Since many people are unfamiliar and vague about the position of project manager, I have sorted out some classic cases from my personal experience and reading and communication. A friend asked me, where is the source of this article? Many of these experiences are not the experience of one person, and many of these summaries are not from the hands of one person. Just as we think that a piece of code is well written, it will definitely be collected and organized as part of ourselves to improve and share, and then people will continue to improve and share it. None of us dare to say that we are the smartest person, but as long as we keep learning and summarizing the experience that others have already had, it is possible to catch up with others in the shortest time!
Is it difficult to be a good project manager? He must first be the incarnation of technology and management, and secondly, he must have a good image and excellent eloquence, and at the same time have a certain personality charm. In addition, he must have a certain design mind and aesthetics, and there are many more, which will not be repeated. .... In the eyes of most bosses, there is no concept of systematic division of labor or the division of labor is relatively simple based on various reasons, so the things described in many books will be a little unreliable in reality. Without product managers, there is no demand analysis. Teachers, no architects, no system analysts, and even no implementation and operation and maintenance, but also to be able to do things well without complaint! It is an all-round occupation with both offense and defense. Many bosses regard it in a crucial position. They will keep you even if they are reluctant to eat and spend, and it is also your stage! And this is absolutely intolerable in the eyes of the old American "Uncle Sam". Just like Ford's assembly line, KFC, and McDonald's, they hope that all employees can be replaced in this way. When all Chinese companies progress to that state In the future, there are not many things we can do, and it will be more difficult for you to reach the higher-end spires! It's not wrong to vote for Liu Bei or Cao Cao, as long as you can reach the top of the tower faster, as long as you are the protagonist of the stage, that's the right choice!
Whether you are transforming to be a project manager or planning to transform, you must change the burden of previous ideas, and change yourself from the inside out. Many ways are just because we haven't discovered it and no one has guided it. We don’t want the summary and discussion of every word and sentence to conform to everyone’s walking line, because that is impossible, we only hope that it can become our strong backing and theoretical basis when we encounter difficulties and lack guidance, because communication It is the best bridge to success!
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I have been working as a project manager for many years. I feel that the most important thing in doing this job is to understand what it means to adapt to local conditions and make the best use of the situation. There is only the most suitable one. There is nothing right or wrong. Especially those who are technical personnel, like to find standard answers, delay the work progress, and also confuse themselves. The following are some of my personal experiences of doing projects, and I wrote them out for your guidance, so as to improve the level together during the discussion. One of the differences between software engineering and other architectural engineering is that there are always various things that people will use to satirize the uncertainty in the design and development process of software, but I have never heard of anything after the bridge is built and The drawings are different. The following is a cartoon "The real needs of customers are like this" is enough to hit the nail on the head,
and this cartoon is also a bit sentimental. Although it is a cartoon, there are many examples in real life. The initial stage of the
project is one of the most important stage. When a project manager takes over a new project, first of all, he should understand the situation of the project from all aspects as much as possible, such as:
1. What kind of project is this project? question. In the case that many domestic customers are very immature, do not imagine the goals of the project according to the name of the project. A project called "office automation" is likely to find out that the customer actually needs a computer production management auxiliary information system a month after you enter the site. The more detailed the work to understand the situation up front, the fewer surprises later, and the less risky the project is.
2. Who are involved in this project, such as investors, specific business stakeholders, operators after the project is completed, technical supervisors, etc. In many projects, in addition to the complex structure of the owner unit, there are also some other units It will also be involved, such as the project supervision company, the owner's industry authority, etc. The project manager needs to understand what everyone in each side thinks and expects of the project. Knowing the views and expectations of various aspects in advance will allow you to analyze who will support you in what way and who will oppose you for what purpose when you encounter problems in the project, so as to prepare for joint friends in advance Go against the enemy and let things go the way you want. There are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only consistent interests. This sentence must be remembered as a project manager.
