Why do bad Project Managers end up running projects?

I've seen thousands of projects in my career. Some of them have not been run very well. For some of them, it was evident that the Project Manager was not doing a great job. How does that happen?

It starts at the start

In order to get the right person leading your project, at a minimum two things have got to be true.

Firstly, there has to be an understanding on the sorts of skills that are needed to make this particularly project successful.

Secondly, there has to be care and attention to select a Project Manager with respect to that skill set.

Skills required

The skills required differ with each project. A project that is being run with an offshore development partner needs a different set of skills to a project being run with all the people in the same room. You need someone who manages contracts, respects the requirements process and is good at defining quality expectations.

A project with deep architectural decisions to make needs someone who can bring structure to decision making, options analysis, impact analysis, timelines and is good at herding architects.

A project with a timeline that cannot be met needs someone who controls scope creep with an iron fist, can individually make ruthless decisions and has an uncanny sense of knowing what can be cut but can still deliver the benefit.

Different sorts of projects require different sorts of skills. As you read those descriptions above, there will have been some descriptions where you said “yeah, that one's not for me”. There are some projects that you know you're a better fit for than others.

Skill selection

The crunch is in the selection process.

Firstly, does the hiring manager have a good appreciation for the skills that they require? Does the interview expose your capability in those skills? Or do they recruit for generics - have you worked in this industry before, have you led this type of project before, how do you run a governance meeting - instead of we have a red project with an offshore vendor and an inexperienced sponsor - what skills would you bring to improve this project?

Secondly, how do you assess for those skills in the selection process? Are you just asking questions (poor match likely), are you looking for evidence (better match possible), or are you observing for proof (best for a match).

Every time I see a Project Manager ill-fitted to their project, the problem started at the selection process. The Project Manager has a skill set and a problem set where they can be awesome. This isn't it. If we had better care brought to the selection process, we would have better projects.