Posted: 1/15/2017 8:19:29 PM EDT
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Like the title says, are there any Project Managers here? Especially if you work for a big company like Northrop Grumman or Lockheed, can you provide any insight into your job? Pros and cons?
Have a potential job offer but not sure what to expect. Thanks |
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Since nobody else is commenting, I will.
I'm not a Program Manager, but I've worked very closely with quite a few, including ones for my company as well as ones for Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. I was actually asked to be my company's PM for all NGC programs by the NGC Program Manager, and turned it down. It's essentially a high stress, thankless task. NGC Program Managers I've dealt with have ranged from everyone's whipping boy to the Dark Lord himself. A LOT depends n your strength of personality. I had given the Director of Programs where I used to work an old Dr. Pepper bottle with the 10-2-4 logo. I told him that in order to be a successful Program Manager you need to follow that motto, except change it to mean: 1) Make sure that everyone knows their daily assignments for your programs by 10, 2) Follow up with them on their progress by 2, and 3) Find out what was / was not actually accomplished by 4 so that you can prepare the next day's assignments. He still had that bottle on his desk when I left the company. Good luck. It pays well. |
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Worked a job like that myself briefly, and have worked under a number of others. In most companies, it's what they call the person who connects the engineers (or whoever) doing actual, hands-on work on something to the higher-level managers setting business objectives. You don't have to be an expert at whatever the engineers under you do, but you do have to know enough to know what is and isn't possible and what's real and what's BS. You probably won't be in charge of setting the business objectives, but you need to understand the forces behind them well enough to make sure that you meet what your higher-ups really want, or give them a good explanation why not and what your team can get done instead.
From one perspective, you tend to get trouble from both sides - from the people below you who need help, complain that their tasks are dumb, request vacations, ask for more resources, and need good motivation to do their best work, and from the people above you who want you to do more stuff faster with less resources, have unclear goals, and keep changing their minds on exactly what it is your team is supposed to be doing. If you can handle all of the types of people and their demands, and get things done without leaving anybody too unsatisfied, then it can be fun, rewarding, and a good stepping stone to more senior positions. If you burn out, or just aren't very good at, dealing with people and their conflicting demands instead of actually doing stuff yourself, then you'll probably hate it. |
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Quoted:
Like the title says, are there any Project Managers here? Especially if you work for a big company like Northrop Grumman or Lockheed, can you provide any insight into your job? Pros and cons? Have a potential job offer but not sure what to expect. Thanks If you're an MS Project whiz, it will help you. |
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I'm a PM for a Financial Services Company. I work on the business side in a central group for my division.
My job is to work with the various Department Heads in my division to understand their needs, and identify areas where we need improvement and work to acquire funding to get that work done. I then translate that into Business Requirements, and work with IT and any vendors to make sure the project comes in on time and on budget. (I can usually get one) It can be stressful (when a project goes bad), or incredibly easy (if they all go well). I currently have two projects that are "problem children" and I haven't had a real break for 2 months, and probably won't until our February IT release. Last year all of my projects went super smooth, and I ended up with a very relaxing first quarter of 2016 while I prepped for Governance (finance approval) and project starts. I have a lot of autonomy (I work from home 100% of the time). I make my own schedule (although sometimes that means that even though I started work at 11am, that I worked until 2am). For me to succeed I have to stay very organized and keep task lists to make sure I don't forget anything. That was the hardest part to learn. You also have to learn to weigh the needs of the business with the success of the project (don't launch a piece of shit just to say you did). That's how I became successful at my job and got the support and respect of the business areas that I work with. The job is a little different from industry to industry, but for the most part it's the same. |
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As an engineer who works with project managers, I would say it is a job I wouldn't want. You are tasked with keeping projects on schedule, but really have no authority to force anyone to complete the work needed. Your only recourse is to go over the heads of the slackers, which only makes them less likely to prioritize your project.
