The mental struggling from a software engineer to a project manager

A technical geek to a people-centric individual

I know some software engineers might have though of becoming a project manager, but never take actions to try it. I bet there must be some inner voice murmuring in your brain. You could take a look at if those was once happened to you.

“I’m used to solving technical problems, but I am unfamiliar with handling people-related issues.”

“I wish I had more training in project management and team leadership

“I’m not sure how to handle the pressure of managing deadlines and expectations.”

“I feel like I’m losing touch with the technical aspects of the project.”
…

When I became a scrum master, I did see a different perspective when I tried to facilitate ceremonies to help the teams engage in the discussion. At that time, I started feeling I was not a software engineer and needed to sense the social dynamics among the members to push progress.

For example, I had to look at the burn-down chart and asked someone about the status quo of sprint backlogs. Also, I felt kind of away from technical details as I had to manage the project since I won’t have time to trace code. I had to build trust with the members to encourage them to tell me the truth, and make corresponding adaptations.

If you have those voices in your mind and still have no idea how to start transitioning to the project management roles. I think it very normal because for most engineer, they don’t want to give up all the things they already have and to pursue a goal they are unfamiliar with. To speak it more clearly, they don’t have a roadmap to operate the career path.

However, what if you really want to make the transition? What should you do? In my opinion, I would suggest you take 3 steps to cultivate your project management skills, without instantly transitioning to the PM role.

👉 Develop Soft Skills

Software engineers could focus on improving their soft skills, such as communication, empathy, active listening, and conflict resolution. These skills are crucial for effective collaboration with team members and stakeholders.

The most direct approach to doing this to proactively engaging various meetings, and you could ask your manager to help you with this. I think they would be happy someone is willing to share their workloads, and the process would assist you discover shortcomings in soft skills and seek further improvement.

👉 Understand Team Dynamics

Instead of strengthening your programming skills, try to take the time to understand the dynamics of the development team. Get to know each team member’s strengths, weaknesses, and individual working styles. This understanding will help you tailor your approach to better motivate and support each team member.

It is controlling resources that matters for a project manager to get things done. And the team members are the resources that could help you achieve the project goals, no matter reducing risks or deliver features. So knowing their strengths, weaknesses, and characteristics would help you know how to maximize the team performance, which would be a strong abstract skill.

👉 Facilitate and Empower

As a former software engineer, I disliked being instructed to do these and those. Instead, I prefer to self-organize my work and take ownership. Therefore, as a project manager is able to embrace the role of a facilitator and coach rather than a directive manager, I would be encouraged to do more things since I know I could take more control over my work.

Encouraging self-organization and empowering team members to make decisions is an important characteristic a prominent project manager should have. The role provides guidance and support when needed, but let the team take ownership of their work and contribute to the project’s success.

If you could control the above 3 tips, I bet you would start feeling the team works automatically without strong push, and you have more time to investigate the skills a project manager should have.

For example, when I became a technical project manager, my first mission was to help the team adopt the scrum framework. So I started training them how to write product backlogs and select sufficient amount of items for each sprint based on the measured story points burn down. This did eliminate unnecessary time consumption for the engineers to overwork and built trust with them. So I could focus more on managing the risks of projects because they have a clear indicator to balance their workloads.

Are you still have similar thoughts in your mind and have no idea how to put it into practice? I would recommend you to have a talk with a mentor or anyone who have similar experience transitioning from a software engineer to a PM role.

By the way, now I am developing an online course about agile project management for those who’d like to transition to PM roles. So I provide an 1–1 free online consulting service for people who need help with their project management issues.

If needed, never hesitate to reserve a web call with me through the below link. Anyone who reserve for the call would be rewarded with a free material to improve your project management skills.

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👉 Book now: https://calendly.com/uragilecoach/consulting
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🎁 Anyone who reserves for the web call would be rewarded with a secret gift that helps you grow on project management skills.

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