How to become a good project manager
This article is aimed at the development of software projects and is for reference only for other types of projects.
Recently, due to the adjustment of the company's business and organizational structure, the staff cannot be deployed. The boss of the company asked me to temporarily take charge of the management of an annual R&D project.
Although I have been engaged in product management for these years With ZenTao, the author has also undertaken the management of multiple software system projects in my past work experience.
We all know that all forms of project establishment have only one purpose, that is, the success of the project, and work is carried out around this goal in the project management process.
If we want a project to successfully complete the task within the set time, resources, and scope, there will definitely be a certain degree of difficulty. The wider the project involves, the larger the volume, the greater the risk.
We all know that all forms of project establishment have only one purpose, that is, the success of the project, and the project management process also focuses on this goal.
If we want a project to successfully complete the task within the set time, resources, and scope, there will definitely be a certain degree of difficulty. The wider the project involves, the larger the volume, the greater the risk.
Image: iStock/NicoElNino
We all know that all forms of project establishment have only one purpose, that is, the success of the project, and the project management process also focuses on this goal.
If we want a project to successfully complete the task within the set time, resources, and scope, there will definitely be a certain degree of difficulty. The wider the project involves, the larger the volume, the greater the risk.
As the core figure of the success or failure of the project, the project manager plays an important role. Because of this, the project manager needs to start from the following six aspects:
1.Establish Prestige
Since ancient times, all newly appointed officials must first establish prestige in order to better exercise their management powers.
The project team is formed temporarily, and the life cycle is generally not very long. Many companies are also functional management methods with members from different departments. Therefore, when the project manager takes office, he also needs to establish prestige in order to mobilize team members .
There are mainly the following two aspects:
1.1 Formal appointment required
Normally, the company will have a project initiation, but some companies have to go through the process of project approval for the so-called "efficiency", and the project team will notify it and it will be finished.
Before the project manager launches the specific project management work, the company must "announce the world" in the form of formal publication of the project approval document. This is the emphasis on the project and the best opportunity for the project manager to establish prestige.
If a company has not issued a document, the project manager can completely request the company to formally issue a document, formally appoint the project manager, so as not to be harmful to the follow-up work.
1.2 Clarify the responsibilities and powers of the project manager
I believe that when many companies are doing organizational structure, the HR department will sort out the company's job responsibilities, so the responsibilities of the project manager must also be clearly written, and the reference to the job responsibilities documents will be emphasized in the project document. If your company has not clarified the responsibilities of the project manager, you need to clarify it before initiating the project.
As the soul of the project, the project manager is directly responsible for the results of the project, and needs to effectively promote the project progress and control the project risks to achieve the project goals.
At the same time, the project manager should be given corresponding powers, including:
- Power for project team building and resource scheduling management;
- Right to assess the project team;
- The right to formulate and implement the reward and punishment system for the project team, including the right to distribute bonuses to the project.
2. Goal decomposition
As for the importance of clear project goals, I won’t go into details, as everyone on earth knows it. However, if the project manager has only one overall goal in mind, he will inevitably encounter trouble when landing.
The project will never be completed suddenly. There must be a gradual process. If the overall goal is not dismantled and milestones are used as the inspection criteria in the process, the possibility of project failure will be great rise.
Project goal decomposition
At the same time, milestone goals are also for better control of project costs and risks. They can be simply understood as sub-projects, but they are not equivalent. Because there is no output in the milestone, it does not mean that the corresponding work will not be carried out in the milestone, because the solution of some technical problems may run through the entire project, but only the results will be reflected in the subsequent milestones.
Milestone goals need to include three aspects: output time, goals, and inspection indicators. In principle, the milestone goals are determined by the project manager, and subsequent changes are also determined by the project manager. However, in the actual implementation situation, the project manager needs to output the results according to the milestones as much as possible, and cannot be changed at will, otherwise it is very likely to affect the output of the entire project.
