Love em' or hate 'em.....

[Tensai]

I woudl have liked to have voted for the "usually flipign useless, but a good one is worth his weight in gold" option.

Now there's a whole different discussion....

[SallyAnne]

I woudl have liked to have voted for the

"usually f*ckign useless, but a good one is worth his weight in gold"

option.


I'm a developer.

[Tensai]

I'm glad to see that you as a new PM understand about the stakeholder management side of things, with that under your belt you will be fine.

Coming up to 10 years experience, but glad I come across as youthful

Most people seem to think that the mechanical approach (keeping the plan up to date, writing docs etc.) is the job.

Usually in big corps there is a team of PMO Nazis whose job it is to harrass the PMs to keep the bureaucratic stuff up to date. They're just one more group of people to keep happy.... I personally hate all that process, 90% of it is bulltulip and just slows things down.

[Zippy]

The problem is that it is a very difficult job to do well, and I'm afraid that most PMs give in to the temptation to run around harassing resources and not trying to smooth the path for them.
You need to be tough but personable (a truely rare combination) and you need to be able to keep calm (again, pretty rare) when it goes tits up. Most people seem to think that the mechanical approach (keeping the plan up to date, writing docs etc.) is the job.

[TykeMerc]

Coming from a techie background has benefits, e.g. knowing when someone is bulltuliping you technically, and the implications of potential scope changes.

Also agree that stakeholder management is key, and one of the toughest parts of the job. Anyone with half a brain can schedule jobs and do all the mechanical PM stuff. Trying to keep everyone happy is the insanely tough part, and also knowing when you should say "No" to stupid requests.

Project management is indeed an art - some are Michelangelo, and some are finger painters.

Oh I'm an Infrastructure/Systems Engineer (15 years pure tech) backgrounded PM btw, I agree re the bull and flannel issues. I'm glad to see that you as a new PM understand about the stakeholder management side of things, with that under your belt you will be fine.

[Tensai]

Experience is the key, you learn to juggle tasks, concentrate on the important stuff (prioritise), manage the stakeholders (critical) and delegate. Coming from a technical background can be a hindrance at times as you have to resist the urge to do the technical stuff and get lost in the minutae, Manage and don't Do is essential.
On the big projects you compartmentalise things into rational stages, but maintain a "big picture" view on the eternal PM triangle Cost-Quality-Time, a lot of it is pure common sense.

Generalising massively here, but you need to dump the coder mindset to PM effectively, coders tend to focus too hard on single tasks so they struggle at true Project Management until they learn to change.

My advice for all new PM's is focus on the stakeholders (that's customers, users, suppliers, techies, everyone involved in the project), if you get that right then when the inevitable issues appear you can get things resolved amicably.

Sorry for all the hackneyed phrases, but they are applicable (if a tad lame).

Oh and Project Management is more of an art than a science (again massive generalisation)

Coming from a techie background has benefits, e.g. knowing when someone is bulltuliping you technically, and the implications of potential scope changes.

Also agree that stakeholder management is key, and one of the toughest parts of the job. Anyone with half a brain can schedule jobs and do all the mechanical PM stuff. Trying to keep everyone happy is the insanely tough part, and also knowing when you should say "No" to stupid requests.

Project management is indeed an art - some are Michelangelo, and some are finger painters.

[TykeMerc]

As an accidental addition to the PMs out there, I've certainly gained some respect for those who do the job well. As a developer I'm used to focusing on my one task, then moving onto the next... that task may be something large like "design this database" but I'm still locked into one task.
On the other hand as a PM I am having to think ahead to tasks the developers will be working on in 1-2 weeks and find where requirements need clarifying to ask the customer now, so an answer will be there in time. I'm also responding to answers to questions I asked a week ago, for tasks the developers are due to start. I'm also actually managing allocating the tasks to developers and keeping track of their progress. Finally, I'm getting feedback from the customer about features we did 1-2 weeks ago.
Not including the overall project schedule, I'm constantly having to work in about 4 different weeks at the same time... and this is a small project, I'm sure a 'proper PM' would be working over much larger time scales and everything would be magnified. I won't say it's intrinsically harder than coding, but it's very different!

Would any 'real' PMs care to comment on my view as a noob to the field?

Experience is the key, you learn to juggle tasks, concentrate on the important stuff (prioritise), manage the stakeholders (critical) and delegate. Coming from a technical background can be a hindrance at times as you have to resist the urge to do the technical stuff and get lost in the minutae, Manage and don't Do is essential.
On the big projects you compartmentalise things into rational stages, but maintain a "big picture" view on the eternal PM triangle Cost-Quality-Time, a lot of it is pure common sense.

Generalising massively here, but you need to dump the coder mindset to PM effectively, coders tend to focus too hard on single tasks so they struggle at true Project Management until they learn to change.

My advice for all new PM's is focus on the stakeholders (that's customers, users, suppliers, techies, everyone involved in the project), if you get that right then when the inevitable issues appear you can get things resolved amicably.

Sorry for all the hackneyed phrases, but they are applicable (if a tad lame).

Oh and Project Management is more of an art than a science (again massive generalisation)

[d000hg]

As an accidental addition to the PMs out there, I've certainly gained some respect for those who do the job well. As a developer I'm used to focusing on my one task, then moving onto the next... that task may be something large like "design this database" but I'm still locked into one task.
On the other hand as a PM I am having to think ahead to tasks the developers will be working on in 1-2 weeks and find where requirements need clarifying to ask the customer now, so an answer will be there in time. I'm also responding to answers to questions I asked a week ago, for tasks the developers are due to start. I'm also actually managing allocating the tasks to developers and keeping track of their progress. Finally, I'm getting feedback from the customer about features we did 1-2 weeks ago.
Not including the overall project schedule, I'm constantly having to work in about 4 different weeks at the same time... and this is a small project, I'm sure a 'proper PM' would be working over much larger time scales and everything would be magnified. I won't say it's intrinsically harder than coding, but it's very different!

Would any 'real' PMs care to comment on my view as a noob to the field?

[TykeMerc]

It's tough being QUITE this handsome, I'm sure you'll agree.

Indeed, it's burdensome, but I cope.

[DiscoStu]

Same as most other jobs, you get some brilliant ones and some utterly tulip ones with the majority lying somewhere in between.

[Tensai]

Since it's a public poll, I obviously voted for the rational option considering what I do for a living

It's tough being QUITE this handsome, I'm sure you'll agree.

[threaded]

Yes, AndyW is my project manager.

[TykeMerc]

Since it's a public poll, I obviously voted for the rational option considering what I do for a living

[Tensai]

Following on from threads like this I get the vaguest impression that project managers are not universally worshipped by all on this forum. I know, I was shocked as well.

So, is it just cr@ppy PM's you all hate, or the whole lot?

Poll to follow if I can figure out how....