mide sowunmiWeb Developer| General MotorsAtlanta, Ga, United States
After over 10 years working on Agile project teams as a Software developer this is what most PMPs seem to be concerned about:
1/ How long will it take to complete your tasks?
2/ When will you finish?
3/ Have you finished?
All PMPs seem to ask those questions or slight variations and that's all they seem to care about. Perhaps if PMPs had more understanding of what developers actually do they could ask better questions and thus build better communication channels with the technical team members Saving Changes...
Dominic LawProduct Manager| PCCW GlobalHappy Valley, Hong Kong
I have a number of thoughts here. Communications is not one direction, so the PM should encourage more open expression of opinions in the project team. PM should also understand if there are any risks and issues arise from the team. It would be good to have a Technical Leader, who can help to bridge the gap between technical experts and the project management. The PM can also be smart about the tasks or WBS, so the project can be better tracked. Saving Changes...
Ram Narayanan SastryProduct Analyst| Toshiba Medical Systems CorporationNasushiobara-Shi, Tochigi-Ken, Japan
It is a very interesting point that you have raised. But even this question is very context sensitive. I have worked with Software developers for 16 years now and was myself a software developer when I started my career. I think that the biggest differential between software developers with other blue collar workers is that these are knowledge workers. Quite a few of them have a lot of self respect and ego as well as a very good understanding of the overall business venture of the organisation. So it is very important to deal with them in a sensitive manner. At times as a manger you have to be tough on them to set the right expectations, but at the same time, you need to reach out to them and spend a decent amount of time communicating with them to keep them motivated. Saving Changes...
Justin WortleyProject Manager| Quicken LoansDetroit, Mi, United States
I find that when I work with Software Developers if I do what I can to enable them to be at their best performance, then the answers to the original questions become clearer and more accurate. You have to really be a field general when managing your team, but also be a guidance counselor. Finding out about your team on a deeper level, not just a technical level helps you enable them to work optimally. Over time, the questions won't seem so binary to them but will be more of a constant flow because they'll want to "please you" (for lack of a more effective term and lack of coffee) with their performance because of your emotional investment into their success. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Thank you very much for being honest and started the debate. First of all take into account that PMP is an acronym of a certification. Second, thanks God (or any other big force in the Unverse you believe) there is a receipt about how the project manager will manage the project and the team. When the receipt is created then a lot of PMs could be fire of the work place (includeing myself, hehehehehe). As you say is a matter of coummunication. But communication has a model that is often missed by PMs when they create a communication plan. An no matter you are working with agile or any other approach. Some agile software development methods like SCRUM explicit state what you have to do in your meetings. But remember: communication is in both directions or multiple directions. So both sides has to know how to communicate with the other. Saving Changes...
Mide, what questions should the project manager be asking you?
There is a flip side to this conversation. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve worked with people who want to treat an enterprise project like a small, internal project – they just want to be left alone to do their job. That’s well and good when only their manager needs to know when they are done. But, when the audience includes management in other departments and overseas markets, and there are other tasks that are dependent upon their work being done, knowing when that work will be done can be critical.
I’m no advocate of micro-management, but it is not uncommon for people to expect project managers to know every detail of every project they are working on, at any given moment. This leads to project managers asking the types of questions you mention, on a regular basis. Your first two questions reflect effort and duration; just because a task will take 2 hours doesn’t mean it will be done 2 hours from now.
Can I ask which flavor of Agile you are using? I would be less concerned about you getting these questions on a waterfall project. I work in an environment where my resources are not dedicated to just my project and they have competing priorities; an estimate I am given for duration, today, may be different tomorrow. You shouldn’t have this problem with Agile, and if you are using stories, story points, and sprints, questions about effort and duration really don’t make sense. Once work is sized and in a sprint backlog, your project manager should know when the work will be released.
Do you have a scrum master, or agile coach, that can work with the PM to help him or her understand how it should be working and how to not be an obstacle? How can you turn the conversation with the project manager around and get it focused on the types of questions that would make more sense to you? Saving Changes...
Completely agree with @Ram, this is a sensitive debate for IT people.
When I started my career as a SAP consultant, I always thought that the team leaders or PM 's waste time asking too much.
Then I began to develop my career as a team manager, and I realized that the problem was how they communicated with us.
As all here already commented, communication is critical, and my recommendation is to elaborate the communication plan involving all development team members. First, the as a PM I will explain to the development team why I need status update, and how I will manage the information that they will provide me. After we need to agree the communication plan, Asking questions as how do you prefer that we check the status (meeting or mails), or how will you feel more confident providing me timings for the different tasks.
Take in mind that communication is like the joystick of video console, which you should moved it in various directions in order to play properly. Saving Changes...
My role is that of the technical consultant but more than 50% of my work time I write code so I think I can consider myself a developer to a very large extent.
What Mide says it’s true, the relationship between the PMs and developers consists mainly in the PMs asking the developers questions similar to those mentioned by him. Well, I should probably not generalize but this is what I have seen on the projects on which I have worked and which had dedicated PMs (some projects didn’t have PMs on the project team at all).
The above described relationship between the PMs and the developers is normal since the PMs are not responsible for getting into the actual technical details of the projects. The only issues I have is that some PMs claim that they are leading the team members that are performing the work and act as some sort of mentors, coaches, captains, generals and similar leadership/coaching roles.
