The guys over at Cutting Through are talking about what I call “Budget Macho” among project managers.
They talk about how recruiters in particular are obsessed with how big the budgets were for a PMs projects or in some cases how big the team was for a project as a measure of the value or talent of the PM.
I agree with these guys in their assertion that some of the smallest projects (budget and\or team) have taught them the most. In theory a PM that successfully managed lots of $1000 projects should be able to apply the same principles to a $1,000,000 project. But I have to say that I think this theory breaks down to some degree. I think that big, high stakes projects carry with them different kinds of pressure than small ones. Also in many cases large budget often equates to large scope. If that is the case then I would want to know that the PM I’m looking at for a position has managed BIG projects if I’m hiring them to manage a big project.
Lastly, if you have not checked out their stuff I recommend stopping by there and browsing through. They have some excellent things to say.
Brian,
The topic of "where do we get experience" is interesting. I come for a large project world, but in that world there are small projects. From my biased view many small projects (we can burn through a $1,000 before the first sip of coffee) is not the same as large projects. This does not mean experinces cannot be extracted from small projects. As you mention some of the best experiences may come from small projects.
But from an recuriting POV, the rsponsibility in many business domains is connected with the dollar value of the project. If you've done a bunch of $1,000 project (that's less than a burdeneed manweek BTW) are you ready for a $10,000 project? Probably. How about a $100,000 project? Maybe. How about a $1,000,000 project? Now we're getting into the real question. How about a $10M project, $100M?
There is not likely a linear relationship (the world is pretty much non-linear at the detailed level) between dollars and complexity. More likely a geomettic oe exponential relationship.
So where does the small project experience stop being applicable? That's a better question I think
Posted by: Glen B Alleman | Thursday, March 10, 2005 at 09:07 AM