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Quality of IT Project Managers

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    Quality of IT Project Managers

    This is something that's been bothering me for a while, so I thought I'd start a new thread specifically for it and gain some “clarity” from you lot!

    Love 'em or hate 'em (some may even be lurking in here) most of us have to work with them.

    I've only worked with two decent project managers in the past 10 years of project related work. All of the others have been dire with sloping shoulders, no ounce of technical knowledge (or interest) whatsoever, no ability to plan the simplist of things and the majority passing projects back to me to do the detail for the scopes. The worst ones I’ve worked with are a dyslexic guy, an overweight chap who couldn’t tackle staircases of more than three steps and lastly the guy with the faulty hearing aid (these are all genuine).

    Therefore, I'm interested in other peoples experiences and what you'd expect (or maybe assume is more correct) that a PM should do for you (and the project your working on).

    From the quality of people I've rubbed shoulders with (excluding the two really good chaps I've worked alongside) I fail to see what value they add to any technical piece of work if I'm expected to do the majority of the paperwork myself?
    Eat Right, Exercise, Die Anyway.

    #2
    PM's aren't assistants or secretary's.

    From my understanding they're there to ensure a project is run on time, on budget and to the clients specification.. not "when it's ready", "ooo it'll cost ya" and "that'll do wont it? what do they know anyway"

    i.e
    -to ensure you do the work requested
    -that you've documented it properly (so when you leave someone should know what it's supposed to do)
    -that resources (people, time, space) are used effectively

    IMHO
    The proud owner of 125 Xeno Geek Points

    Comment


      #3
      and to ensure that the techies don't spend all day dicking around on chat forums and re-writing each other's code!
      Guy Fawkes - "The last man to enter Parliament with honourable intentions."

      Comment


        #4
        And to invoice... or is that just my modus operandi?

        Comment


          #5
          We have differing views of PM's. For me a PM is there to

          * Decide/agree to the broad outline of the project (non tecnical)
          * Arrange whatever is necessary to keep project on track/in scope and if cannot do that get whatever extra resources are needed/get deadlines changed
          * To say "no" to bulltulip requests from annoying busybody middle management types
          * Deal with the politics
          * Do semi decent "What project X will do for you" marketing documentation/propoganda (not tecnical documentation)
          * Cover the teams ass if everything goes to pot due to no fault of our own (and even sometimes when it is our fault)
          * Buy the first round of drinks whenever we hit the pub

          Though funny enough, also only ever had two decent PM's who meet most of these criteria in 10 odd years.

          First one bearly knew how to turn on his pc, other (current) knows his lingo and theory but could not code "Hello World" to save his life

          The worst ones I find are the techies who worked up though the IT ranks

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by Not So Wise View Post

            The worst ones I find are the techies who worked up though the IT ranks
            The worst kind of anything are techies who worked up though the IT ranks.
            First Law of Contracting: Only the strong survive

            Comment


              #7
              http://www.developer.com/java/ent/article.php/3526491
              Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by miffy View Post
                From the quality of people I've rubbed shoulders with (excluding the two really good chaps I've worked alongside) I fail to see what value they add to any technical piece of work if I'm expected to do the majority of the paperwork myself?
                I expressed this point of view several times on here but all the time I have been accused of being a code monkey with no social skill and no business knowledge. That's not the case unfortunately. I had to actually do project management myself in many cases, despite I don't enjoy it neither I have any interest on it, because of their complete lack of skills. So in a few words, I totally agree. Project management is a great skill to have and an indispensable for the successful outcome of the project but most of the project managers are unskilled fraudsters vaporware salesmen who bring no value to the chain. I think it's important to put the accent on the "most of them" phrase and not on the project manager function on its own.
                I've seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark, Rome is the light.

                Comment


                  #9
                  I have been in project manager roles and contracts for 8 years and I am the only good one I have come across.

                  Rule #76: No excuses. Play like a champion.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    That's quite an interesting article.

                    "The project management role is generally responsible for status reports, which are frankly more tools about instilling a sense of urgency and demanding definite answers "

                    I feel that many people perform worse when they have a sense of urgency. Yet this seems completely unknown to most project managers. I can't remember the name of the football coach who in the past, when there were not electronic display on the pitch, did never tell the team how long is missing to the end of the game. Apparently, this turned out to guarantee better performance in the last minutes where usually the players try to score with unlikely shoots from midfield.

                    "Ultimately getting into a project management role can be easy, in the case where no one is really filling that role or where there's a structured mentoring process"

                    That might explain the average low quality. There is no selection at induction phase. The ones who are available are taken on board to start without any screening.

                    "Occasionally, getting started as a project manager is done completely by accident"

                    Again.
                    I've seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark, Rome is the light.

                    Comment

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