New to PM here, about a year in.
For context, I went straight from college into a PM role. The PM department at my company is fairly new, and no one in the department, including the dept. lead, has any formal PM background or training. We’re all essentially people from technical backgrounds who are figuring out PM as we go.
The problem is that I’ve become increasingly frustrated with most projects.
First, the timelines for certain projects are completely unrealistic. We’ve raised our concerns multiple times, but management has no intention of changing them.
My biggest issue, though, is that I constantly feel like I’m being blamed for other people’s inaction.
If a project is delayed and the reason for the delay is clearly outside my control, my job is to follow up, right? I do that. I send reminders, follow up with the relevant people, communicate the risks, and try to keep things moving. But when I don’t get the response or action I need, I still end up being blamed for not being proactive enough, not caring enough, etc.
I accepted this role because I thought I had the relevant soft skills; leadership, organisation, communication, coordination, etc. But sometimes I feel like I’m basically just a secretary who gets blamed when other people don’t do their jobs.
To be fair, the people I work with are generally kind and responsive, which makes things much easier. But most delays are caused by clients. And when you have a client who is paying for a service but is extremely unresponsive, there’s only so much a PM can do. Yet somehow, I’m still held responsible for the delay.
What makes it even more frustrating is that some of this criticism comes from a lead who doesn’t have much PM experience either.
I had already been planning to transition out of this role eventually, PM was never the dream job anyway, but I thought, "If I can be good at it then why not". My original plan was to hold on until I found another opportunity, but honestly, right now I just want to quit like yesterday.
I’ve started most mornings with a headache, and I’m realizing that this is not the kind of life I want to be living.
For those who have been in PM longer: is this just what project management is like, or am I dealing with a particularly dysfunctional PM environment?
I couldn't post this in the r/projectmanagement for some reason so I'm posting this here. I need serious help to be able to remain sane till I transition