Can we please add Project Management as a migration path from Programmers?

Question

I just saw Can we please add http://sqa.stackexchange.com as a migration target? and in reading Tim Post's answer, I understand why SQA, or DBA would both make for poor migration paths away from programmers.

However, his thoughts only made my belief that Project Management should be a migration path from Programmers. We get quite a few PM based questions here, and while in the case of SQA or DBA there's good arguments that we have the expertise to give quality answers from a valuable perspective (that of a programmer). Questions that might be migrated in those directions could plausibly be riff-raff programmers just didn't want, which would be bad for those sites. On both of these points though Project Management is completely different.

Often times PM type questions don't get much input as many of us may know the topic, but not at the detailed level to cite evidence in any fashion other than personal experience, which isn't the best way to answer a question. Also I can't imagine programmers trying to only migrate the low quality PM questions, as even good PM questions we're unlikely to have particularly good answers for. I do get that we give the programmers perspective on these questions, but more often than not the PM questions I've seen here aren't looking for that necessarily.

Answer 1

As mentioned in Tim Post's answer, beta sites are never targets for migration. So this is (going to be) declined until after PM comes out of Beta. Given a recent discussion on the PM Meta site, that's still a ways out.

However, I do not think that this site should have a migration path to PM.SE, even after PM is out of beta. As someone who has formal education and work experience managing software teams, projects, and processes, I can tell you that running software-intensive projects is inherently different than running other project types, such as hardware-oriented or construction projects. I'm not going to get into the specifics now (I suppose I could, if you really wanted me to, but just taking a look at the wealth of resources specifically devoted to executing software projects by McConnell, Kan, Humphrey, Boehm, Turner, and Weigers should be sufficient). I don't see that many questions here that aren't about running software-intensive projects. Even if the material is not unique to software projects (and to know that, one would have to understand managing software projects, but non-software and multi-disciplinary projects as well), the answers here will likely take on a software-slant.

If you were thinking about removing software project management questions - which would remove questions about agile, RUP, CMMI, TSP, PSP, the rest of the development methodologies and process models, scheduling, budgeting, estimation, engineering economy applied to software (1/5 of the topics that comprise the definition of software engineering) - I know that I probably wouldn't visit this site as much since my whole area of expertise would no longer be on-topic here. Sure, requirements engineering, architecture, and design would remain on-topic (and I'm interested in and have to work in those areas), but my primary interests and professional background would be elsewhere.

Perhaps a better question might be how to attract software team leaders, project managers, and people with experience in these areas to this site.