Why the military produces natural project managers

Service leavers often talk about moving into project management when they transition out of the military, but the truth is, they have likely been managing projects for a number of years already. Like their civilian counterparts, experience may determine the size, scale and complexity of the project, but the experience is there, nonetheless.

Service leavers in their transition out of the military reach out to supporting parties, attend events and webinars and are always told that they have ‘transferable skills’. If pushed a bit further, then the advising person will say the service leaver is good at organising, planning, leading and is punctual! It can be argued that most people have these skills and that they can be associated with a lot of roles, not just project management.

So, what is it that really makes a service leaver a good fit as a project manager?

No comms, no bombs

When asking a service leaver to describe a project they have managed, they will typically describe the early phase and tasks, and then jump right to the end. This is not because they have done nothing in between, but because project management tasks are so ingrained in their heads, they do them without even thinking.

When you scratch beneath the surface, project management is part of their day-to-day working lives. They just call the tasks different things (the military has its own language and terminology) or do them so instinctively that they do not consider them to be tasks!

Here are a few examples of the strength of an ex-military project manager:

1. Risk and issue management

A service leaver has lived and breathed this for many years. In everything they do, they are always thinking ‘What if?’, ‘In the event of…’, followed by ‘What would I do?’, ‘What are my options?’ and ‘Can I make a decision myself or should I escalate the issue?’

2. Resource management

The military is such a diverse and hierarchical organisation that no project can take place without the project manager having matrix management of cross-functional skills. The service leaver will have managed in a matrix environment before, but may not use the term ‘matrix’. However, they will be accustomed to a matrix way of working, just thinking of it as working alongside multiple troops, trades and cap badges to provide the different experience and expertise required to successfully deliver projects.

3. Time, cost, quality

The guiding principles of project management are what a service leaver adheres to in the values and standards that they live by. All of these principles are the standards a service leaver seeks to achieve. As with their civilian counterparts, a re-baselining of any of these requires thorough consideration, planning and agreement. The only difference is what a service leaver calls ‘re-baselining’.

4. Communication

This is critical to how the military operates. How information is passed up and down the chain of command and to other stakeholders is no different in the military than in a civilian setting. Who needs what information and when? Who needs up-to-date information, and how often? While ‘no comms, no bombs’ is a phrase far removed from a civilian project setting, the principle behind it is entirely comparable – without clear and concise communication a project will not succeed.

5. Big picture

Often a project manager can get too focused on just their delivery and lose sight of the wider organisational need, but this is where a service leaver comes to the fore. They often think of ‘we’ rather than ‘I’. It is ingrained from their first day in service to think of their team, the unit, the organisation and not themselves. They understand that people and projects are about the sum of their parts, and that nothing can be achieved without teamwork and collaboration.

So, to return to the question of why service leavers are a good fit as project managers, it is not that they are just a good fit – they are project managers and have been for many years.

 

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