Pros
I really felt obligated to create a review since the PM department seems to be under fire. As a veteran of several agencies, I've never seen a PM department work so hard to identify issues and work together to fix them both within the department and for the agency overall. This is the first agency I've worked at where PM manages a tremendous amount of responsibility, including finance, resource/staffing, budgeting, and day-to-day management on every type of tactic. The department is set up to foster growth and career development. We want to promote from within and avoid hiring external talent. I haven't seen any other departments at this agency place so much importance on developing junior talent. When it comes to taking strides to improve agency operations, it's important to realize that the success of these initiatives relies on cross-functional collaboration and adaptation. It obviously hurts PM morale to see some of these initiatives fail due a lack of commitment from those at the agency who deprioritize what we do to increase the quality and efficiency of our work.
Cons
I do feel like that account management department is weak in terms of talent and training for junior employees. I often find PM training junior account managers on behalf of their supervisors. There should be a stronger collaboration between strategy and account management to help our clients get the best support and guidance on a program level.