What is the role of a project manager?

[honeybee]

I have appeared for a few interviews for a Project Manager, have gone through the specifications of a good many more. What strikes me most in the personal interviews is so few people know what they want from the position.

The crux of the problem I guess is still companies do not understand the meaning of project management. The words Project Manager are just glorified senior developer positions with the added burden of hauling along a team of developers. To prove this, in my last two interviews, I was not asked a single question on team building or project management techniques. If you want to call it a technical interview, I wasn't asked anything other than my preferred language (out of C# or VB.Net) and whether I could code.



.

[Merrion]

Ballast

(Which would explain why my PM says he "keeps the project on an even keel")

[abhijit]

Who are these people conducting the interviews?

I am not sure if technical skills are going to make you a smarter manager. A technical architect, yes, but a project manager no.

The key skill I feel that a project manager needs to do is manage the team and manage the client. Managing the client is easier than managing the team. I am not sure if there are any right or wrong answers for that. What works with one client may not work with another client. Ditto with a team.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Project Managers (and i mean people that are just project managers not those that have the role as part of there jobs) are mainly just bull****ers.

A really good Project Manager is a fantastic bull****er combined with the ability to talk to other people involved in the project as actual human beings and the ability to let people get on with the jobs they were paid to do in the first place.

[honeybee]

Who are these people conducting the interviews?

I am not sure if technical skills are going to make you a smarter manager. A technical architect, yes, but a project manager no.

The key skill I feel that a project manager needs to do is manage the team and manage the client. Managing the client is easier than managing the team. I am not sure if there are any right or wrong answers for that. What works with one client may not work with another client. Ditto with a team.

Well, I beg to differ a little. Apart from having good managerial skills, a person has to have sufficient technical knowledge in the project, unless the person is a consultant.

So yes, technical skills are necessary. But to what extent? I feel like laughing when people tell me the job involves 60% coding and 40% management. Do they think management (or coding for that matter) is a part time responsibility?

About being bull***er, again I beg to differ. I handled teams extensively in my last two employments, and I never bullsh*ted them. Setting clear expectations and helping them achieve those expectations, letting them see a broader picture and their roles within its context and having a free and open communication within the team are some of the things I have successfully tried in both these jobs.

What p*sses me off is the people who conduct inverviews for these positions have absolutely no idea what the expectations from the role are. Team building or mentoring, project planning or execution, client handling etc. are almost never ever mentioned when asked in a face to face meeting. The only areas of importance for these people are, is the project manager able and willing to work nights when developers refuse to do so on grounds they have been doing it every day. Nobody wants to think the project manager as a person who will avoid/prevent the burning of midnight oil.

I had also applied to the British Council for a Project Manager's role. The experience (till the interview at least) was a complete eye opener to me in terms of professionalism. There was a detailed job description which listed out all the skills required for the position along with levels, for e.g. Negotiations Level 1 (which also detailed what was required and what was not required). The whole focus was to help you assess your own skills and apply if your skills matched the requirements.

When I went to the interview I found they wanted an Event Manager, not exactly an IT project manager. Apart from this goof up, it was a wonderful experience.

[Blakk_Majik]

In my experience, albeit short professionally, a project manager is someone that schedules a bunch of meetings and talks to the development team and the client...A LOT.

Of course, the problem occurs when the meetings talking about what "needs to be done" take too much time from actually "doing something". Then the Project Manager turns into Sherlock Holmes trying to figure out why the project isn't moving at the desired pace (which of course constitutes having ANOTHER meeting about why we are going to miss the deadline). It never occurs to him/her that if they wouldn't keep pulling you from your desk, you'd have plenty of time to actually work on the project and meet (possibly even before) the deadline.

In regards to your question about them asking about technical capabilities. In a lot of organizations, senior developers wear several hats, and one of those hats is project leader/manager. This is so some business school graduate doesn't come along and promise clients a system that will massage their feet while retrieving the requested data. Non-techies have a BAD habit of promising things to clients, giving dates, then just dumping it into the laps of developers. Leaving us to simply "deal with what was promised".

