My budget is bigger than your budget

I’ve had a number of conversations with recruiters over the last few weeks where the subject of budget size has cropped up, and it’s got me thinking about whether there’s any correlation between budget size and effectiveness as a project manager. For some recruiters, it’s an obsession with absolute size - what’s the biggest budget you’ve ever worked with, and bigger is better. For others, there’s a more measured approach - although values are of interest, so are proportions and percentages.

The budget I learnt most from was also the smallest I’ve worked with for that type of project. The total amount would have been a rounding error on larger programs, but the impact on the organisation was disproportionately large precisely because their budget was so small. But to someone obsessed with absolute size, this situation would be dismissed as irrelevant as a result of falling below some arbitrary threshold.

The same thought process also seems to hold true for team sizes - again, bigger is better in some eyes. I’d argue that the reverse can equally well be the case - a manager with some insight is likely to realise that there’s a finite number of direct reports that they can manage, and sub-divide the team down accordingly. The clueless ones are those who will try to split their attention between an impossible number, and reap the consequences.

Recently I read an article where an experienced recruiter of project managers said that he’d never recruit someone unless they could give him a detailed explanation of why one of their projects had failed. I’d add another rule of thumb to that one - if your candidate insists that their biggest was their best, perhaps that’s a sign that they haven’t thought it through…

Filed under Project Management |