Project Management in Practice: The Project Management Career Path at AT&T
As a result of the many changes in the phone industry, AT&T realized the old ways of doing
business would not be competitive in the new market they now faced and decided to re-engineer
their whole process of providing technology to the market. They decided that organizing by
project management would give them better control over their business and bring them a
competitive advantage. Thus, they set the goal of becoming the leader in project management in
the industry.
AT&T had previously used project managers in many of its activities but in a significantly
different way. For instance, it was more of a project coordination responsibility that could be
completed through achieving the activities on a task list. However, the position was
of low status and seen as only a temporary activity serving to carry someone on to a better
functional manager position. Thus, the reward for doing a good job was to move into a functional
position and get out of project management.
AT&T realized it would have to change the whole nature of the project management role, and
the entire structure of the organization as well, if it were to be successful in this strategy. They
needed to develop professional project managers, plus a support system to maintain their abilities
and careers in project management. The managerial mentality of two or three years on a project
and then moving on to a functional job had to be changed to an attitude of professional pride in
project management and staying in the field for the remainder of their careers. Equally important,
the organizational mentality of admiring heroic rescues of projects in trouble had to be replaced
with admiration for doing a competent job from the beginning and time after time
The reorganization of project management was a major project, including the areas of
candidate selection, education and training, compensation, career development, organizational
restructuring, and methods development. In terms of organizational structure, a National Project
Management (NPM) organization was created at the corporate level, reporting to the service
operating vice-president. Reporting to the director of NPM were three project directors spread
across the United States, a systems support organization, and a methods and support staff.
Program managers, project managers, and their subordinates reported to the project directors.