[honeybee]

In my experience, albeit short professionally, a project manager is someone that schedules a bunch of meetings and talks to the development team and the client...A LOT.

I hope you made that comment in jest.

I am slowly forming an opinion, that if any organization expects its project managers to be actively involved in coding, it's a sure sign projects in that organization aren't being delivered on time. And the reason they aren't delivered on time?? You guessed it! The people who should ensure the estimations, planning, management and execution goes smoothly are busy writing code!! It's a vicious circle of project management I should say.

In today's interview, my interviewer told me (rather proudly), that even if he were a CEO and there was a bug in the software that he could fix, he would go ahead and fix it instead of waiting for a developer to come in. Oh my gosh. If that's how the CEO thinks, I wonder how the company will ever progress. There's a difference in knowing the job and actually doing the job.

In almost every other profession, you will see there are clearly demarcated responsibilities within the ranks. In war, the general planning the offensive/defensive maneuvres is not expected to take a rifle and go sniping at enemy positions. In a production company, I doubt if a works manager would actually go and operate a machine because the machine operator called in sick. Or a country sales manager would go visit individual leads because one of his sales executives quit.

Another major area is performance measurement. No one has ever asked me anything about how the performance measurement system worked in my earlier companies. Or how would I set it up in a new team.

.

[Blakk_Majik]

To be clear, I agree that a project manager should manage the project.

However, the last paragraph I wrote in my previous reply is why I generally prefer someone who is, or at one point was, a senior developer to manage a project I'm working on. If you have someone like that, you don't have to worry (most of the time) about unrealistic requirements and unrealistic timeframes.

[SambaNeko]

I would have to agree with Blakk - the PM should manage the project, not necessarily have a direct hand in the work, but please let him be someone who knows what he's talking about on a technical level when promising features and deadlines to the client. This:

Non-techies have a BAD habit of promising things to clients, giving dates, then just dumping it into the laps of developers. Leaving us to simply "deal with what was promised".

...is so true to me.

[honeybee]

To be clear, I agree that a project manager should manage the project.

However, the last paragraph I wrote in my previous reply is why I generally prefer someone who is, or at one point was, a senior developer to manage a project I'm working on. If you have someone like that, you don't have to worry (most of the time) about unrealistic requirements and unrealistic timeframes.

Agreed completely, which is why I earlier stated that not having technical expertise would make you a poorer manager. Mind you, it's not the requirement of technical knowledge that I hate, it's the routine coding job thrust upon the shoulders of a PM that I hate.

.

[JuggaloBrotha]

Here's my experiences with PM's (project managers):

They are the middle people that do most of the stuff between the client and the developers. They do the project requirements gathering as well as use case creation and testing. During the initial meeting with the client about a project the lead developer will attend the meeting as well as the PM, but the developer usually doesn't add much to the conversation in the meeting, but can if needed. The PM takes the notes and then fills out the paperwork (well handles the word docs) and gets authorization of the PMM (Project Manager's Manager) and the Development manager.

Then it's the PM's job to check in with the developer and answer questions (and ask the client questions) as the project progresses and they keep it on track. Here our PM's even do a fair share of diagramming too.

Also the PM's test the project as parts of it make it to our QA environment and all that.

I should mention that only 1 of our 7 PM's know how to code and/or have done any coding whatsoever. None of our PM's know how to create/query a DB, they don't even know how to connect to a DB.

Our Dev team (16 people total plus our manager) wouldn't be able to get projects done nearly as fast without our PM's helping out. I just wish my other job (team of 9 developers) had at least 1 PM.

[abhijit]

Here's my experiences with PM's (project managers):

They are the middle people that do most of the stuff between the client and the developers. They do the project requirements gathering as well as use case creation and testing. During the initial meeting with the client about a project the lead developer will attend the meeting as well as the PM, but the developer usually doesn't add much to the conversation in the meeting, but can if needed. The PM takes the notes and then fills out the paperwork (well handles the word docs) and gets authorization of the PMM (Project Manager's Manager) and the Development manager.

