When choosing between an internal project manager and a contractor project manager, understanding the benefits of each is crucial.
While internal hires might offer cultural integration and long-term continuity, contractors might provide significant advantages such as unbiased perspectives, specialized expertise, immediate readiness without training needs, and considerable cost savings.
And what if instead of one project manager, your project could count with a team of dedicated professionals?
Benefits of hiring an internal Project Manager
Hiring internally provides a manager deeply integrated with your company's culture and operations. Internal project managers are familiar with the organizational dynamics, internal systems, and long-term strategic goals.
Challenges of hiring an internal Project Manager
- Higher costs: Internal project managers come with additional financial obligations, including salaries, employee benefits, retirement plans, health insurance, taxes, and other overhead expenses.
- Training and ramp-up time: Internal hires typically require significant training and onboarding, delaying the start of productive project work.
- Liability and long-term commitment: Employees represent long-term liabilities to an organization, creating ongoing obligations even when project needs fluctuate.
The benefits of a contractor Project Manager
- Objective perspective: Contractor project managers bring a fresh and unbiased viewpoint. They're free from internal office politics or personal agendas that can sometimes hinder progress.
- Asking the hard questions: Because they're not tied to internal career progression, contractor project managers have the freedom to ask challenging questions that internal staff might hesitate to pose.
- Specialized expertise and immediate readiness: Contractors often come with specialized experience and best practices from multiple industries and diverse projects.
- Cost benefits and flexibility: Hiring a contractor is typically far more cost-effective than employing a full-time internal project manager.
The Advantages of Hiring Agile Management as a Service
Choosing to hire a dedicated team of contractor agile project managers brings additional benefits:
- Continuous support: With a project management team, you typically have a primary and a secondary manager dedicated to your project. This ensures continuous, uninterrupted support.
- Collective expertise and continuous improvement: A team of contractors brings diverse perspectives and collective expertise.
- Seamless scalability: The team-based approach allows easy scalability according to project needs.
- No Downtime: With a dedicated team, your project management remains fully operational every day.
Making the Right Choice
While internal and individual contractor models have their merits, a dedicated project management team provides unmatched reliability, continuity, innovation, and cost-effectiveness.