3. After having a basic understanding of the customer's situation, the following thing is to understand the views of all aspects of the company on this project. The first is whether the senior leadership attaches importance to it, which determines whether the company will provide the strongest support according to your requirements when you need resources. The leader must verbally support it. What you need to do is to understand the company's actual expectations for this project. Do you want to make the project bigger or bigger or to make money? Whether you want to do a model project or simply want to perfunctory, the attitude of the company's leaders to the project determines your strategy for doing this project, and this strategic policy will have a direct impact on your project plan.
4. Before making the overall project plan, you should also roughly calculate the resources you have on hand. The first is time. Now the market is highly competitive, and many projects are often required to be completed within an almost impossible time frame. For this, you should fully consider it when you make the project's risk control plan. The second is personnel. According to the project budget and past experience, roughly calculate how many roles the future project team will have, whether each role is currently in the company, whether it can be fully used by the project, whether it needs to recruit some additional personnel, and preparations for recruitment To start early. The last is the preparation of some equipment. The large and key equipment required for the project should be booked as soon as possible. In the future, no matter what happens when the equipment waits for people or people wait for the equipment, all your time will be wasted.
5. Now is the time to do the project specification. A good project specification not only clearly describes what to do (mainly what to do, not how to do it), but also clearly describes how to check. That is to say, it not only explains what to do, but also lets the customer's business personnel (generally ignorant of technology) know what the project is done, even if it is completed. Simply put, the project specification describes what the project does and to what extent each thing is done and how each outcome is checked.
6. Is it time for a master plan? No, you now know the client's goals and the resources you have. Before planning, you need to fully communicate with your managers and clients about resources. Because many resources are still unclear, you need to write a report that analyzes the risks of the project and the demand for resources in detail. What will happen if some problems cannot be solved. If the resources are not enough, it is necessary to change the strategy at the top and increase the investment in the project. Even if conditions permit, some companies will abandon the project. In short, no one can complete an impossible task. If the project manager can't find the risk as soon as possible, then he can only be a martyr.
7. Now that you know what to do and what chips you have and your overall strategy for doing this project, it's time to form a project team. Many project managers do not have the right to choose their own team members, so use your influence to find those you want. The composition of members varies greatly according to different projects, and it is difficult to have any specific requirements. However, there must be someone who is proficient in customer business. In many small projects, this person is the project manager himself, and in large projects, industry experts (Industry expert), so that the communication with the customer will not be the same as the duck, and the two sides can understand each other. I often see situations where our technician talks to the customer with a mouthful of jargon, only to confuse the customer, who in turn accuses the customer of not being tech-savvy. In fact, customers who understand what they want to do are already good customers. There are customers who do not know what they want to do, let alone how to do it, but also point fingers everywhere, but you must understand that it is the customer who chooses you, not you. If you choose a customer, you can only get paid if you have a customer, so be calm.
For customers whose needs change every day, you must make rules in advance:
1. Unify the contact person. The customer designates a person to communicate with the project team. Leader Zhang and Leader Wang cannot both say a few words. If they disagree, then you only have the choice to offend the leader. Therefore, the rules must be set at the beginning of the project. My project team only accepts one opinion. If there is any requirement for you to unify and then talk to me, I do not want to be involved in the contradiction between your internal business departments.
2. All requirements changes must be written in writing, remember this! There are many advantages to this:
if there is written evidence, he wants to change in the future, you have the evidence he asked for before, tell him: you said so before.
It is convenient for requirement change management, and the history of how the requirement evolves slowly can be seen clearly, so as to understand the customer's purpose more deeply.
For the client, it is most convenient to move the mouth. Anyway, you do it without spending his resources, so whether the request is reasonable and consistent with the purpose of the project, he is irresponsible. But if he was asked to write a written request and signed and stamped, he would have to be more cautious, and as soon as he wrote something, his thoughts would go deeper, and many unreasonable requests would just die.
