Combined with my summary and gains and losses in project management over the past few years, I believe that an excellent project manager should have a sense of responsibility, be good at communicating, be able to guide customers, predict risks, be good at summarizing, respond to needs, be good at motivating the team, and at the same time. To understand technology.
sense of responsibility
As a project manager, you must first have a sense of responsibility. With a sense of responsibility, you will treat the project as your own child and put all your effort into it. Responsibility will drive you to pay attention to the progress of the project, do everything possible to find various resources, and push the project forward. Even when you eat, sleep, walk, or take a car, you think about the entire project team, thinking that they are still working overtime, you may naturally bring them some supper, make a cup of coffee, and reward the employees.
With the project manager as an example, the entire team will fully support the work, the morale is very high, the technical problems are easily solved, and the project will develop in the expected direction after being praised by the leaders and affirmed by the customers.
Many developers complain that the project manager doesn't do much work in a day, and the salary is quite high. In fact, the project manager is not idle for a moment. He is always thinking about how to better implement the project plan, adjust the project schedule, etc., and his brain has been running constantly, so the project manager is tired.
good at communication
PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) states that project managers spend 75% to 90% of their time on communication. Communication is everywhere, and project managers must have good communication skills. For example: report the work progress to the leader, introduce the product and explain the work results to the customer, explain the work to the project members, seek support from other personnel in the company, coordinate and cooperate with the cooperative manufacturers, etc. For project managers, most of the day is spent communicating with people. The project manager has bosses and clients on top, and project team members on the bottom. They belong to the plywood layer, and communication is not good, which is prone to accidents.
The key to communication is: at what time, in what way, with what information, and to whom? It is especially important to make a communication plan. At the same time, master the communication needs of project stakeholders and meet their expectations!
Of course, there are many ways to communicate, formal and informal. Formal include: various review meetings, weekly meetings, project initiation meetings, project summary meetings, etc. Informal such as: personal conversations, chats at the dinner table, MSN chats, etc. Use a combination of communication skills. In some cases, informal communication can lead to actual information about the project, especially the developers' expectations, ideas and thoughts about the project.
guide customers
"The customer is God", but the customer is not always right, and sometimes it is wrong, especially when the project has not yet developed a model, the customer sometimes does not know what they need. Therefore, after the project kick-off meeting, the two parties should "put the ugly words up front" and distinguish their responsibilities.
The project manager must stand in the customer's position, strive to meet the customer's business requirements, and let the software truly create value for the customer. However, if the project manager is always led by the customer, it is easy to fall into a passive situation. As a result, the customer's needs are constantly changing, resulting in the continuous rework of the program, and the project is always spinning in place, which is difficult to advance. Over time, everyone Exhausted and severely frustrated with motivation. In the end, the project was a mess!
Developers and users should pay attention to "equivalent positions", find customers who have the right to speak and can make decisions, and unify the interface personnel. When changing requirements, they can't just make changes. They should do appropriate change control. The author has always suggested that To "fall on paper", sometimes the customer's signature is required for confirmation.
For the requirements put forward by the customer, the project manager should quickly estimate the amount of development work required to change the requirements by virtue of their excellent technical level and abundant business knowledge, and is there a better solution? The ideal situation is that the program is basically unchanged and can meet the needs of the customer. However, the author often adopts a workaround method and realizes the needs of customers in a different way. In this case, the project manager needs to have a global understanding of the system structure, and the size must be accurate.
Project managers sometimes act as white faces and sometimes black faces, but in any case, they must protect the interests of team members. I often see many project managers consciously or unintentionally saying that developers are not developers in front of customers, and they encounter customer dissatisfaction. , just blame the developers. This method is inappropriate. The author usually expresses a position with the customer, admits the "mistake" to the customer, and then turns to the developer to reason with it, so as to achieve "internal resolution of internal problems".
However, over the years, the author has done a lot of projects, many of which are large-scale projects. As a project manager, the author has a good relationship with the client, and the cooperation between the two parties is very pleasant. In the end, the client has become a friend. Treating each other honestly, politely, and "win-win" is the direction and goal of the project manager.
predict risk
Risk runs throughout the project. As a project manager, you must have the ability to predict risks, such as whether the technical reserves meet the needs of the project, whether the personnel are sufficient, and whether the project budget is sufficient.
As the project progresses, the project manager needs to predict which links will be at risk and take evasive measures as soon as possible. Many risks can only be obtained through private contact with customers and bosses. For example, leaders may change in the next year, and the current year budget of state-owned enterprises must be used in the current year, and will be invalidated in the next year.
If the project manager is busy programming all day like a programmer and does not pay attention to the changes in the project risk, he will be passive or even caught off guard. Remember that risks are everywhere, and as a project manager, you should pay enough attention, be aware of risks, and be able to predict and control risks.
good at summarizing
The author often says, "Summary is to improve, thinking is to do better". Especially young project managers, who are not very experienced, can only do while summarizing, and move forward in the summary. Experience is not equal to experience, and only after summarizing and precipitation can it become one's own experience. Confucius said, "I examine my body three times a day", mainly because I pay more attention to it, and I often ask for advice from experienced seniors.
Many project managers, especially those who are in charge of the project at the beginning, always attribute some faults of the project to external factors, and sometimes think that they are right. In fact, they often make preconceived mistakes. In fact, we should find more reasons from ourselves and have the courage to criticize ourselves. Many aspects can be done better.
on demand
"Everything is foreshadowed, and no foreshadowing is abandoned", everything must have clear goals and plans, and be goal-oriented. With the plan, the project members can see the direction of their efforts, have "running" and energy, arouse the enthusiasm of employees, and the morale of the whole team is high.
Of course, the software industry, especially for domestic projects, needs to mobilize various resources due to the needs of the market, customers, and software improvement, so even a large-scale professional software company does not have a set plan. While "plans can't keep up with change," project managers shouldn't use this as an excuse for not valuing plan coherence. Make plans to leave appropriate buffer space, moderate elasticity, and on-demand!
The market leads R&D, and R&D promotes the market. The troika of projects: technology, business, and management, none of which can be missing. The three elements of the project: schedule, quality, cost, the project manager must firmly implement. Some project managers have no concept of "cost", blindly pursue perfection, are obsessed with technology, and forget to deliver on time. This is a common problem for software developers.
Motivate the team
The project team is a team. As the leader of a team, the project manager must first recognize his role, clarify his responsibilities, gradually strengthen the relationship with team members, be good at motivating others, and establish friendly relationships. Dealing with people who are underperforming and helping people who are underperforming. Therefore, the project manager should not just immerse himself in technical research, but more importantly, drive the entire team and ignite the passion of the team.
Secondly, it is necessary to clarify the team goals, formulate team rules, strengthen the trust relationship between team members, give employees challenging work, make the team full of vitality and vitality, give praise, coordinate interpersonal conflicts, and handle crises.
Finally, the project manager must be good at evaluating performance, so that rewards and punishments are clearly defined, so that bad tendencies and behavioral habits can be stifled in the initial stage.
understand technology
Only when the project manager understands the technology, can he estimate the workload and make the plan relatively feasible. Secondly, only by understanding technology can you communicate with others, especially with customers, so that customers can trust you. It is not realistic to "lay the layman to lead the expert" in the field of software development. The most important thing is that even if the main technical personnel are gone, the project manager can fill in the vacancies at any time, so that the project will not be paralyzed!
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