From technical expert to project manager: Punishment or salvation?

Abstract

The questioning nature of this Thesis title “punishment or salvation” is directed towards two stakeholders. One stakeholder is the organization and the other one is the individual who has to become Project Manager. Actually a Technical Expert in his field of expertise is managing technical things as a primary responsibility and does at the same time managerial things as a secondary responsibility. By being promoted to Project Manager he has to reverse the sequence. A Technical Expert very often suffers from bad management during his carrier. All this knowledge from what went or was decided wrong and his actions to overcome the situation is a stable base that will help him act as a successful manager. A Technical Expert has the key to success because he can match his leadership style to the current situation in a similar way he matches his technical competence to new era’s demands and complex technical issues. Organizations, should invest in Technical Experts as a serious asset and capital of their business. This Thesis will try to convince organizations that an efficient period of serious training in Project Management principles can open an internal pool of skillful Project Managers and save a lot of money by minimizing the trial and error method they usually follow, when they hire Project Managers from outside the organization.