Software project manager: what is the best amount and quality of purely technical background?

Question

We are looking at hiring a software development project manager. His job is going to be concerned with running multiple dedicated project teams focused on delivery of software for external customers. He will also need to provide support to our business development unit and oversee post-implementations support of the aforementioned software. What level of hands on development experience should we expect from the applicants? Successful candidate is not expected to do any coding.

1. Not important. We should be focused on proven project management experience in software area.
2. None.
3. Some experience, exact technology does not matter.
4. Heavy experience, exact technology does not matter.
5. Some experience involving same acronyms as we use daily over here.
6. Heavy experience involving same acronyms as we use daily over here.
7. Some experience, mostly with technologies we do not use.
8. Heavy experience, mostly with technologies we do not use.

This question is regarding the best level and quality of required technical experience and is not concerned with any other skills and qualifications of a software project manager. Many thanks.

Answer 1

Most of our project managers have zero technical experience, so I'm guessing the skill sets are different enough that it's not necessary. However, they have to be bright enough to grasp/learn the concepts involved in development -- just not the implementation.

That's not to say that a technical background would be a bad thing -- it could be a "nice to have". Then again, it could possibly get in the way and they could try to control the implementation.

Answer 2

In my experience the very best technical managers I've had had very strong technical backgrounds (and usually were a little reluctant to trade herding code for herding coders). The worst were the the ones that were merely average programmers at best and had more of a management background.

The tentative conclusion I've drawn from this is that while not all programmers are management material, all good technical managers started out as good programmers.

Note that this answer is coming more from the perspective of hiring an engineering lead. For a project manager - someone whose job is to interface between the technical people and the customer - technical acuity is probably less of a requirement.

Answer 3

Some technical skill would be nice, but far more important is that they understand the functional area your company exists in. So if you sell an OS, then you probably want stronger technical skills than if you're writing banking software, for example.

Answer 4

Go with point 1. "Not important. We should be focused on proven project management experience in software area."

Edit: (after re-reading your intro-para) Seems what you want is a product-manager, and in support you need team-leaders on the diverse teams to handle and report on the technical issues. (Also since customer-contact is involved: a little marketing experience won't hurt!)

As an aside:

You are focusing on the wrong skill-set. You want proven administrative skill; proven organizational skill; and above all: proven people skills - (s)he must be able to communicate without antagonizing or patronizing the audience. The technical staff and programming staff will have all the necessary experience in development. (S)He must be able to manage and control these staff members effectitively.

Answer 5

As with any position, you need to assess first and foremost what skills and experience you need on the team for you to be successful. Then hire to fill the gap for the skills that you do not already have on your team.

If you already have a team with strong technical and technical leadership skills then you don't need to hire someone who is likely to compete with the people you already have. If you are missing this, you probably want to hire a technical manager with some project planning and tracking skills.

Great project managers are those that are multidisciplinary - they are most successful where they can bridge the divide between the various stakeholders and team. The primary role of the project manager is to manage risk and facilitate communication and collaboration. As a minimum, you should look for someone that has proven experience in either your industry or with the technology space that you are playing in, otherwise they will be unable to gain the respect of the rest of the team and perform their primary role.

Which brings me to something else you should consider carefully - what is your culture? For example in a previous job, we had development leads that were very strong technically and wilful. Project managers were always relegated to second chair, and pretty much ended up as glorified MS Project admin. assistants. Anyone good did not stay long. What do you need to do to allow the type of skills you want to acquire for the team to flourish?

Answer 6

The manager has to be able to communicate with developers. This either requires a decent technical background, although not necessarily with the same technology, or enough humility to know when the developers know more about something than the manager. I've seen both work well.

I think what I'm saying is that having respect for the developers is important, and there's two paths to it: understanding what they do, or understanding that you don't understand what they do.

Answer 7

Most has been answered already, but I'll add this:

Keep the same mindset that you would have when hiring an office manager. While the technology knowledge is important, you'll find that ambition, a will to learn, coupled with a team leader attitude will get you a better manager than looking at mostly technology knowledge. Most projects have some company/industry-specific skills that are involved and a quick learner / great leader will bridge that gap quickly.