Transitioning into Software Project Management from Heavy Construction Industries

As we’re constantly being reminded by the latest financial statements, COVID-19 is devastating the economy and as a result, many capital intensive industries are getting hit hard. From construction to oil and gas to aviation, building anything that requires the physical presence of large teams becomes much more challenging, because you run the risk of people getting sick.

However, some industries are actually flourishing during the pandemic, like software. With the whole world working remotely, productivity software has gone from a luxury to necessity overnight — just look at the popularity of Microsoft Teams. 

As a heavy construction project manager, you might be considering the slowdown a good time  to transition into software, and while such a drastic change may seem daunting at first, it’s actually not as difficult as you think. 

I’m a heavy construction project manager who has also built and designed a software program from the ground up, so I have working knowledge of what’s involved in software projects. From my perspective, transitioning from heavy construction project management into software project management is a heck of a lot easier than the other way around. Here’s why.

You’re not dealing with real-world materials.

As a heavy construction project manager, there’s a higher level of precision that’s required because you’re building things that exist in the real world. Pouring concrete foundations, buying steel, welding pipes — any error that’s made will not only be costly, it could endanger people’s lives.

When you work in software, it’s completely different. Since you’re building and testing things in a non-real, virtual environment, mistakes aren’t nearly as costly. All you need is a person that can code, a computer and a server — all of which can be obtained for under $1000. Make a mistake? You simply tweak a couple lines of code and you’re good to go.

There’s a lot less risk involved.

That being said, there’s a lot less risk involved when you build things virtually. Worst case scenarios aren’t as extreme and as a result, are easier to manage.

With heavy construction project management, the stakes are incredibly high. If you don’t build an oil and gas platform correctly, for instance, it could blow up or sink. With so many different parties involved in its construction (and so many things that could go wrong), the thousands upon thousands of moving parts add a complexity that makes risk mitigation much more challenging for heavy construction project managers. In fact, there are teams of people that spend countless hours analyzing, searching and looking for hazards that could pose a threat.

Agile is a breeze compared to what we do.

Worried about learning Agile? If you’ve done heavy construction project management, you’ll have no difficulty because it’s a lot simpler than what we’re used to.

It’s essentially a task management system made for the software development industry, and it’s all about working really quickly to achieve certain goals. There’s a “standup” meeting everyday where goals for the day are set as well as potential roadblocks.

Agile is really helpful if you have a smaller project that doesn’t have too many interfaces or high risk decisions. With oil and gas projects, for example, I can’t just wake up and say, “Okay, today we have to decide if we can put this building here.” There’s an extensive process involved before that decision can be made that includes engineering studies, blast analysis, environmental impacts, electrical design and instrumentation design — the list goes on. But with software, you can move really fast because the risks are so low when making tweaks. If it doesn’t work out, you can always remove the lines of code and go to the previous version in GitHub.

You don’t need to know a ton about programming.

Maybe Agile isn’t on your list of concerns, but not knowing enough about programming is. From the project management side of things, there are so many tools that make working in digital environments easy, one of the most popular being GitHub.

Basically, all of the code is stored there and changes and comments are made to a project in real time, similar to a Word document on Google Drive. It’s more like editing a paper than managing a project, so the learning curve isn’t all that steep.

A lot of what you’ll be doing remains the same.

Knowing how long certain tasks take to complete is vital to both heavy construction and software project management, and as you’re getting accustomed to the software space, you’ll become better at gauging that.

Contract structure is also very similar in both industries. If you don’t scope a lump sum contract well, for instance, you’ll get change ordered to death by the vendor. This is a universal truth.

Once you get past the core differences between heavy construction and software project management, the foundations of project management remain the same. You’re in charge of managing resources, money and time to get a project done, only this time you’re building with 0’s and 1’s instead of concrete and steel beams.

So what do you think? Is it easier to transition into software project management from heavy construction than the other way around? Let me know in the comments below.

For more on project management, visit: theomarproject.com.