While I don’t want to offend anyone or underestimate the importance of project management I consider that the above claims are in many cases far from reality. I mean being a leader means taking decisions that others must either follow or do follow on their own will. When your relationship with a group of people consists mainly on asking questions to the members of the group, in my opinion, you can’t really be considered the leader of that group of people.
The questions that PMs ask are indeed important as the information provided by the developers is required during the execution of the project but I also believed that the use of the term leadership is often abused in project management or it has a different meaning. Saving Changes...
mide sowunmiWeb Developer| General MotorsAtlanta, Ga, United States
Thanks for all the responses... so many issues have been raised let me try my best to answer.
The topic is something that seems common in different companies where I've worked. Each organization implements Agile differently, some have SCRUM with daily stand-ups, a few have scrum masters but usually the PM takes that role, some have two week sprints etc. I have tried to make a very general statement.
It's true that communication should be in both directions but then it can be difficult explaining something technical to a PM with no programming experience. Even though the PM should not be involved in the details it would be helpful if he/she understands without relying too much on expert judgment.
Part of the problem here is that it appears most of PMs I've worked with only involve developers in Scope and Time/Schedule management issues. Although some have been involved with team building activities. Other areas like Stakeholder management, Quality management, HR management seem to have been neglected.
It would be helpful if developers are made aware of important project documents like requirements traceability matrix, work performance reports, mile stone list... And other information that will help them understand how their work affects the whole project success.
There are PMs who do an awesome job working with software developers however a lot can still be done to improve
...
1 reply by Sergio Luis Conte
Sep 16, 2016 5:01 AM
Sergio Luis Conte
...
The problem is: PM must not understand technical problems. PM has to transform technical problems into risk and issues if applies and working in finding actions plans. A PM must not accept excuses (too much technical details when a problem arrives are usually excuses) but she/he must be a facilitator to make the work done. Some PMs forgot something critical that they must performed when they are assigned to an initiative: they must perform eliciation activities to understand all related to the domain and be able to talk with all the stakeholders. Take into account: I come from software field and I was a programmer and I have performed all related positions (some of them do not exists right now) in the software/IT field. So, I understand the point.
Saving Changes...
Lena WiedemannVice President| M&T BanKEast Concord, Ny, United States
I am a firm believer that in order to be able to successfully manage a project and a project team you need to understand what you're producing and who you're working with. Does the project manager need to be the SME - absolutely not. However I think it's critical for the project manager to take the time to learn about and understand both their stakeholders and their technical team in order to be an effective leader. Basic understanding is what enables the project manager to ask intelligent, thoughtful questions and know what each team member can bring to the table (and when they should be brought to the table). I always encourage my team of PMs to ensure they include time to sit down with stakeholders and team members and understand their "business". Time and again I've found that knowledge back helpful and critical to understanding. Much like taking time to plan a project, taking time to learn may be time consuming in the beginning but it pays dividends in the 11th hour. Understanding builds trust and rapport and naturally breeds better communication. Saving Changes...
Lena, I strongly agree with your opinion, however in the case of software development if your are not a SME (a developer) you will never understand the developers "business".
Project managers that have never written a line of code in their lives will only be able to see the actual software development process as a black box. They can give requirements to the developers and expect in return effort estimates and then they can ask developers to start working on some requirements and then monitor the progress. That's about it, such PMs will never be able to get inside the black box and see or influence the way it works.
Learning basic software development/IT concepts will be of much help to the PM as he/she will be able to better communicate with software developers but in this way the project managers will still not be able to understand what the developers are really doing.
Software developers take all the technical decisions completely independent from the PM, they only have to tell the PM how long each task will take and then during implementation what is the status of each task.
...
1 reply by Lena Wiedemann
Sep 16, 2016 9:53 AM
Lena Wiedemann
...
Agree Adrian - at the end of the day, the PM is not the SME - the developer is and there has to be a level of trust between the PM and developer that what the developer has indicated is true.
That said, it's really important that PMs don't fall into the "well my developer told me" excuse. The longer and more closely you are able to work within your team the better basis you have for asking questions. As you get more comfortable with your team members you know when to be 100% confident in what they are saying and when to do more questioning or ask for additional information. Every experienced project manager has had that moment where someone has told them something and it hasn't seemed right - based on past experience, intuition or common sense. We have all probably worked with the developer who is eager to satisfy the PM or Sponsor and will tell you they can deliver whatever is asked for even if they really can't. We have all also probably worked with that developer who is conservative to the extreme in every timeline or response they give you because they want to ensure they can deliver. Both of these responses come from team members wanting to do the right thing, but as the PM, you need to be able to get some middle ground and know enough to asked for good supporting explanation of why things are the way they are. I have seen that less experienced project managers I've worked with are sometimes afraid to question anything that is shared with them by the team and I always encourage them to push past that discomfort and ask. It doesn't have to be aggressively or in a challenging way.
I don't expect the PM to know it all and recognize that ultimately they need to rely on their software developer (or the same goes for any team member really) that is the expert in that topic to be the expert. However, being confident on the answers your team is giving you is critical and sometimes you need to dive in a bit deeper to get that confidence - particularly when working with new teams.
Community Champion