The PMs I work with are good guys, and that goes a long way towards motivating those that are doing the work. A little tact goes a long way as a PM. |
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Three words that will define your life: Cost, Schedule, Performance. Guess what? You can really control none of them, but may be able to influence them. If you're an MS Project whiz, it will help you. Quoted:
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Like the title says, are there any Project Managers here? Especially if you work for a big company like Northrop Grumman or Lockheed, can you provide any insight into your job? Pros and cons? Have a potential job offer but not sure what to expect. Thanks If you're an MS Project whiz, it will help you. And Earned Value Management. If you have great legs, power point proficiency will be the main skill required. Assembling GANTT charts helps you advance your career, don't worry much about whether they are worth the paper to print them. I could lateral into a similar job. I would not do that job these days, the pay is insufficient. |
| i have had to deal with them for years. it 20+ years of corporate enterprise IT projects i have met exactly one that was positive influence on a project. the current batch i work with are more concerned with checking off their excel spreadsheets and than actually moving a project forward or ensuring thing are done right. JMHO PM's are what we get when managers have no management skills and need somewhere to shove the responsibility. |
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I was a Program Manger in the aircraft industry years ago. It's a lot of work but satisfying both professionally & monetarily. I wouldn't have the business skills to run a company today if I hadn't had that opportunity.
If you desire to advance your career take it if you're qualified. If you're not qualified, you'll be exposed quickly. YMMV. Good luck, OP. |
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A couple years ago I was part of a product development team for a major manufacturer (industrial not aerospace) and worked directly for the program manager.
Pros: Sense of accomplishment. You either succeed or you fail and when it's all said and done you get to see people use something you had a hand in creating. Visibility. You do a good job and people notice. It opens a lot of doors in other areas of the company for management. If you want to move up its almost a prerequisite. Cons: Conflicts: the job by its very nature has you fighting against your peers and superiors. Visibility. Do a bad job and people notice. It's like being the punter on a football team. You're either the hero or the bitch, but you will never be as big a hero as you will be a bitch if things go pear shaped. Get use to the phrase, tons of responsibility, zero authority. |
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I'm an IT project manager Most people in my office are project managers, usually IT related. Boringest shit ever. I'd much rather be one of the coders.
I think it's an odd gig. I'm basically the middle man between the leadership in my office and the development team. Why this position needs to exist.. I have no idea. The developers have their project manager, then my office has me. Seems redundant. The job listing I applied for didn't sound like it was going to be a project manager position. They made it sound much more like a hands on sort of IT position. I have no intention of making a career of this role. |
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I'm a business analyst by title but also act as dual role PM. Job has the opportunity to make a difference but most of the time I feel like a huge waste of resources. My job is to pull people into a room and force them to talk when if people could just communicate and work together, my job would go away.
I'm a professional babysitter. A middleman. It's lame. |
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I'm a DoD manufacturing Program Manager. I won't go into the defense acquisition process, which is it's own complete clusterfuck, but being a PM is largely the same general theme no mater the field you are in. You are typically the point of accountability with no real authority to "direct" change. I can influence the cost, the schedule, etc... but there are so many factors that are completely out of my control it can really suck. If you don't have good relationships with the factory your fucked. If you piss off contracting your fucked. There can be a lot that doesn't go your way and its ultimately the PM's job to unfuck it before its a problem. It's high stress but can be high reward depending on the line of work you are in. The customer will whip you if your late or over budget, I have been yelled at for streamlining a process and saving "too much money" which I didn't think was possible in my younger PM'ing days. Management will do the same, it can be a thankless job sometimes.
Make sure you are on top of your programs, build solid relationships, and surround yourself with a solid team and you can mold a program that you will be proud of. Understand scheduling, regulations, be damn good with budgeting, and have solid interpersonal skills. Sometimes I hate it, other times I love it. My management gives me the really messy high paced jobs and it keeps me satisfied. |
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Project Management (which is not Program Management) typically changes one person with the responsibility for delivering on cost, schedule and milestones, including planning, scheduling, staff management, requirements compliance and customer interface.
