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There's a lot here. People have been writing books about this for decades. Two things that need to be succinctly said: 1. Project Management is just another s
by DanielBMarkham 8y ago
There's a lot here. People have been writing books about this for decades.
Two things that need to be succinctly said:
1. Project Management is just another skill, like database management, security, or any one of a hundred other skills a tech team might have. PMs keep trying to take themselves out of the trenches and claim a special place. Every time they do that it is a mistake.
2. He touches on "waterfall" a few times. Physical things decompose into smaller physical things. That's why bridge-building is the way it is. Creative technical work is not a physical thing. It is infinitely decomposable. You take a job creating new tech and split it into 10 pieces, you've got the same job with just a lot more overhead. You can go on forever. Very quickly this natural tendency for decomposition leads to doomed projects.
Intuition will lead you astray in tech project management. Every time.
- ironjunkie 8y agoThis hits home. Wy too many times I have been at places where the Project Manager is seen as the "Boss" or the gatekeeper by management and by himself. Engineer usually disrespect the project manager as they don't really understand anything and just do stuff based on an Excel sheet.
- DanielBMarkham 8y agoI prefer the U.S. Marines fire team version of a tech team: everybody codes, everybody looks out after everybody, you should be able to do your "boss's" job, it's critical to over-communicate, and ego has no place in a good team. Having said that, sometimes somebody has to make decisions. And somebody always has to go to meetings and report upstairs. Poor schmuck.
- piccolbo 8y agoThat's unavoidable. He's called manager for a reason. I would replace powerpoint for excel in my experience. Everyone wants a leader they can look up to and admire, not a PM.