Tips for Success: Transitioning into new industries of project management

In a recent conversation on the Project Manager Networking Group on LinkedIn,  MBA Operations student Milind N. Suryavanshi posed the question, “Can a Project Manager from non-IT (engineering) background understand, design and execute projects in IT or a related industry?”

The inquiry has drawn responses from hundreds of project managers, industry leaders and IT professionals worldwide. The Managing the Work team compiled a list of the most compelling responses from that discussion for our readers.

Community insight about what it would take to make the successful transition includes:

Adrian Baker • My answer is “yes…but.”

The key skills of a project manager are not technical: Communication skills, planning, attention to detail, motivating a team, etc. Anyone with these skills who has managed business projects, could with a little effort adapt to IT Projects. The PM methodology PRINCE 2 is entirely independent of IT or Engineering.

Sarita Agrawal • Yes of course, Project management is a mix of native PM qualities and what you learn from your PM experience. It requires passion, good communication skills and ability to work with different people with a most productive approach. So I think people with non IT can succeed as long as they have native PM skills.

Frank Jaskulski • If you are trying to secure employment… this will be a problem. Today most employers want all of the team’s skills to be resident in the PM. And most are demanding particular technologies.

Erik Burd • I’ve seen some PMs do this very successfully. I ended up “training” one PM at one company because I was the in-house expert on our statistics program. I brought her up to speed with the terminology, operational use, customer requirements, etc. She did a great job managing the project, and often asked me for advice and questions.

The key was that she sought out the experts, which is a critical skill that anyone in a management role should have. Don’t make any assumptions – ask people who know.

Gary Vaughan • I tend to be of two minds on the issue:

On the one hand, some IT background (either education or experience) helps. Since communications is such a big part of project management, knowing IT lingo and concepts better enables you to be an effective bridge among techies, users and managers. And knowing how to use and apply the IT product also comes in handy.

On the other hand, I agree with others that many project management skills (organization, processes, team-building, risk assessment) are generic and can be applied to any industry (Agile methodology is a good example). And to an extent, a non-IT “outsider” is better able to ask tough questions from a fresh perspective.

Brian O’Reilly • I’d have to say no. While the PM skills are fundamental for all disciplines, the nature of IT is that it requires skills above and beyond what a PM typically does. In support, IT is currently transitioning to an agile model. This has followed 40 years of waterfall, RAD, RUP, Spiral XP, Scrum, etc. The constant evolution of how IT does development is a challenge to even seasoned IT PMs.

As a counter point, I have seen what I would call “generic PMs” who have an IT background working in IT. Not to dis on these PMs, I think they do a good job, but never a great job.

Keith Payne, PMP • First, I think an engineering background would be technically sufficient for an IT project manager. Focus on your technical strengths. Second, the benefit of any Project Manager, regardless of background, is their “big picture” view.

Having said that, it seems the current hiring trend is not toward broad backgrounds but toward a specific set of skills and experience that align with the project and/or organization.