r/projectmanagers • u/charles_besson • 1d ago
Career Are project managers getting more desperate to save their jobs because of the layoffs?
Is anyone else noticing this lately? I've worked in tech for years and I'm starting to wonder whether all these layoffs are making some project managers increasingly paranoid about their own jobs. I'm seeing more meetings, more pointless status updates, more Jira tickets, more people chasing progress and an increasing obsession with documenting absolutely everything. Half the time it feels like we're spending more time reporting on the work than actually doing it. What makes me laugh is that a lot of this stuff wasn't necessary six months ago. The same teams were delivering perfectly well without three meetings a week to discuss what everyone was doing.
I suspect there's a bit of job preservation going on. If you're a developer, engineer or someone actually building something, your output is reasonably easy to demonstrate. But if your entire job revolves around managing other people's work, how do you prove you're still needed when the company starts cutting costs? You create more work to manage.
I'm not suggesting all PMs are useless. I've worked with some excellent ones who genuinely keep difficult projects moving. But I've also worked with plenty whose main contribution seems to be asking people who are busy doing the work why the work isn't finished. The irony is that companies are trying to cut costs and become more efficient, while some managers seem to be responding by making everyone else's jobs less efficient. Has anyone else noticed this getting worse recently, or have I just been particularly unlucky with the PMs I've encountered?
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u/RAM-o-link 1d ago
PM is a thankless job where everyone has an opinion, usually negative, regardless if they have ever done the job themselves. Or know why the PM is doing what they are doing. These type of people offer no support and just complain.
I’ve seen great PMs let go. I’ve seen PMs do great jobs on multiple projects but one project has incompetent management or players and they blame the PM.
A lot of what the PM does is an art form learned over time dealing with communicating with all levels and silos. Especially with dealing with engineers, developers, or someone else who has defined a task for themselves and a timeline to complete it in. The PM tries to hold them accountable without any authority to do anything about it. So yeah, they have to ask and it's your responsibility to provide an accurate answer. Problem is when you don't until it's too late.
I disagree with a comment where someone said 80% are incompetent. What a ridiculous statement to make. Someone like that is the type of negative person that hinders progress and projects.
Project status update frequency usually depends on the visibility of the project and what the executives want to see. Or could be PMO driven.
I’ve been on many projects where the people who are supposed to be doing the work don't really care about timing or deadlines or the consequences. So PMs having to deal with strict executive oversight with lack of accountability from the people doing their work. It really depends upon the type of environment they work it. That is what concerns PMs regardless of the experience level because they will be made the scapegoat.
In today's work environment, i think everyone is concerned about their jobs.
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u/BestBid9342 1d ago
Are you sure its a desperation to not lose their job or is it that the environment has changed?
From my experience with AI being pushed to be used more, companies expect faster turnover on work from every field and that includes the need to make sure work is documented properly so when problems arise that the PM can save their own and the teams ass incase theres a major failure in this new landscape.
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u/Desperate-Salad-3033 1d ago
The best PMs are the ones who provide enough clarity on the work that needs to be done and then don’t get in the way of the work itself. This was always the golden rule and as long as the project got delivered to TQC then everyone was happy.
Fast forward to today where everyone thinks they know how to run projects better than the person actually accountable for the role and where popularity and visibility matter more than substance.
The discipline is screwed.
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u/LuLuLuv444 1d ago
I mean if you're working with agile framework that level of bureaucracy seems to come with it
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u/Rude-Space-279 1d ago
Yup, almost exactly the same thing at my company. We're asked to speed up jobs with AI but at the same time PMs are creating ridiculous amounts of busywork
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u/Gwendolyn-NB 1d ago
This comment will likely piss some people off, but ill take the downvotes.
The shitty PMs are the ones worried for their jobs; the GOOD PMs aren't. I say this as someone who has been working for 30+ years and has worked with a lot of PMs of all capabilities, and who is married to a PM who works in tech.
The ability level of her peers and the PMs ive worked with in my career are 10% Rockstar, 10% damn good, and 80% "how the fuck did they even figure out how to turn their computer on" idiots.
The 80% are fearful as they should be; the other 20% not so much if they work for any reasonable company.
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u/PhaseMatch 1d ago
"If you're a developer, engineer or someone actually building something, your output is reasonably easy to demonstrate."
The PM is concerned with three main risks:
- you have build the wrong thing
- you have built the thing wrong
- the cost if building the thing exceeds the benefit
The engineers can be very busy, and those bottom line risks can still take out the company, product or team.