Now you have to deal with three groups of people: your leaders, your team members, and your customers, communicate with these people, let them know what you plan to do, when you want them to prepare, these things will be your main Work. Since communication is so important, it is also very important to define the principles of communication in advance. Many communication principles are unspoken rules. If you have worked in a department for a long time, the application of these rules is a matter of course. However, you are now dealing with multiple departments or even multiple units. If you do not clarify the communication rules, you will suffer in the future. The following things may seem boring, but they are actually very useful: The first is to specify the flow and medium of information, whether it is push or pull. Push means that the project manager will proactively release information, whether by phone, email, or in writing, ensuring that information is communicated to everyone. This situation is suitable for small projects with few people. Pull means that the project manager is like a web server, you can ask him what information you need. Of course, no project manager makes himself so tired. He will publish information by publishing information to public media. The simple one is the whiteboard, and the more complicated one is the public information interaction area of the project. Don't say I didn't tell you. It seems boring to say that, but it actually involves the issue of responsibility for incomplete information transmission. Of course, these are general methods, and should not be absolute. In general, active communication and passive access exist at the same time. Especially for leaders, project managers should take the initiative to communicate with leaders. The second problem is the document problem. Many people are afraid of writing documents, but the project manager must keep in mind the truth that "good memory is not as good as bad writing". Why can't it make sense sometimes? Just because there is no evidence. Therefore, the project manager should clarify with the client that some documents must be signed, such as the project log of the project manager, which must be signed by the client at least every week. In addition, everything that has reached a consensus, such as meeting minutes and even the leader's speech records, are It should be written into a document and signed by both parties, so that when there is a dispute in the future, it can be well documented. Remember: what is said is the same as what is not said. It only really happens when it is written down and signed by everyone. There are also some questions, such as the report you submitted, you gave the leader (including the leader of your own party and the leader of the customer) a multiple-choice question. As a result, the leader did not approve, leaving you at a loss, and as a result, the progress was delayed. At this time, you can wait, but be careful to keep a record to indicate who is responsible; in addition, if you agree with the leader at the beginning: if you don’t get a response from the leader three days after the instruction is submitted, the other party agrees, so you will take more initiative. . Again For example, the approval process of different events: what level of things are recorded in the project log, what level of things should be signed by the project managers of both parties, and what level of things should be signed by the leaders of both parties. The more thoughtful you are in advance, the more proactive your work will be in the future.
9. Well, a lot of upfront work has been done and some rules of the game have been defined, it's time to sit down and plan. In this section, any project management book will be better than me, so I will write less and say some of my own experience. The first is to find a few key team members, such as customer business experts, system analysts, etc., to do the division of project modules. The project is divided into several pieces to do, what is done in each piece, how information is exchanged between modules, and so on. Requirements define the question of what to do, and here is the question of how to do it. Here is a point to emphasize: there are many ways to accomplish a goal, you have to choose the one you are most familiar with, not the one that looks perfect. This idea will reduce your project risk a lot. Sometimes a client will be moved by a new technology and insist that you adopt that new technology, you should tell him: if you choose me to do this project, you should allow me to do things in my favorite way. It's tempting because there aren't many people who suffer, and I don't want you to be the first victim. Using a plan will make your work more clear. For example, using Microsoft Project software, after you fill out the form, you can know how many things to do in this project, what resources are needed for each thing, and how they are related before and after. , how long does it take, what signs are there when it's done, etc. All results are finally displayed in a form called a Gantt chart. You'll be amazed when you're done with this chart that the project's end time on the Gantt chart is way behind your planned end time (the person signing the contract will never ask for your opinion first). Of course, people who have studied project management will talk a lot about WBS, optimization paths, etc., but my experience is that you can't optimize these things until the end of the planned time. If you don't encounter this problem, before I congratulate you on picking an easy job, please double check that you have listed all the things to do and correctly assess the time they will take. At this point, you need to consider sacrificing time (and quality) for some tasks. Sacrifice by what standard? Strategy for this project! The strategies we mentioned in Section III. My experience is that if you catch up with everything, the result may be ten things you don't do well, think about what a failure. So, put resources into things that you are familiar with and are sure of. The final result is ten things. You have made three outstanding things, three completed, and four delayed for some reason. Is the transcript beautiful? How many? Strategy determines priorities, and prioritizing things correctly is a major manifestation of a project manager's ability.
