I’m returning to this very recurring topic of the transition to Scrum/XP which is the upheaval of roles and responsibilities. In the course of one of my recent assignments, two project managers announced that they would soon give their resignations if we continued down this path (Scrum/XP). It must be said that to fight against habits I tend to want to “unbalance the routine”.

Indeed, the “project manager” is undermined by agile organization. For people who have constantly been asked to be (somewhat) good in 3 areas at once: in management, on functional aspects, and on technical aspects, they are suddenly asked to choose between one of the 3 areas (management, meaning the scrummaster, functional aspect meaning the product owner, technical aspect meaning one of the team members). Drama.

It must be understood that being a “project manager” is often a long journey. Many project managers are people with quite a bit of seniority who had to be rewarded. And granting project manager status is also a way to better compensate certain people. An aberration that means some people who love the technical side have become, willingly or not, project managers to finally be able to climb the ladder (i.e. increase their salary). It would have been better to have a technical career path worthy of the name (I’ll come back to this).

Small aside: it’s normal to want to be rewarded, it’s normal to want to earn more money.

And so the agile drama is that we’re going to tell these people: either you definitively acknowledge that you want to manage and you become a scrummaster (but no more code, estimates, etc.), or you confirm that technology is your thing and you rejoin the team. Ouch. There everyone complains. The ex-project manager who feels like they’re “falling back in line” (and how will they negotiate their salary, their raises, their rank! etc.) and the team: why would they be paid more than us? The third scenario: the “project manager” becomes product owner is rarer because the product owner role is often attributed (for good or bad reasons) to people hierarchically higher ranked than the “project manager”.

If the “project manager” wanted to move towards the functional side and they become product owner, things generally go well.

If the “project manager” wanted to move towards management and they become scrummaster, things generally go well.

In all other cases tensions and difficulties appear.

To overcome these difficulties, one of the main solutions I recommend: acknowledge the real existence of a well-paid senior technical career within the company. This path is sorely lacking in French companies. One must be able to be part of a team while claiming a high-level and technical career tier, and therefore well compensated. People interested in technology must be able to have a real career in this branch. Don’t hesitate at the HR level (and therefore concerning compensation) to highlight senior profiles, expert, technical lead, etc. that allow for “profile” advancement (with appropriate salary) and not necessarily hierarchical advancement.

Because in any case our hierarchies are quite flat and if you want to progress further after having been “project manager” what are the options available to you? Let’s say for IT service companies: Project Director, then agency director, etc. Or for software publishers: Technical Director, then… Many candidates, few positions. No secret here: either you’re the right person, or you’ll have to change companies to climb the ladder faster, or climb the ladder at all. Agile doesn’t talk about this, because it has nothing more to promise on this subject (except for true fulfillment within a team, or a group of people, which is not nothing in the end).

HR confirmed to me that indeed a project manager could resign and take their case to labor court to win, because changing their “roadmap” like this was a valid reason for contract termination.

Rest assured, none of the project managers resigned and they appreciate the new working conditions.