[Dennis Kalma]

Hi there Stijn, I have been in the IT management/executive game for 20+ years....

A few questions.

Do you like people? Do you like people with all their quirks and habits? Do you like people who disagree with you as much as you like people who agree with you?

Basically if you do not fundamentally like people and like seeing them grow and develop then you should never go into management of any kind...because the work is getting people to do good work to get a good result in a reasonable way.

Second, are you comfortable with the difference between project management and line management? There is a big difference and many PM's do not transition well. In my mind, the difference between a PM and a LM is that the PM consumes organizational capacity while the LM creates organizational capacity. Very different and needing fairly different skills. A PM is mainly focused on delivery, while the LM focuses on fit of people and skills to problem...long term.

Last, and it has been mentioned, it is an internal service job, you have no real competition and no way to really prove yourself "good enough". It is a goal tenders position, if you do the absolute best job ever, you come out even for the business....you haven't lost anything for the company.


Oh yeah....a line one of my mentors told me that has stuck through 25 years....management is the science of making people do what you want. Leadership is the art of making people want what you want.

Happy to help....

Dennis