Why does HCSC still maintain project manager roles? Beyond following up with people, what value do they actually add and why don’t they seem to be held accountable when projects fail? Shouldn’t these positions be considered redundant with us being agile ?
18 replies (most recent on top)
@156 Maurice and Opella and Shannon happened.
@156 Texas loves DEI. They just want the inclusion of people they like.
@14q yes!! HCSC goes out of its way to promote DEI. What happened to the days of the most qualified person?!
@14q I’ve literally had a Director turn a division wide Thanksgiving potluck into a prayer session. A Christian one. It was kind of a weird vibe
Just saw on LinkedIn an HCSC job posting for a director position in the PMO. Interesting when I clicked the link a woman in a hijab appeared. Has anyone ever seen a person with a cross or Star of David representing HCSC? Inclusive or exclusive?
@s3 - Managers on the business teams know the product/applications and are much more effective. The problem is not with PMs in general but with them being separate from the teams and just being admin assistants. We need the SMEs to be the PMs. This would take training and development of talent though.
What I see daily from PMs: walking thru excel spreadsheets of epics in Jira and asking about status and time-frames -- all available if you setup a Jira dashboard with same info. 30+ people on a call to walk through what is already published. Weekly. For an hour.
Ideally, PM work is a coordination job between the "agile" teams who are focused on their deliverables and sprint deadlines. If you aren't going to do that, at least get out of the way.
In reality, coordination falls to the architects/systems analysts/team leads who know all too well what's needed and what's going on and what's not.
@f9 procurement is a huge problem. There are some good people there but for the most part they are non responsive, they don’t help, they try to make everyone else what is supposed to be their own jobs. It needs a massive overhaul.
@bx we only find funding for leadership projects where they get a board seat.
Honestly EPMO is in a terrible spot. They can’t win, coupled with slow procurement, they are always behind. Trying to be an agile mindset in an organization that doesn’t even know the word or the process. Embedded business team and contextual knowledge would be a plus!
@ep I’m surprised strategy hasn’t just taken over the EPMO’s work yet
@ep - This is a valid argument. We need PMsvembedded in the team, not a separate area of PMs.
The EPMO is awful. Every single PM requires 25 additional PMs on a project and despite that they lack any business or technical knowledge, have no organization skills, and don't even assemble project plans. Waste of headcount. No accountability, no responsibility, no drive.
PMs generally either are really fabulous relationship managers and good at tough conversations, and anticipatory or they are 10 steps behind and other teams are carrying them forward. The bigger question is not about Project Managers but rather about consistent funding.
The real issue, we have too many people in each role, not all PMs are equal. Agile is a mindset, we are too big with layers to make agile work. Its works best in a startup.
@av - Agreed! The PM is critical to success because people are not able to self organize a teams work. Agile is great but a leader is still needed. Without one there is no accountability.
@av Agile organizations don’t need project managers. If the organization still has PMs, they’re not agile. Transforming to agile ways of working is difficult due to the mindset shift that is required which is why most companies fail.
@OP you have no idea what a PM does, or the number of people they need to connect to get something done in a large company. Have you ever seen a ROI spreadsheet they need to complete and then present? I’m not a PM but I work with them, and I don't know how they stay sane given the frustration.