not necessarily mutually exclusive, but they are 
most definitely orthogonal, if not somewhat opposite.

Taking a person who has deep IT skills and then throwing them in the 
deep end of the PM Amazon River filled with pirahana and expecting them 
to be able to immediately swim, is not likely to achieve a positive 
outcome that anyone is going to like.  Been there, done that, have the 
official complaint under way against my management and the t-shirt under 
embargo until such time as the complaint is resolved one way or the other.


Sure, you can teach some project management skills to a person with deep 
technical skills, and knowing them may help them be more effect project 
members.  But if you don't have real project management people who are 
good with those soft skills and can act as the interface between 
management and the technical personnel, then you are well and truly screwed.

-- 
Brad Knowles <[email protected]>
LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu>
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