Then it's the PM's job to check in with the developer and answer questions (and ask the client questions) as the project progresses and they keep it on track. Here our PM's even do a fair share of diagramming too.

Also the PM's test the project as parts of it make it to our QA environment and all that.

I should mention that only 1 of our 7 PM's know how to code and/or have done any coding whatsoever. None of our PM's know how to create/query a DB, they don't even know how to connect to a DB.

Our Dev team (16 people total plus our manager) wouldn't be able to get projects done nearly as fast without our PM's helping out. I just wish my other job (team of 9 developers) had at least 1 PM.

The PM's job is to manage all the resources and make sure to get the best out of them.

I have seen good developers lose focus of the big picture, when it came to managing project. The good developer will shift his focus to technical issues when he should be focusing on the project plan and deliverables of the project.

[Blakk_Majik]

During the initial meeting with the client about a project the lead developer will attend the meeting as well as the PM, but the developer usually doesn't add much to the conversation in the meeting, but can if needed.

This is key. See, you don't have a developer leading the project, but you do have a senior type involved in the requirements. So, you still have someone in the meetings making sure the Project Manager doesn't go off promising any and everything the client spits out.

Thankfully, that is now how it works where I am. You have a Project Manager, which generally (some are tech experts though) knows a little tech stuff but not much, that manages the actual project, and a lead developer that makes sure the customer is not promised things that aren't reasonable (I'm playing this role in a project right now).

However, this situation is ideal, and not the norm at most places. I think it's the "killing two birds with one stone" type thing. I will agree that Senior Developers can become too "technically invested" in a project, and it will prevent them from focusing on the actual project management piece.

Either way, with a Senior Dev leading or a Project Manger leading and a Senior Dev giving lead tech guidance, I don't mind. My main thing is I don't want to get stuck with something a non-technical person agreed to.

So, my final thought on the Project Manager question is this. A project manager is someone that knows how to A.) Run projects and B.) Consult with development before promising features/functionality to an app or a system to a client.

[honeybee]

This is key. See, you don't have a developer leading the project, but you do have a senior type involved in the requirements. So, you still have someone in the meetings making sure the Project Manager doesn't go off promising any and everything the client spits out.

That job (of promising tall things to the client) is usually done by the pre-sales, sales or implementation people.

A project manager's role typically starts after the project has been acquired or selected. His major job is to frame the project scope statement, plan for its execution, arrange for the necessary resources (including people, money, hardware, technology etc) and then carry out the execution of the project (including monitoring, controlling and course correction where needed). Communication skills, people management, negotiation skills all come into play throughout the project lifecycle. There's the job of managing risks to the project, finding out ways to overcome any hurdles faced and a lot more such things.

When you think about any of these activities, you will realize that the project manager would have little time to write code. And if he wrote code, he would invariably neglect one or more of the project management tasks outlined above. Also in any management role, I believe getting things done from a team of people is much more important than doing things yourself. Managers should get paid because they are able to get teams perform tasks, not because they can do things themselves.

.

[Zelot]

This might help you guys understand what PM's do.

http://img512.imageshack.us/i/20724stripsundayfp9.gif/

[honeybee]

This might help you guys understand what PM's do.

http://img512.imageshack.us/i/20724stripsundayfp9.gif/

Eat so much the underpants won't fit!! That was funny. Wish I could do that....

.

[capsulecorpjx]

I have appeared for a few interviews for a Project Manager, have gone through the specifications of a good many more. What strikes me most in the personal interviews is so few people know what they want from the position.

The crux of the problem I guess is still companies do not understand the meaning of project management. The words Project Manager are just glorified senior developer positions with the added burden of hauling along a team of developers. To prove this, in my last two interviews, I was not asked a single question on team building or project management techniques. If you want to call it a technical interview, I wasn't asked anything other than my preferred language (out of C# or VB.Net) and whether I could code.



.

To be up all in people's grills.