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Project Management For Programmers?
welshdave asks: "I'm a senior web developer in a medium sized company where the project managers have no programming experience of any sort. I'm of the opinion that project managers should understand the projects that they're managing and want to move into project management myself. I'm aware that I may meet resistance from the current project managers - many of them have been hired with no previous experience of anything. Previous suggestions to senior management that myself and other developers would feel better with a technical person running projects have been dismissed. As a result we are routinely told to skip testing or to implement the impossible, with an emphasis on how things look rather than how well things actually work. Has anyone else found the barrier to project management is their technical knowledge. How did you get past it?"
I think that a certain lack of detailed knowledge about what is possible and what is not might be the key to successful project management. Yes, an impossible task assignment is probably going to cause a little confusion among the techs, but it can also be eye-opening in the sense that it teaches them about what people want. Techs commonly have a certain close-mindedness about how things should be done which can be very unhealty to a project.
If your "managers" have no technical experience who writes the specifications that you aim to implement?
If they present you with some kind of brief, insufficient description of the project, you need to write out something more specific, that you can actually work too. You learned, as I learned, in cs 101, that you shouldn't start working on a problem until it has been clearly defined. You learned, as I learned, that if you start programming without a clear goal in mind, you won't know when you "finished".
So you write this description. Get your fellow team members, if you have any, on side. Then take it to your manager, and get them to read it, and sign off on it. If their original design has some impossible "feature" in it, maybe this is where you explain, in writing, where it is impossible. If it isn't really impossible, just very difficult, and in your technical opinion, of marginal utility, this is where you present your bosses with an honest prediction of the cost of their pet feature. If you explain to them that their pet feature will make the project take twice as long, or three times as long, will they really still want you to do it? Or will they say, "Oh shit, well in that case forget it."
If they really don't know what they are doing, then they will probably fear a paper trail that documents that you warned them the pet feature would double the time to implement.
If your boss is an asshole, and says something like, "If you can't do it I will get someone who can!" Or, "If you can't do it within this time constraint I will get someone who can!" Call his or her bluff. If their pet feature really is impossible to implement, they won't find anyone else who can do it.
Revise your document to reflect the choices they made. Then work to this document. If they wanted you to implement their pet feature, even though you explained it would double the time to implement, you have protected yourself against the complaint that you are behind schedule. Document your work. Each time you complete one of the milestones in your original memo, refer back to your memo.
So, are you doing tasks which are really the job of the technical manager? Without getting a corresponding raise? Well, yes. But you did, after all, want to move into management, didn't you?
If you do a good job implementing what you promised in your memo will they reward you with a promotion, a raise?
I don't know. But you have acted with integrity.
If it comes time for your annual performance review, is this the time to explain that you have already been shouldering responsibilities that are really management responsibilities?
I worked for the Australian subsidiary of Wang Labs, at the time when Wang was the #2 computer company in Australia.
Their R&D department was surging from strength to strength, until the Director made the decision to recruit staff from the sales support team to work as project managers.
Never in my whole computing career was I immersed into such a political cesspit. These posturing pretenders sold out us R&D engineers to the most ridiculously stupid deadlines and functional requirements, skipping testing, fudging demos, and crafting a clever spin which transferred the perceived blame to the engineers for failure to deliver.
After months of being unable to focus on a project, due to constantly moving goalposts and political bitching, I resigned. One week later, most R&D staff were laid off, and a couple of years later, Wang Labs went Chapter 11.
In my 2 jobs following, the project managers were veteran engineers, who played an active and respected part in all aspects of the projects, from design through to maintenance. Any non-technical project managers were routinely beaten into submission by technical management. Took me ages to get over the shock. But these companies were notorious in the industry for being able to deliver more, faster, better and cheaper than their bloated, suit-driven rivals.
For any developer going through interviews, I advise you to ask for some time with one or more project managers, get into technical conversation and see what they know. If they start bullshitting and bluffing - decline the job politely and look forward to the interview with the next company.
Otherwise, your career may suffer unrecoverable damage. Every month you spend in the industry - you are accountable for that time, and hsve to justify it when seeking your next job. Don't be seduced by slightly higher pay packets with the suit-driven outfits - it'll cost you in the long run.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...