Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

When you just go out and splice a couple of cables, you don't need a PM.

Organizational structure is not build for success in mind. Performance and reward management are way out of sync and does not matter. My team delivered X number of widgets, met the goal and who cares about the other teams, down stream impact, product delivery, or P&L. Any experienced PM wouldn't want to a PM in this environment.

For those of you who view PMs are nothing but note takers and meeting hosts, you are damn right! The environment doesn't allow doing any thing productive, like building repeatable operational processes, so you don't need to beg, borrow, and steal the way to get work done every time.

"PMs are the biggest waste of time and resources! They are dysfunctional and most don’t have any expertise"

This is one of the people that I referred to in another post that has nothing good to say about ANY PM, in any circumstance. It's weird, but there are a lot of folks like this. In my experience as a PM, these are usually lazy people that resent having to report their progress on something to anyone, are evasive, don't attend calls or reply to emails, and generally don't work well with others.

I enjoy nothing more than escalating issues over their head a level or 2 whenever necessary (and man, they REALLY hate that, LOL...).

"Scrum Masters are nuf"

Agile is fine for software development but the methodology doesn't really translate to the other areas and needs of the business. ..which require a more traditional/ waterfall management.

That skill of hosting calls, taking notes, and sending emails is critical to ensuring the business knows what is going on so your project continues to receive funding. The PMs who don't understand this and stay in the technical weeds are the same ones who let their projects exceed cost and timeline estimates.

Scrum Masters are nuf.
PM s redundant

“ however, it's not that difficult to do”

Not difficult to do poorly, but difficult to do well for sure.

As a PM, especially here, you have to be that bridge across different organizations and silos with different priorities, and try to get them on the same page. Get people that don’t report to you and aren’t even in the same org to make commitments and hit targets. Escalate when necessary. Facilitate discussion between people that don’t want to talk to each other. Hunt people down when necessary. Call people out when necessary. Deal with people that just have a real disdain for PMs.

It’s not an easy job.

Most PMs I've dealt with over the years were contractors. They come and go as needed. I've seen plenty of them send bye bye emails, and then a year later they're back.

Not really sure PMs and layoffs are related.

Is this post a with hunt on PMs?

Most of ATT PMs are not certified and just placed in the position to fill a function. Many don't have the expertise, however, it's not that difficult to do. A lot of common sense can help guide you thru the process.

PMs are the biggest waste of time and resources! They are dysfunctional and most don’t have any expertise.

We can only hope. Most PMs I encounter don't do much more then host calls, take notes, email notes. None of them actually put in effort to understand what they're working on, mostly just defer defer defer.

If anything you will need more project managers to ensure that everything is delivered on time and within budget.

Company still need project managers. Between the silos, turf wars and inability to build operational standards, all work requires babysitters, no disrespect to you PMPs out there. Even if a set of projects are running smoothly, PMs are still needed to document status from the many ancient non-integrated systems.

There had been bluffs about automation and RPA, let’s have these data geniuses replace PMs, pretty sure it will go really well.

Probably a few will get let go. The reason things don’t get done is not the PMs, it’s the internal financing process with all the fake budgets. Remove that and things will crank. It’s all the “process” that slows down doing meaningful work.

They will get rid of the ones that are no longer needed.

A few layoffs ago they wacked all the PM's in my org.

The projects going on then all were late, failed or wete canceled.

Now PM'S are back. 43

There are too many project managers because the company put too many people that they didn’t know what to do with over the years into that title, often following a reorganization. Real project management is a true profession, which requires professional training and acumen. Here at T, maybe 15% or less of people in the title are actual project managers, holding a professional certification. You can p-o p-o the PMP certification all you’d like, but it does require many documented hours of verified work on projects and passing a rigorous exam with an over 50% failure rate. Many here don’t invest the money, time, and trouble into it because why should they? This company doesn’t really recognize any distinction between those that maintain a certification and those that never bothered with it. Folks here would be smart to take advantage as many orgs will pay for PMI membership yearly and your certification. Because even if it’s not really valued here, it’s a valuable certification for those seeking employment in project management.

The economy with high inflation, supply line issues etc.. have definitely affected the fiber project

You were not specific about “project cuts”, if you have not been around here for a long time as 4Q approaches T cancels a lot of projects because collectively they go way over budget and / or the typical year end tactics to save the year by propping up the numbers..

What is the answer? If you know it please share.

I think we know that answer.