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Maybe the person doesn't want to be a PM. She filled gaps she saw and helped raise the team up, instead of doing the work she wanted to do, which is quite possi

Maybe the person doesn't want to be a PM. She filled gaps she saw and helped raise the team up, instead of doing the work she wanted to do, which is quite possible in a modern self-organizing agile team. Instead of rewarding this effort, leadership saw the lack of technical productivity as an indicator she can't do the work. One of the best PMs I've ever worked with was a technical individual contributor until he was told given the feedback that he is really really really good at organizing and leading, and that's what he should do. There are two different approaches here: 1. You can't do technical work, so try this other role that you've been doing already because hey, it turns out we need that role and 2. Hey, we've noticed you've been independently filling a gap we know or didn't know we had. Nice work! Want to transition to that role full-time?

ineedasername 7y ago
They may not want to be a PM, but that is what they have become. It shouldn't be a surprise that they don't get promoted into another role that requires an even higher level of non-PM technical work. If the "glue" in this scenario actually doesn't want to do the glue work, and wants to get promoted into technical SE roles, the appropriate thing to do would be to "manage upward" and make the organization aware of the need for more PM/Product Lead types of resources, while at the same time ensuring their own technical output is solid. I agree it is absolutely a crappy situation to need that glue work to be done and have no one tasked with doing it, but ignoring a portion of the work that is actually in your job description is counter productive if you want to get to an even more senior role that requires more of that work you haven't been doing. In short, the fact that someone has to become the glue to begin with means the organization has some structural issues. The path to take raising awareness of that problem, not ignoring a portion of your responsibilities.

ineedasername 7y ago

They may not want to be a PM, but that is what they have become. It shouldn't be a surprise that they don't get promoted into another role that requires an even higher level of non-PM technical work. If the "glue" in this scenario actually doesn't want to do the glue work, and wants to get promoted into technical SE roles, the appropriate thing to do would be to "manage upward" and make the organization aware of the need for more PM/Product Lead types of resources, while at the same time ensuring their own technical output is solid. I agree it is absolutely a crappy situation to need that glue work to be done and have no one tasked with doing it, but ignoring a portion of the work that is actually in your job description is counter productive if you want to get to an even more senior role that requires more of that work you haven't been doing. In short, the fact that someone has to become the glue to begin with means the organization has some structural issues. The path to take raising awareness of that problem, not ignoring a portion of your responsibilities.