Memo to the future PM

Memo to the future PM

Recently, due to the growth of the currency exchange rate, the issue of transition to IT is becoming more and more popular. People who previously did not think about the work related to technology, now seriously think about it and often after the main work they attend specialized courses and classes. The purpose of this article is to help beginners or even hesitant to understand the basic requirements for the position of "project manager" and help take the first steps.

Where to begin

If a good programmer begins with higher mathematics, then the foundation of any management is a discipline. It turned out that a person who cannot bring order to his personal life, adhere to the daily routine, systematically work on himself, is not able to bring order and comfort to the project. When we give ourselves slack and let our hands go down, we need to remember that:



water sharpens a stone, labor has made a man of a monkey, and discipline will make you a first-class manager.
In order to build the right processes, and most importantly to control them, it is necessary to have the knowledge, skills and tools. Proper management is democracy in decision-making and dictatorship in their execution. I achieve my dictatorship with the help of the Vasi Kisly method, about which, by the way, they have repeatedly written on Megamind. I will not once again chew the basics of time management and GTD, but simply leave a link to the interpretation of Vasya, who personally in my case fits into Pareto's law.
')


Spending the minimum amount of time to maintain the methodology, I get a handy notebook, task book, reminder in one person. In my case, Wunderlist is a mobile assistant, but I do not rule out that in the future, with an increase in the number of projects, their volume, the number of performers, I will need a more functional tool, like Things or Omni Focus , but to start these solutions will lose by the fact that at least they are paid.

Project Management Methodology

The zoo of methodologies today may frighten a novice, but it does not guarantee the solution of the problems of the old-timers. Since I indicated above that our strength is discipline, I would not go into project management from flexible methodologies. Although Scrum, Kanban and others on the one hand have a low entry threshold, on the other they do not impart basic concepts and skills and allow a less formal approach to the processes, which is bad for a beginner. In our case, we need an instruction: “Red to twist, yellow to hammer,” which in my opinion is PMBok. Actually being a “gold standard”, it will tell in great detail what the project stages consist of, what processes are included, what entry and exit points are present, tools for solving problems. Despite its details, it is not a methodology and guide to action, the set of proposed tools is mutually exclusive in some places, therefore it should be considered only as a framework. The Internet is now replete with both video and audio material on this subject and I doubt that you will have problems finding it. On my own, I can recommend the minimum required course , which is suitable most for those who have already experienced project management, but do not know anything about PMBok.

Project Management Tools

If there are a lot of project management methodologies, then tools that simplify an incalculable amount of work with them. Jira, Trello, Asana, Redmine, Harvest Forecast, BaseCamp, Podio and others are among the most popular. I am convinced that it will not be difficult for anyone to deal with any of them, so it’s useless to pay attention to the tools and set yourself the task of thoroughly studying one or more of them. In any case, if that will require official duties, you can start using any of them on the first day, on the second week you will know not only basic, but also hidden functions and features, and after three months you can safely call yourself an expert in this software.

Soft Skills or Divide and Conquer

The key mistake of many managers is that they strive to become such:


And this is a direct path to being a hateful person in the office and riveting problems in projects with a carbon paper. A separate item is the concept of “Leadership”, which for some reason is read not as “discipline, responsibility, decision-making”, but is perceived by the need to become an “enthusiastic idiot” who leads the project into the abyss.

A good manager never allows himself to share responsibility or tell the designer that here "you need to play with fonts." Based on the fact that each person in a team must be in his place and at the same time the manager does not have to combine duties, his ideal portrait should look like this:

To become a good manager and gain credibility in the team, remember:

• manage not people, but processes
• take responsibility for yourself
• analyze and do not allow the repetition of incidents, and do not look for extreme
• respect team members and their needs
• know how to say no

This list can be continued for almost infinitely long time, but even now each of the items is described in the literature in such detail that it barely lasts enough life to read everything.

Job search and own development

For a start, I advise you to subscribe to the newsletter (email, rss) of vacancies of the position you are interested in and related to it (project manager, product manager, business analyst, project coordinator). Then you daily analyze the offers that are on the market, and form a set of technologies that you need to explore. One week and 30-50 vacancies are enough to determine the minimum set of knowledge that your employer expects from you. The task of all the diversity to identify their weaknesses and tighten in a valid time.

In addition to studying technologies, methodologies and tools, it is worth a while to read business and management literature. The number of books on the market is overwhelming and it is not possible to read all this, so over time you will form your own parameters and make decisions about this or that book yourself, and for a start I can recommend the following:

• “Lean Startup”, Eric Figure
• “Insanely Simple,” Kevin Sigal.
• Essentialism, Greg McKeon
• "Target", Eliyahu Goldrath
• “Losing Innocence,” Richard Branson.
• "The Power of Habit", Charles Dahigg
• “The Mythical Man-Month or How Software Systems Are Created,” Frederick Brooks
• “Less but better”, Martin Biaugo, Jordan Milne

The last practical advice will concern proper work with the material. IT is developing dynamically and to be aware means to be valuable. For the organization of the correct work with news materials or articles, I use a bunch of RSS reader + Pocket (service delayed reading). Every morning begins with viewing the rss feeds and “flipping through” irrelevant and uninteresting news, while all that is valuable is sent to Pocket. This program has the greatest value for me and I try to dive into it every time I have a free minute. I used to spend this precious time on useless surfing, social networking, time killer games, now I always know that an interesting article awaits me.