As for the granularity of the milestone output, from the author’s experience, the milestones of a project cannot be too many or too few. Generally, it is more appropriate to split the project into 2 to 4 milestones. The results of each milestone should have the ability to be output, and it needs to be able to be tested. It is clear that the output of each milestone should have the ability to release, but as to whether it must be output, this can be done by the project manager, product manager, The project management committee consults and decides together.
3.Select Talents
No matter how strong the personal ability of the project manager is, the development of the project work also depends on the concerted efforts of everyone in the team.
For the project manager, it is very important to set up a project team and select the right core personnel. This is also one of the important factors that determine the success or failure of the project.
According to the normal process, the selection of project team members must be completed before the project is established. Of course, there are cases where the team is slowly formed after the project is established. However, no matter what the situation, the selection of people is a necessary ability of the project manager, and it is also a must Experience.
3.1 Selection of core personnel
The larger the size of the project, the wider the scope and the more complex the composition of the project team members.
Our article mainly refers to the development of software project work. According to the regular composition of software project personnel, it is necessary to complete the selection of the four core roles of product manager, architect, core developer, and test team leader.
In different companies, the core role of the project may be different. This does not matter. It can be determined according to their respective circumstances. The key point is to clarify the core roles of the project team and the selection of corresponding personnel.
3.2. Personnel requirements
When selecting personnel, it is necessary to evaluate from two aspects to ensure that all personnel can meet project requirements.
The first is the skill requirements. After the project manager has passed the initial decomposition of the project objectives, he needs to analyze the key technical difficulties of the project. According to past experience, this risk seems to be small, but it has become a constraint on the project schedule in many projects. "Tai Hang". Therefore, in combination with the technical requirements of the project, use this as a reference point to select the appropriate personnel.
Seeing this, some people may ask, the project manager is not omnipotent, what if the difficulty is uncountable?
Good question, if due to the technical deficiencies of the project manager, for example, the project manager only knows Java, has never used C# to develop a project, and is not clear about the corresponding technical problems, then first find a suitable one. Net architects, and then help you analyze together to clarify technical requirements.
The second is the literacy requirements. This sounds like nothing to consider, but I think this is similar to non-functional requirements, very important and must be considered.
From the author’s experience analysis, in terms of professionalism, the core personnel must be proactive, responsible, and able to think, analyze, and take risks in the project together with the project manager.
The core personnel should have positive energy, have certain communication skills, can listen to the opinions of other members of the team, so that the project team has strong cohesion, and can also help the project manager recommend reasonable project members to jointly complete the formation of the project team.
4.Set The Rules
No rules, no standards. The project team is large or small, but the management process is similar. To ensure that all the project team members can carry out their work in a normal and orderly manner, the key is to set reasonable internal rules, that is, reward and punishment measures.
As the saying goes, under heavy money, there must be a brave man. Under conditions, the project manager should strive for reasonable project rewards. Note that this is a reward, not a bonus, because there are many ways to reward, including cash, rest, and travel. and many more.
Conversely, those who violate the system within the project and adversely affect the development of the project will also be punished for responding. Including non-participation in regular project meetings for no reason, deliberately creating conflicts within the project team, etc.
But one thing to note is that the rewards and punishments of the project team must be "less than" and not clearly defined in the company system to avoid receiving multiple rewards or punishments.
5.Prevent Risks
Regarding the importance of risk prevention, it should be something that everyone has been shouting from the beginning of the project. However, in actual projects, there are often some risks that are not well identified, which leads to unsuccessful project development and lighter delays. , It fails again.
The author has a real example. My friend’s company was doing power construction projects before. From accepting the contract to equipment research and development, there was no problem. It was not until the equipment was transported to the actual site that there were two power equipment that needed to be installed. On a small island, there was no way to install cranes on site, and it was impossible to move the poles manually. As a result, not only did Party A pay a high amount of compensation, it also affected the company’s reputation, even this basic The risks are not identified.
For software projects, risks are everywhere. According to the author's actual experience, risk identification needs to be analyzed from the following aspects.