Most successful Project Managers come up from Task Management - where the scope, scale, staff and responsibilities are much more compact, and they can learn and develop skills and experience on smaller projects. In the last decade I've noticed a trend where Project Managers share (read: have less) responsibility with others. The result is diffused awareness and decentralized control - and finger-pointing when things go wrong. |
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I'm a PM for a large defense contractor, but not at the ones you mentioned. I've been in this particular role for about 5 years or so. I have my PMP and various other credentials that I suppose allow me to offer my opinion.
As a PM in my company, I manage a project. That includes all of the people that work on it. It's really about execution of the contract, including any deliverables. Of course, you have to 'manage' the customer as well. Then you have the budget, which thankfully my program manager takes care of. Can't stand that part as that's normally where your account manager or whoever your 'boss' is, zeroes in on and wants to talk to death. Execution is more fulfilling. I have 3 projects, in 2 different states. Probably 50 people of which I manage 20 directly and 5 indirectly. It's one of those jobs where things are normally humming along (if you're good) but can go from 0 to 1000mph in the blink of an eye. And that's where the PM earns their money. All of a sudden, the customer is freaking out about something, the people you need are all out sick, two major reports are due before the end of the day, a needed IT system crashes and your blackberry goes dead. Some PM's just manage the schedule and budget of a project, I see that a lot on the IT side of my company. Software development is different. Basically you wrangle with developers and business analysts all day and play the EVM numbers game. I've never been a PM in that role, but I have been essentially a BA on some projects as an individual contributor. As someone else has said, you may not really have control of the individuals working on the project, which adds another layer of complexity and potential frustration. I do not think this side is much fun at all and would not recommend it. It pays well and can be rewarding. Most good PM's are focused on outcomes and milestones to get there. You need to be calm, logical and good with business relationships. If you are the type of person who can take the long view (years even!) and move past the daily setbacks and obstacles, you would probably do well. You definitely need to be able to de-escalate conflicts between team members and have a thick skin, because you WILL catch a significant amount of shit horizontally and vertically. It's sort of like the military, where you get to move lots of pieces around to get the mission accomplished. Sometimes I am juggling so many things that all need to work correctly that it's quite satisfying when it all works out as planned. But when things go wrong, you need to keep a cool head and fix them. It can be high stress. I think I have a max of 10 more years in this role, then I'm going to just pick a role I like and be a spoke on the wheel rather than the hub. It would probably pay less but, it's not all about money. |
| I've belittled more than my fair share of PMs over the years. Usually on company wide conference calls when they think everything can simply "get done." Their lack of knowledge of how products get to market and how problems get solved(time frames as well) is my main pet peeves with PMs. I would never want to be a PM without a serious increase in compensation, because of engineers like me. Unless you have a good grasp of ee, me, and sw product requirements and timelines, don't. |
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As an engineer who works with project managers, I would say it is a job I wouldn't want. You are tasked with keeping projects on schedule, but really have no authority to force anyone to complete the work needed. Your only recourse is to go over the heads of the slackers, which only makes them less likely to prioritize your project. The PMs I work with are good guys, and that goes a long way towards motivating those that are doing the work. A little tact goes a long way as a PM. I came to post the same thing. OP I work in the aviation field with companies similar to the ones you listed if you want to PM me any particular questions. |
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Like the title says, are there any Project Managers here? Especially if you work for a big company like Northrop Grumman or Lockheed, can you provide any insight into your job? Pros and cons? Have a potential job offer but not sure what to expect. Thanks ... yup, 35 years. You need to be able to effectively address and manage every facet of the project. Between financial controls, scheduling, design/development as well as known and unknown risks, you will have your hands full. Resource and asset availability can be dicey - seems there's always someone else project will come along and out prioritize yours. Customers that change requirements mid-stream can hurt. But, watching your project finally fly away is very rewarding. My average project lifespan from funding to final delivery is typically 12 to 24 months. Cannot fathom working any other career 
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Thank you all for the replies. If I get the new job, I'd be leaving a role in public service, so I'm used to the stress and thanklessness.
I'd also essentially like to use the PM position as a stepping stone into either a higher management position or a corporate investigation area. Please, keep providing any insight you guys have. Thanks again |