During my normal mid-morning potter, I stumbled across an article imaginatively titled “Design Drool“.
We love the expanse of possibilities, being able to visualise one really clever solution after another and see them all working in our minds eye. Our ability to learn to react to the solution before it has really happened is like Pavlovs dogs drooling at the bell. We enjoy seeing these imaginary solutions, almost as if we had implemented them already. Trouble is we havent implemented them. Right now they are no use to anybody.
It really got me thinking of the last few years I’ve spent in web development, and how many personal projects I have half finished - or even better, finished in my head - and why things were so different at work. It’s partly motivation, I’m sure. It’s very easy to avoid work at the weekend. But often it’s a matter of moving on too early to something new when a current project loses its ‘new-toy’ feeling.
And that made me think of the value of project management. I can’t count the number of projects that have slowed to almost a halt because of incompetent project managers. More often than not in this kind of situation, any delays are blamed on the development team, when, more often than not, the development team has been held up by outside factors that should have been dealt with by a project manager far earlier.
On the other hand, I feel a sense of satisfaction thinking of the projects that have finished ahead of time, and far exceeded the clients’ expectations, because a good project manager was involved - making my job much much easier. The good ones take the hassle out of development. They have content ready when the developer needs it. They’ve taken the time to learn about development - enough so they know the right questions to ask of a client. They can usually identify what can be a problem, and don’t promise that they’ll deliver the undeliverable. They ask questions, because they don’t know everything.
Which, in an extremely roundabout, rambling way, leads me to the article I found later on this morning … What makes a good IT project manager?
It’s great getting the perspective of a programmer when looking at how a project works.
Effective communication is one of the keys to completing a successful project, and while a major function of a project manager is to try to keep that type of communcation open, I think that there needs to be an effort on behalf of everyone to keep the ideas flowing, and .
Scott Berkun’s UIEWeb has some great suggestions on how that type of interaction can happen in a positive manner. I came across his latest column earlier today through a recent link from webword.
How to give and receive criticism is a pretty good column about effective ways to communicate with each other. I got excited when I saw this link and its title because of another article I liked from this former Microsoft project manager.
That one was How to run a design critique. What it describes very well is how to make that communication fun, and interesting, and effective.
It has a great number of suggestions that might just help those projects get finished, even in spite of a project manager who might not quite be up to the task.
You’ve given me an idea for another post, too.
Comment by Bill — September 10, 2004 @ 6:03 pm