There is also an association relationship between each type of risk. It is very likely that the occurrence of a certain risk will cause a chain reaction of other risks, which is somewhat similar to the butterfly effect. Therefore, correct identification of risks is very important.
The project manager should analyze it together with the core role of the project team and formulate corresponding measures to avoid a good response when a risk occurs.
5.1 Time Risk
This mainly refers to the project schedule. Software project delay is very common, so the time risk is easy to identify.
The project manager needs to make a detailed project plan, make a WBS, and track the plan every day, as well as analyze the problems that arise.
For the failure to normally output the results within the agreed time, it can be compensated by appropriate overtime work. For the time delay caused by the quality problem, on the one hand, the architect needs to guide the developers in the technical processing, on the other hand, it is necessary to strengthen the testing efforts, as soon as possible Find quality problems and solve them as soon as possible.
5.2 Personnel Risk
The change of project team personnel is also a common problem, the most troublesome is the change of core personnel. Therefore, for the prevention and control of personnel risks, project managers need to make a backup plan for personnel so that they can fill positions in time after personnel changes occur and minimize the impact on the project.
Project managers need to always pay attention to the status of project team members. For employees who are at risk of resignation, they must be able to identify as soon as possible, especially before the peak of job-hopping at the end of the year and the beginning of the year, they must have a certain preparation plan.
In addition, the design materials in the software project development process must be output and updated in the form of documents, which can also prevent quick take over after personnel changes.
5.3 Technical Risks
If the project manager can do a good job in the project plan and WBS, technical risks are easy to identify, because all technical implementation issues will be considered when planning and evaluating the workload.
So do we have other technical risks that are easy to overlook?
The answer is yes.
When the author was responsible for the development of a certain product, one of the technologies required to rely on the existing technical capabilities of a third-party company. However, when the project was about to enter the final stage, a message suddenly came that the third-party company was due to its own technological achievements. Involving intellectual property issues, it is impossible to achieve commercial output. This has dealt a heavy blow to our project. Because we did not make any backup plans, the project had to be postponed, and re-selection, re-business negotiations, and re-development of technical interfaces were finally The project was postponed for more than half a year, causing huge economic losses.
Therefore, in terms of technology, in addition to the need to well identify the technical risks within the project, if there are external dependencies, a backup technical plan must be made. This aspect also includes the selection of the project’s hardware supplier. Generally speaking, there will be Two or three suppliers will never rely solely on them.
5.4 Target Risk
One of the principles of agile development is to embrace requirements. In fact, there is the possibility of changes in project goals. This kind of risk is the most difficult to prevent and control, because it is often caused by investors, bosses or sudden changes in the market. For this kind of overall risk, the author believes that it needs to be controlled from two aspects:
Close the project as soon as possible, and then re-establish the project according to the new goal;
To ensure the effectiveness of the output of the milestone goal, at least to ensure that the project has certain results, and some technologies must be settled in time. These can basically be reused to minimize losses.
6.Get Results
As mentioned earlier, the goal of project development is the success of the project, and the project manager must bring the project team members to ensure that the project is completed on time with quality and quantity at all costs. For project managers, project results are also key KPIs.
From the author's point of view, the project process will be a relatively long period of time, and the project needs to output the results in stages. On the one hand, this is the basis for achieving the success of the project, and on the other hand, it is also like the company's executives to show their own capabilities. Therefore, the project manager cannot just pursue the final result. That is not only risky, it is also not conducive to proving themselves.
In addition to the goal of project success, the project manager also needs to pay attention to the achievement of the project team members' "capacity improvement".
This is something that many project managers tend to ignore. There are two reasons for this:
First of all, if the project fails, but the ability of the project members has been improved, it can also recover a little loss for the company;
Secondly, in other project work in the future, the project manager will probably need to continue cooperating with this wave of people. Everyone will miss you. If the team members can improve their ability, they will definitely be in the follow-up work. More handy.
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