10. Well, now the project has completed the preliminary work, understand the goals of the project, figure out the resources at hand, formulate the strategy of the project, and then formulate the overall plan of the project, the project enters the implementation stage. Entering this stage is when the project manager is relatively free. Unlike in the early stage, the project manager has to contact different people everywhere like a reporter, figure out what they are talking about, and try to guess what they are thinking and their real purpose, then It's the most tiring thing. Of course, the project manager of a small project is often a resource himself, and he has to do a lot of things. At this time, it is more difficult than anyone else. The main job of the project manager during this period is to maintain communication with the client's leaders and their own leaders. Pay special attention when communicating with customer leaders. Unless you need the support of the other party, then you need to be more specific. Otherwise, just tell him that everything is normal, and the attitude should be more positive. Never say that some leaders do not understand details, such as: "Director Wang, the project progress has been normal recently, that is, some memory leaks often occur in the JVM..." Director Wang: "(*&
The final deliverable must be able to be checked, for example, [interface requirements: beautiful, concise and clear], I don't know how to check this requirement. Therefore, when assigning tasks to the development team, we must consider how to check the results. For example, I have seen a plan, which contains a task [developers are familiar with EJB programming]. This task, in addition to letting these people take some professional certification exams, otherwise , the results are hard to check. Therefore, always thinking about how to check the results and how to deliver to customers is something that project managers always pay attention to. I have heard that some old project managers get projects in reverse order, that is, they first look at how to check the results and the acceptance criteria, and then decide on the work plan. . Many projects have been started for a long time, and they still do not know how to accept them, so there is a high possibility of problems with this project. Doing projects is for acceptance, our role is not a research institution, our purpose is to get results after so much labor.
In addition, let me add a sentence: I am extremely not advocating to develop on the customer site. Especially when a large group of technicians communicate directly with customers, it is easy to cause conflicts and contradictions (determined by the nature of technicians). My approach is that project managers and project implementers go to the site, while software developers still work on projects in the company. Project implementers are junior project managers. They understand their products and the business of some customers. The key is that they have good communication skills, commonly known as "thick skin". They are the bridge between customers and R&D personnel, and their career direction is also very flexible. They can turn in many directions in the future, which is much wider than that of developers.
11. Next, let's talk about the most annoying problem of changing requirements. Changes are usually divided into two types: one is to partially change the original goal, that is, to change the requirements; the other is to not change the goal, but the customer is not satisfied with the current implementation, ranging from the realization of the process to the layout of the interface. All belong to this category. It is unavoidable to encounter such a situation, mainly because the communication in advance is not sufficient and the customer gradually figured out the problem as the project progressed and changed his previous thinking. At this time, if you need to change and your strategy allows this situation, then pay attention to the following points: Make
sure that the previous document is the thing that records the previous conclusion, whether the customer has signed it, if not, quickly put your When the work stops, quickly confirm your plan with the customer himself, and then ask him to sign, so as to avoid speaking without credentials in the future;
Sit down with the client and discuss what the fundamental purpose of his modification is. Is there an alternative that can achieve the same purpose but is less expensive for you?
(Work in the early stage of the project) Clearly change the process, usually the customer designates a person to sign (otherwise every leader of the customer has the right to intervene, and you will be abolished), submit it to you in the form of a formal project document, and then you do Evaluate and analyze, analyze the impact on cost and progress, and issue a corresponding opinion letter after your leader agrees, mainly to explain the reasons for changing the design and point out the uncertain consequences (this thing is written first, if later if It really happened, at least not your fault). Then ask the customer to sign on it. Have you seen the exemption clause that the hospital asks the family to sign before the operation is performed on the patient? Yes, just learn that and make everyone aware that any change has costs and costs.
