Is it possible for a devleoper to shift from development to management

This is a 'loaded' question. I voted yes, but my argument is against.

Many times in the IT, managers are people without any form of education. Well, they might have an education, let's say they finished University in let's say Biology, or Economy or maths or something else, but not many of them have any form of education, which is related to be a manager of any type.

Then managers of the company (mostly also uneducated for the job) make such person a manager for something. Let's say they make the person a team leader, or project manager. Something even more funnier, they make the person R&D manager or even CTO.

So far, so good.

When you ask them do they know project management, they all nod. "Of course they do." What is that then? you ask. 'That's working with MS Project 2008' is the answer many times.

In reality they have absolutely no idea what project management is. They have no formal education in management, project management, psychology, administrative and financial management.

They don't know what lag-time is, they have no idea how to calculate a normal schedule, they don't know the critical path, they don't know how to calculate the number of expected bugs in a project, they have no idea about development and organizational methodologies.

It's the same as taking your grand mother without any form of any education and place her in the management position. That might be in many cases even better, thinking about that, at least she has the experience of age.

Summarizing, as a developer, you can't become a manager. Maximum you might become a senior programmer after a while. That is the maximum what a programmer or developer can be, nothing else.