Korwen posted:

Hey BFC goons, I'm currently a project manager for an MSP (Information Technology outsourcing company basically) and I'm about to start searching for a new job.

The question I'm trying to answer is, is project management even the field I want to be in, or should I look at other career paths.

The reason I'm not sure is because my current position's responsibilities have changed drastically from what they were when I was hired.

Originally my tasks were to manage the administrative overhead associated with our projects. This was stuff such as doing all the opening data entry in our PM software, scheduling meetings to get projects started, or cadence calls as they were ongoing, monitoring the budget and schedule throughout, running our daily scrum meetings and then any paperwork and administrative tasks as the project closed.

That is a very big-picture overview of the job responsibilities initially. I also worked alongside a team lead, who had a thorough understanding of the actual technical work being done, did the project scoping and estimating, and also managed the employees on the team. I would help develop and monitor team KPI's, but when it came time to manage the team members, 1 on 1s, etc, that fell to the team lead.

Then that team lead left, and all of the team personnel management tasks have fallen to me, and I am not happy with that work. I'm a numbers and data person, but I'm not a disciplinarian, nor am I a particularly great motivator. I'm happy to track metrics to show everyone how much work needs doing, and what our deadlines are, but I don't like having to coach the individuals, do 1 on 1s, hire/fire, or other tasks associated with personnel management.

So my question is, if I like the administrative work, data analytics, and meeting scheduling/coordination parts of my role as a project manager, but do not have the desire to be a leader of employees, is project management the right field for me?