Should employers recruit diverse types of project manager, if so what types are there?
None of this is scientifically proven or suggested, it is purely personal observation, but as scientific proof often involves observing behaviours I might not be far off the mark.
I have observed five basic types of project manager, namely, the Documenter, the Controller, the Diplomat, the Expert and the Hero.
The Documenter
This project manager is able to actually capture and document everything needed, as PRINCE2 includes twenty six different documents for a single project, they will definitely be qualified there. Twenty six sounds outrageous, but in reality it's not as extreme in practice, this is because PRINCE2 has a document for everything and everything should go in its correct place and if you use them all appropriately then anyone can audit the project.
Regulatory compliance projects need to show auditable change and therefore this is where the Documenter becomes essential, proving to a regulatory body that we have complied with the ever growing list of rules we need to demonstrate compliance with.
As for the twenty six documents, that’s nowhere near enough sometimes.
The Controller
These project managers are quite common and one could even argue they are the most common. This is NOT however, a micro-controller of people, more a controller of things, parts, components and/or modules. They love to keep things under change and version control, everything is clearly (to them) named and numbered. They are probably not what we would call a ‘people person’ they can usually be spotted by their use of email to communicate almost everything.
If your project has strict cost control requirements, in commercial contractual obligation projects which require this, then the Controller is for you. If something changes, they are the ones who will be able to demonstrate the impact of the change and the dependency networks they are able to prepare help to manage complex situations amazingly.
The Diplomat
Diplomats are able to negotiate with a broad range of complex stakeholder demands. Stakeholders come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and whilst not all projects have complex stakeholder mappings, they all have an impact on somebody somewhere, if they didn’t they probably wouldn’t be considered a project anyway.
Diplomats are needed in highly politicised environments and there are many types of those in the public sectors definitely but also in the private sector where senior managers and possibly shareholders will need pacifying or reassuring during a change to any business.
The Expert
Most project management methods take an approach that states a project manager needs to be an expert in project management, and if they become good at that, then they can manage any project anywhere without technical skills. This may be the case, but this is not the Expert we are talking about here.
The Expert has a deep understanding of the complexity of the work involved in the project, they know the in’s and out’s of the technical processes and procedures. They many be experienced software developers moving into management, they may be building site supervisors who have come up through the ranks, they could actually lay bricks and write code themselves if push came to shove. If your project has experts who like to confuse us with jargon, the expert project manager is for you.
The Hero
Finally, this project manager is the one who’s documentation is out of date at best, not produced at worst. Their plans are drawn on flip charts and whiteboards. Nothing is named or numbered properly, they understand nothing about the technologies, they couldn’t really care less about the sensitivity of the political masters who they view as parasites anyway.
But, they get things done, they are able to relate to the people doing the actual work, they inspire and trust the teams at the coal face. They will take them out for a beer if needed, organise a sports event or something similar. They work incredibly hard in the background to remove any blockers and give all the credit to the team who they allow to self-organise. Sounds like a PRINCE2 Agile project manager?
There is one more type of project manager not yet mentioned, the Perfectionist, they combine all the above when the time is right.
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Here’s some simple tips on how to make your portfolio office more agile (simply)
Agile PMO's (Simply) - Apple iBooks
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BH5477LM - Kindle edition
If you want a book that takes a very simple view of how agile can be used across an organisation to deliver essential changes.
There are other views of agile, all tend to be complex and very detailed and this leads to confusion and inevitable conflict.
