Your first reaction is probably to sigh with relief. Don't. This could be even worse to handle than if she were resigning. Now you're faced with two problems: keeping her happy and ensuring continuity of work. For the rest of this column, I assume you do want to retain this person's services—this is a key person, well motivated, efficient, and well integrated into your group. Clearly, if you want to get rid of her, this is a great opportunity—make it obvious that no such opening exists and hope she finds a job elsewhere. Here are some suggestions on how to make sure you come out of that meeting with a win-win result.

What's So Great About Management?
Start by asking your management wannabe to explain why he wants to want to move into management. Remember, our culture tends to value management over technical skills and, all too often, managers are better rewarded than those whom they manage. The first thing to check, therefore, is whether he really wants to manage as a change from technical work or if he is hungering after a perceived potential salary. Many engineering companies have two career paths specifically to address this issue—allowing technical people to rise to high levels with appropriate remuneration without changing into management. You may need to create such a scale if one does not exist at your company, but this is a great way to retain key staff.

Signs of Management Talent
Just because someone wants to be a manager doesn't mean you should encourage him or her. Here's a check list of talents your candidate manager needs to succeed in changing career paths... Click here.

The next step is to find out what she thinks a management role involves. As you and I know, management involves doing the things other people don't want to do, especially attending meetings, documenting things, and spending half your life on the phone. Management is about facilitation: allowing the rest of the team to get on with the real work with a minimum of interference. This might not be the image a technical person has of management—she may think it's all cocktails and offsite strategic planning sessions.

Okay, so that's an exaggeration, but it's easy for people to misunderstand what others in the team do. The best way of dispelling that myth is to find a way of letting the person experience another role without betting the farm on his performance. One option would be to delegate some additional responsibilities to him and to include him in some of the more boring meetings. This can help give him a flavor of what your workload is like.

Savoring the delights of the essential overhead functions can certainly help sort out those with a vague notion for trying out management and those committed to a meeting-filled future. Not only that, but line management can change the nature of your relationship with other team members. From being a coworker to setting someone's salary is a big jump. The social and personal impact of this must not be underestimated.

And it's not only the risk of swapping a t-shirt for a jacket and tie; the nature of the work also changes. As you know only too well, you don't do any "real" work at all. As a manager, you are effectively overhead and we have to learn to live with that. You need to make sure anyone considering moving to the management stream understands that. Some people confuse management with technical leadership or direction. They need to be disabused of this rapidly. If even the prospect of being the butt of innumerable pointy-haired jokes isn't enough to put him off, you need to identify a role that can help this person expand.

Role with It
Typically, someone with management aspirations is already a project leader, so extending her range of responsibilities is relatively easy. Unless, of course, she is already banging her head against an existing manager. This might happen when a new team has recently been formed and everyone wants to progress in their careers, but the top folks don't have anywhere to go. In IT, most people in that circumstance are way too young to be thinking of passing their days on the golf course, so the prospect of a long-term problem exists.

Of course, if the person looking to move into the management stream is not currently running a project, you need to push him that way first. You can explain that he needs to go through this role before moving into formal management and such an opening is likely to appear in the next few months. Here, you have to hope for a rational response and a degree of patience. To most people, it should be obvious you can't just spin a management role out of nowhere—the role has to serve a purpose. However, coming up with an alternative while waiting for the opportunity to arise might be possible.

One way of looking at this is to create roles with functional responsibility, rather than the traditional structural aspects of project management. Most likely, no team of five developers is hungrily waiting to be managed but, almost certainly, areas exist to which you don't give as much attention as you should. For example, say that for lack of time— or, more honestly, lack of interest—you don't put much effort into the process-improvement initiative. Here's an opportunity to put someone in charge, with real responsibilities and some limited resources to allocate—even if it is only himself.

Quite possibly, what this person really wants is some extra visibility or a change from the normal routine. This might include communication outside your team or even outside your company, which is valuable experience for the future.

Structured correctly, this option can certainly give the chance to demonstrate communication skills and initiative. You must provide support and mentoring in both these areas and monitor progress closely—take the person under your wing. This has the double benefit of making your ambitious team member feel both wanted and valued, which are reasons for dissatisfaction in themselves.

Safety Net
The idea of giving someone additional responsibilities and tasks is like giving someone enough rope to hang himself. It allows him to demonstrate skills outside of his normal area of expertise, but also carries the risk he might not make the grade. It's all very well to want to be more communicative and to take on more responsibility, but not everyone can do this.

This is why you need to monitor this person's performance much more closely than you normally would and to act at the slightest sign of problems. Being able to let her return gracefully to her previous role and without loss of face is important. You can easily say the person's special software talents are needed because of an upturn in work (or some such story) to cover her return to normal duties.

You need to keep this kind of option open because it's highly likely that only one of your best people would harbor the desire to move into management. This is quite natural as he has already mastered all of his existing skills and is no longer feeling challenged. Someone for whom the daily process of software creation and network organization is still exciting and difficult will not be looking for a change in direction.

The Real Thing
Or, your budding manager may feel she's being fobbed off with some kind of placebo role. She wants the real thing, with the title, squabbles to resolve, and full-line management responsibility. It's highly unlikely that she actively wants your job, just one like it. Not that this helps.

Assuming he does have project leadership experience and that a functional role doesn't meet his needs, there is a high risk you could lose him to another company. That would be annoying, given all the time and energy you invested in him.

One option might be to try and find a management opening in another part of the company. You might be losing a valued team member, but at least the company is not losing her all together. This could also give her a fresh start in the management stream without any special baggage from your group.