One of the easiest ways to spin your wheels and waste your time on a project is to lose sight of just what it is that the project is supposed to address. This chapter will help you see what situations can lead to this, how you can prevent it, and what to do if you’re already off track.
Project Mngmt Screw-up #1: We Weren’t Addressing the Right Problem
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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something you learn yourself in any CS program at any ACM/IEEE acredited university.
in THEORY. most people do not pay attention to that stuff when it is presented to them.
Unfortunately, most people don’t have any of it and tend to ask the most pointless questions even at a project’s inception.
Note: If you are any good at CS you will not likely become a manager.
Note: If you have poor math / people skills, you will likely become a manager.
Note: If you leave work later than 5pm you will not likely become a manager.
Note: If you never leave work later than 4:30pm you will likely become a manager.
No college education is necessary to become a “GOOD” manager. What you learn are tools / shortcuts. Experience is by far the best thing to have. You will quickly learn what tools are good in theory and a waste of time in practice, how to think quickly on your feet, how to gauge if actual progress is being made, how to tell if you are being lied to by developers/suppliers/other manager.
Learning “Pembock”, WBS, gantt charts, and flow chart drawing does NOT make you better at expressing ideas, figuring out costs, identifying milestones, or even gauging project success.
keep that in mind always: What is required for this project to be successful. Every meeting you and your staff should RECITE AND PRACTICE:
What problem is this product/service trying to solve?
Who are our customers and what are their primary needs?
What goals must be met for our product/service to be successful?
If you can answer these 3 simple questions —at any time during your project developmen—, you are MUCH better prepared than any degreed manager.
Project success is not measured simply by budget and release date.
And also, people get promoted (to management) because they were no good at their job. – Its either because 1, they give the impression of being distinct from the rest of the group, or 2, its easier to promote them sack them.
This is generally the case in larger companies I have worked at and in government. In smaller companies management screw is much less likely.
Gee, what’s this? The Foxworthy answers?
“No college education is necessary to become a “GOOD” manager.”
Says who? A programmer?
“If you can answer these 3 simple questions —at any time during your project developmen—, you are MUCH better prepared than any degreed manager. ”
Great if you live your life by the bullet point. The degree helps when it comes to drilling down and actually coming up with the particulars to your bullet points.
Experience is necessary, but so is education. Just like any skilled edeavour.
If the answers to those 3 questions are not plainly obvious, you have a pretty tough business venture ahead of you.
A college degree will EXPOSE YOU TO TOOLS and various methods that have been used in the past by managers to keep track of components of and projects as a whole.
Reading a project management book does the exact samething.
“If the answers to those 3 questions are not plainly obvious, you have a pretty tough business venture ahead of you.”
If I can answer those questions? It’s because I have BOTH experience and schooling. NOT one OR the other.
“A college degree will EXPOSE YOU TO TOOLS and various methods that have been used in the past by managers to keep track of components of and projects as a whole.
Reading a project management book does the exact samething.”*
Uh, no it doesn’t. Any more than reading “Hooked on C++” makes me a programmer.
*Schooling is more than “just reading the book”.