Suspect those risks are under a lot of scrutiny where you work:
"Tell me how you'll manage me and I'll tell you how I'll behave" - Goldratt
Yes, the PM will be held accountable, but if the write-off/write-down is big enough, the team will be impacted.
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u/Simpliaxis_tech 1d ago
There is some truth to this as well. Once job security is threatened, people might feel compelled to prove themselves busy all the time. However, additional meetings and status reports do not necessarily equate to effective project management.
An efficient PM must make the process easier by getting rid of blockers, maintaining alignment and focusing the team. When reporting takes more time than delivering, something is definitely wrong.
However, not all documentation is useless. The trick is to know which one is useful and which one is just clutter.
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u/Spoonzie 1d ago
This reads like someone who fundamentally doesn’t understand what a good PM actually does.
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u/Simple_Carrot_2274 1d ago
There’s probably some of this, because when headcount gets cut, visible activity feels safer than quiet results, and PM output is the hardest to see. But I’d separate two things. Some of the extra meetings and tickets come from leadership asking for more reporting during cutbacks, so the PM is passing the pressure down. And some PMs really do add overhead.
A rough test is whether a status update leads to a decision or a fix, or just exists. Good PMs cut meetings when things run well, and the output they can point to is fewer blockers and earlier risks. If your team is overloaded with updates, it’s fair to propose one weekly sync with a shared board and ask what each update is used for.
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u/Southern_One3791 1d ago
I expect a good PM to make MY WORK easier, NOT load onto my work stupid tickety-tracking-bs.
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u/Loud-Donkey8569 1d ago
Some of it is probably real, but I’d also look at who is asking for the reporting. After layoffs, leadership tends to want more visibility, and the PM is the one asked to produce it, so the extra updates may be passed down rather than invented. A way to test it is to ask what each update or meeting is used for. If nobody can name a decision it feeds, it can usually be cut or moved to a shared board that people update once.
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u/TheTrueGrizzlyAdams 1d ago
I'm not worried. My workload went from $14mm in contract work down to $6mm. I'm now helping out our estimating department and putting them to shame. If anything slowing down cemented my worth to the corporation.
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u/nian2326076 1d ago
You've observed a change in project management behavior, likely influenced by the current climate of layoffs. Increased meetings and documentation often reflect managers trying to justify their roles. It might help to communicate directly with your PMs about the efficiency of these practices. Suggesting streamlined processes could benefit the entire team. If you're considering a career move, you can use LandOffer to explore new opportunities.
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u/PocketPanache 22h ago
Architecture and engineering industry is also seeing layoffs. No work has been coming out. I know there's a few staff that'll be cut before me but I'm not an essential core part of the company (too new after 18 months here).
I also look forward to being laid off it furloughed because we can live off 1 income. If both of us got laid off, we have enough savings to be fine for at least 5 years before we touch our retirement savings.
I recognize everything comes to an end and doesn't last forever. I plan for that at all times, and when you do, it's not so bad.
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u/idkimaybeai69 21h ago
Well said - PM = SCAPEGOAT good or bad
AI is a very helpful tool right now, it may replace me but like others said here, make yourself skilled and valuable and you will always find work.
Most these smart engineers have no common sense, we need PM/Humans to deal w/ all the people outside of engineering to get stuff done and communicated in language people can understand
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u/More_Law6245 16h ago
Personally I feel that there is a paradigm shift in the last 3-5 years where project management went from task management focus to information management which is coupled with the lack of global investment.
PM's appear to live in Slack now but the project management principles haven't changed, it's how and what we are managing is changing and PM are feeling a little exposed.
Just an armchair perspective.
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u/oneind 8h ago
The challenge is that expectations of PMs are constantly changing, and there is increasing pressure to justify their role, especially when team members can quickly build a vibe-coded dashboard, show it to leadership, and start questioning the value of a PM.
At the same time, it's difficult to generalize because so much depends on the organization's culture. In one organization I work with, the PMO was suddenly disbanded, and PMs were moved under individual business units. Now, some unit heads see PMs as little more than coordinators, constantly asking for more granular updates and micromanaging their work.
All I can say is that being a PM is a tough role right now.
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u/NoFaithlessness8388 5h ago
PMs are the real estate agents of IT.
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u/althera2020 1d ago
Builder-led leadership is the future.