Software Engineer with Project Management Skills
Being a software engineer, like myself, often times you are left to carry out activities mainly in the technical aspects of a project and you are rarely exposed to the more managerial parts of the project. Software engineers I’ve met so far also prefer to stay busy with technical side of things. However, I personally believe that, having some project management skills really helps get a much better understanding why certain decisions are being taken by the upper management within the organization. That’s what I would like to talk shortly about today.
Better understand your manager
I’m currently studying project management and one of the things I immediately discovered is that, the role of my manager and his work activities make more sense to me now. I also understand where his role fits within the management board puzzle. Furthermore, I started to get more appreciation for the professional activities that a person like him needs to do because I now understand how his activities contribute to the projects being executed by the company.
Understand your own role and contribution better
I am also starting to understand my own role and contributions within the company and on going projects. One of the points you will come across in project management is to find a way to measure your resources and other process within your projects and company in general. This way your management team can make much better decisions based on the developments within the company. I’m starting to get better understanding of how much financial resources a company, at least my company, would need to allocate for salaries alone. And that’s just one aspect of managing projects. There are so many other factors and variables at play here and its very useful to have a bigger picture how things work outside code.
Helps you communicate effectively both to engineers and managers
Studying and building your project management skills, especially as engineer, helps you to collaborate better with both your technical guys and your management guys. You’ll have your engineering background to serve as a lens to talk to your tech team and your project management skills to contribute to the management aspect of things. And a combination of skill like this is rare, according to some reputable career building sites online.
So again, having project management skills helps you better understand your manager, your own role and contributions within the company and projects and it will help you communicate better both to your family engineering colleagues and upper management.
Thanks for reading!