I seldom post about work. If I did, I try to make it as discrete and short as possible. So as not to give bias to any party. After all, a project manager is central to any project. Giving bias to any stakeholder will mean disaster. But not this time.
I am used to be under pressure. I love the feeling of driving myself to my limits in terms of what I can do for my project. I remember when I started at my company, in just 2 weeks I was already doing 36 hours of straight work just to make it to a very tight deadline. Many overtimes more and I got a lead role. I was passionate about my work, I research, I study, I improve. Not long after that I already found myself managing multiple projects. These projects have clients and have real deadlines, deadlines which I must haggle with the client to either extend or be realistic, to the management to give me the proper resources, and to the developers to gear up and be always on their toes - just to achieve the goals of the project in time, on budget, and on specs - no more, no less.
The projects that I had were never complicated. Just straight co-located software development. No consultants, no vendors, no multiple groups in different sites.
Right now, I am handling again multiple projects. But this time these are internal projects. By internal project, I mean these are applications that are being developed for our company's use. No target market, no clients, and with an invisible budget. All I have to do is estimate, schedule, and monitor.
Motivation for the developers are very low. I find it very hard to make them feel that what they are doing is important. Why? Because all developers in my projects are those that are not yet marketed to any client as consultants. We call them "benched" developers. When a market opportunity arrives, they get these benched developers and deploy them to the client. Leaving my projects with changing team members. Definitely, no strong bond will ever develop in these teams. Aside from the fact that they can't see it as important and the deadline as pressing since they are making the software for their own use anyway. The major stakeholders are the upper management leaving me no room to argue. If I argue, they can just tell me to shut the hell up anyway.
What really bores me is that I have been doing this for more than a year now. Day in, day out I have to drag myself and try to be the project manager. No client for a project manager means no experience. No complicated projects means no growth. In short, I am wasting my time!
Worse than all these is the fact that my company has already been actively pursuing BPO and consultancy for several years now. Software Development has been and is continually becoming a minor business for the company. No Software Development projects means no project for me. I know they will not completely eliminate this business from their list so that they will know where to place those benched developers who have recently ended their consultancy engagement with their client. I know also that they will still have software development projects, maybe 1 or 2 in a year. But that won't be enough to sustain project managers.
To wrap it all up, I'm bored and not happy with the ways things are going.
To any colleagues or any of my team members that might be able to read this, this is a rant. This has nothing to do with you. All these are my opinion about my experiences as a Project Manager in our company. Although I might have said a few negative thoughts, the fact still remains that I love to finish all projects that I started, I love to lead, and I am happy with the people in our company.
