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Yes. Yes. Yes. Technical discovery is baked into traditional project management (e.g., civil engineering) in a way that continues to surprised me as a former I
by zhdc1 8y ago
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Technical discovery is baked into traditional project management (e.g., civil engineering) in a way that continues to surprised me as a former IT project manager. There is a culture of investigation and research, such as materials research, proof of concept development, and needs-driven public-private academic research in other technical fields that IT project managers just don't get exposed to.
For instance, engineers planning a drainage project have a very good idea of how long a particular type of pipe will last before it needs to be replaced. They also have the tools/software/training needed to estimate how local stresses affect functionality and lifespan, and they're expected to use this information - even if the lifespan of the project exceeds their expected tenure.
IT PMs can't say the same thing about their infrastructure - who knows how long AWS or Azure will be around, for instance, or how long a local server blade or piece of network equipment from (x) company will actually last. When it comes to software development, the prevailing attitude is 'I want (x) by (y) for (z)', without having any justifiable basis for (x), (y), or (z).
- kitd 8y agoI think this is why it is very helpful to use tried and tested tools and tech stacks in an IT project, those with large ecosystems of libraries and communities of people who have solved similar problems in the real world in the past. The "problem solving" risk is much lower as a result.
- erikb 8y agoAt the same time the board will finance the fancy new buzz words though. So combining both requirements I would say the art is in trying to use tried and tested technology to fulfill buzzwords.
- jarl-ragnar 8y agoI'm now head of product development at a different company and one of the key activities I instantiated was using internal R&D funding to conduct technical discovery and remove, where possible, software development of new functionality from the critical path of project delivery. I'm convinced IT project management could learn a lot from civil engineering project management.