4 ms·
99% of the time "Project Manager" means "Project Facilitator." The key aspects of project management are gating, communicating up, and communicating down. Gat
by debacle 10y ago
99% of the time "Project Manager" means "Project Facilitator."
The key aspects of project management are gating, communicating up, and communicating down.
Gating: Keeping things that aren't The Project from becoming The Project without being properly defined (time, deliverables, budget, resources).
Communicating Up: Letting business owners and stakeholders know the status and cadence of the project, what the project team needs to get the job done, what ambiguities need to be cleared up, etc. It's very difficult to hold someone's who is generally your boss feet to the fire, but it's am important skill to learn.
Communicating Down: Deliverables, roadblocks, obligations, morale, etc.
The most important skill in a project manager is humility. Many PMs see themselves as captains of some giant see-faring vessel, but have no respect for the vessel or the sea.
- typetypetype 10y agoThis is one of the best, most concise summaries of project management I have seen!
- numlocked 10y agoTo add one more: a sense of urgency. Your job isn't to whip the team, but you should provide a steady drumbeat of progress, and be able to instill urgency and speed into the team.
- JamesBarney 10y agoThat technical debt isn't going to write itself :).
- fsloth 10y ago"you should provide a steady drumbeat of progress, and be able to instill urgency and speed into the team." Just goading the team to go faster gives an air of testdriving ones new position unless there is some obvious, real, time pressure. Rather - people often behave as they are expected to behave. Treat them as responsible, adult professionals, you get adult professionals. Treat them as galley slaves, you get galley slaves. Mind you, all this is just introspection and armchair psychology.
- anotheryou 10y agoThis sounds like it suits me very well. Any advice on how to get there without being a very good programmer? I can read code and write it too, but mostly program simple front-end things or hack together side projects. I'm good at telling people what they actually want from each other when they start arguing in a meeting. I'm the one who gets asked to write, simplify or clarify the concept of a new product. And as a generalist I will be asked about everything out of scope of the others (everything with media, much research, occasionally personal issues). Regarding gating I have limited experience, but will be the one to try to get things out of the "MVP". I'm currently in a very small startup and want to stick to it until after the initial launch of the product. Than it should become clear if things work out or not. I'm not sure though if I want to stay with the startup for further products to be launched.