Why Nontechnical Project Managers Struggle to Assemble the Right Team

In our last post, we explained why your IT project needs an experienced IT project manager. Any individual with project management experience might seem capable of spearheading IT projects. In reality, however, it takes someone with technical skills to keep the project from going off the rails. With a nontechnical person at the helm, there’s a greater risk of unrealistic time estimates, lack of resources, “scope creep” and budget overruns. These are some of the textbook reasons why IT projects fail.

There’s an additional problem: the “trickle-down effect.” Nontechnical project managers likely won’t have the know-how to assemble the right team for the project. They’re going to grab some keywords and hunt for resumes based on those keywords.

We see this frequently at DeSeMa. A recruiter will call and ask us to change the keywords in a resume — from “security architect” to “cybersecurity architect,” for example. The recruiter is trying to make the resume match the keywords the project manager is looking for. Sadly, we can tell immediately that they don’t know what skill sets they need.

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Dancing the ‘Keyword Mambo’

The problem has become so prevalent that it’s widely accepted as the norm. IT professionals throughout the industry dance the “keyword mambo.” On rare occasions, organizations will find the ideal candidate using this technique. Most of the time, however, they wind up with candidates that fit one or more of these scenarios:

The person has deep skills in a related area but isn’t quite the right match for the project.
The candidate’s experience in the required area isn’t up-to-date, or was only ancillary to their primary skill set.
The individual means well, but doesn’t have the experience or level of expertise needed for the role.
The candidate has been laid off from another organization and desperately needs to get in the door somewhere.

Meanwhile, the organization misses out on experts who use legacy keywords in their resumes.

Challenges Vetting Candidates

Unfortunately, a project manager who is assembling a team through keywords isn’t going to be able to vet these candidates appropriately. For one thing, the PM doesn’t have a strong understanding of the types of skill sets needed for the project. The PM is looking at the requirements from a high level because they aren’t that familiar of the technology to be deployed. The PM doesn’t have the experience or expertise to dig into what’s needed for the project.

Worse, the project manager doesn’t have enough background to spot weak candidates. Many people who dance the keyword mambo can talk a good game. They can go through an interview and talk about the keyword in a way that makes it sound like they understand the technology. The nontechnical PM won’t necessarily pick up on the fact that the candidate isn’t a good fit.

Going Beyond Keywords

A project manager who is technically familiar with the technology doesn’t have to hire by keywords. If the project involves an email migration, for example, the technical PM knows that the team needs more than just an email expert. It needs a data migration analyst. It needs an automation expert. It needs an application deployment and tuning expert, and so on. Experienced IT project managers consider both the upstream and downstream dependencies. They understand that to get a new solution deployed, you must have all of those skill sets on the team.

DeSeMa can help ensure that you have the right candidates for your project. First, our consultants will work with you to define the skill sets you need. We will then use our talent appraisal process to find individuals who are a technical and cultural fit.

DeSeMa can also assist you with staff augmentation and talent-on-demand if that better suits your project needs. Contact us to learn more.