12. After the system development has come to an end, it will enter the stage of customer training and system acceptance. At this stage, I usually pay attention to the following issues:
1. Before training customers, pay more attention to some superficial skills. Many programmers believe that whether the logical core of the system is correct is the key. As for the interface and whether the words on the interface are accurate, those are irrelevant issues. Moreover, when training, it is easy to say what they want to say, and the people who listen to the lecture below. I don't know what to say, the clouds and mountains are covered with fog, and the training effect is naturally conceivable. My experience is that if you do a training version for customers, if you still can't determine whether the logic meets the requirements after doing many tests, then you should at least spend a little more effort on the interface. Pay attention to the layout of each interface, the correct wording, the correctness of the links, etc. In short, don't let the customer see something he shouldn't see. In terms of documentation, prepare at least two documents: user manual and training manual. Much of the content of the two documents is the same, but the angle is completely different. The user manual is often from the perspective of the system designer, according to their own ideas, to explain the operation and functions of the system in modules; while the training manual must be from the perspective of the customer's business personnel, and deal with different businesses according to each role. , how to achieve the goal by using a series of functions of this system. Therefore, before the first training, whether the system interface is complete and correct, and whether the training documents are complete are the key factors.
As a project manager, there are actually several things in mind: what to do, to what extent, how to deliver, the resources at hand, and the priority of each thing. The so-called fast and economical is the dream of human beings. These four aspects are contradictory to each other. They belong to the typical type that requires the horse to run and the horse not to graze. Considering the priority of the problem, the priority is often to put speed first, and the leaders of all parties will give you a deadline, so ensuring the progress is the first; the province is the second, the fundamental purpose of the enterprise is to make profits, if the income If it cannot be increased, at least the cost must be controlled; it is better to be the third, there is no way, everyone wants to keep improving, but without a strong resource guarantee, the quality has to be sacrificed first; in the end, there is a lot of customer requirements, how to It is also the project manager's job to lower the expectations of clients and bring them from ideal to reality.
Before acceptance, in addition to doing good documentation work and delivering results, it is very important to spend more time to understand the customer's work process. These have been mentioned before, so I won't say more here.
My biggest experience with acceptance is the issue of proof. i.e. don't let the customer think that: you have to have proof that your system is ok. In this way, you will be out of the game. Microsoft has so many geniuses, and it is patched every day when XP is made. It is impossible for your program to have no problem, and you have no way to show evidence. You need to let the customer understand that the so-called acceptance means that I run the test case according to the test document, and the result is consistent with the expected result. It should be considered as passed, and some minor mistakes are allowed to be corrected after acceptance, and he can raise the test case. Opinion. Therefore, both parties must confirm the test plan and test cases before acceptance. If he believes that the system does not meet the requirements, then he should provide evidence that the system deviates from the original design. Therefore, with reference to legal concepts, don't put the evidence upside down. In addition, it is also wrong to think that the system can only be accepted after it is perfect. The software development contract must indicate the cost of the maintenance period after the acceptance. Otherwise, the customer is worried that they will not receive your support once the acceptance is accepted, and naturally they will not cooperate with the acceptance. , it will be difficult for you as a project manager to do your homework.
Finally, I want to talk about how to evaluate the performance of project managers. In my opinion, project managers have the following grades:
* The worst project manager: there are always accidents during the project process, and then they can't solve it by themselves, and they become martyrs. ;
*Second-class project manager: Projects often have accidents, but he took the lead, moved forward bravely, solved one problem after another, and finally, reluctantly ended the project and won unanimous praise from the leaders;
*First-class project manager: Usually It is rare to see him doing specific things, chatting with people all day long, then writing reports, making plans, and finally the project ends smoothly, the whole process is unremarkable; project management training Is
project management a science or an art? The so-called science is something that has been repeatedly demonstrated, and there are certain rules in input and output, and you can reap the benefits of sowing; and art is the spark of thought, mainly relying on inspiration. Project management, according to a senior, is a science abroad, and 80% of it has rules to follow; in China, it is an art, mainly relying on personal charm, infectious ability and other things. After I understand PMBOK, I learned some ways of doing things, but I just understand the 20% of the scientific stuff, and there is still 80% of the space, which belongs to the field of different opinions. Therefore, how important it is for project managers to strengthen personal abilities in many aspects, such as developing excellent communication skills and enhancing their personal charm, both internally and externally. As a first-class professional, how to let your leaders know your value while getting clients to sign off smoothly is also a way to reflect your ability.
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