this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2024
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Geez... Project managers are forbidden from making work estimates- they only get to collect them.
They don't get to argue estimates either. They can ask questions to gain understanding but the estimates are the estimates.
Wearing an architect or chief engineer hat is sometimes more fun because you get to call bullshit on dumb estimates like "4 to 5 weeks to model a table with 7 fields, with 2 of them being PK, FK" like GTFO we can model it in the next 5 minutes if I talk slowly.
Based on this interaction alone and his dad deciding the price for him, I'm going to make the wildly assumptious assumption this is a 20s/30s(/40s?) unemploymed guy living at his dad's house rent free.
If my assumptions are incorrect, sorry mate, you did not win the dad lottery.
I'm still not sure exactly what Project Managers do. I've seen countless job postings and even stories from people claiming to have been one. Yet, more often than not they get shit on, and memes often have a kernel of truth. #ConfusedHumanPerson
Good ones are pretty rare and good program managers are even rarer.
What they should do, and what most actually do, are different things.
Project managers must be great with humans and communication. If they are not, then they just can't be effective.
Oooh. Okay yeah, that explains it. Communication is the number one thing that most people struggle with. I'm constantly pestering my bosses about communicating even slightly important information that could affect me a rung down. Then even when it is reported it isn't effective or concise, or if it is concise it's unclear.
Okay. I'm beginning to get a grasp on it.
They are supposed to be the glue that binds the internal team together as well as bonding to external groups.
The project manager organises external requirements and steers the project in the direction needed for the business. That direction might change depending on the status of other projects, it's their job to be on top of that.
They also report progress and roadblocks upstream so that those who manage groups of related projects can work on keeping everything running.
Whether they're actually competent, well that's something else entirely.
Exactly this. You don't realize how useful they are until you've had a good one. The amount of BS from other teams they can shield you from can make focusing on your own job so much easier.
Unfortunately the ratio of good to bad PMs leaves a lot to be desired.
Many roles main responsibility is to report upwards what happens in"the basement". Which includes translating what one person says into that the other can understand. Then there's roles that do it both ways.
If there's time to spare, a good project manager can also bring health and common sense to the team they're part of. That takes pointing out non sense both inside and outside the team, and the hardest part - being constructive about it.
So essentially taking complex ideas or situations and breaking them down a'la eli5 style to the suits and other personnel that may not otherwise understand. At the same time in other situations or roles, taking expectations and directives from higher up and breaking them down so they're digestible and workable.
Man, these job descriptions really makes it sound like you're going to be doing incredibly complicated and potentially invasive team-to-team tasks. When in reality you're trying to get a bunch of cats to work together without slapping one another.
Yet when I have a good one versus a bad one I can definitely tell the difference.
I like to put my estimates in writing somehow.
"My initial and unbiased estimate is 3 months." Put it in an email, nothing will ever change the fact that my initial estimate was 3 months.
Ideally your estimates would just be complexity points. And those estimates would go on on the stories in Jira/Azure Dev Ops / wherever
And honestly the team should meet up and discuss the estimates
I've had PM's complain that our estimates don't fit into their plan.
I just walked away.
If the timing is critical then the only reasonable solution is to cut scope and features until it fits.
The triangle isn't a rubbery floppy thing, it is iron!
They fully subscribed to the mythical man month. So they just threw bodies at it and then couldn't understand why the project got slower.
I don't understand your statement. The Mythical Man Month teaches exactly that lesson of more bodies != Faster in many cases.
How long to build the site with 1 full stack dev? 1.5 years.
How long with an existing high performance team of 5? 2 months.
How long if you hire 4 plus the one original (all qualified)? 1 to 1.5 years.
How long if we hire 30 full stack devs? Maybe never.
Poorly worded on my part.
They fully bought into the idea of the man-month without realising it was mythical.
You know? I literally figured that out a minute before I saw your reply. And I rolled my eyes at myself.
That makes sense. Silly me
Cheers