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Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?
51–60 of 109 posts
Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?
#52Out of interest, why are you switching to project management if you wouldn't mind me asking?
I'm not the OP but I'm thinking of switching too. My reasons: Often writing the code for microcontrollers can be overwhelming especially when it's full of bad style or I have to understand a new library. There is often a difficulty mismatch. I find myself hating my programming job for hours, only thinking about money. I have never tried program management and honestly it sounds easier. I watch my bosses just ask me f…
I find this reply interesting, because as a developer I feel like #3 is pretty much the only hard thing I have to deal with: translating human intention, which is sometimes paradoxical, into code. It can be hard enough when it's your intention, it's even harder when it's someone else's, and can be a huge time sink when it's multiple someone else's. Corner cases especially, where there is no answer that can completely satisfy all the stakeholders, becomes a balancing act.
Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?
#53Many developers try to keep track of everything in their head. That won't work as a PM. Your time will usually be much more fractured than it was a dev, as you track multiple ongoing projects at various levels of detail. If you try to keep everything in your head, you will most likely start dropping balls, and if there's anyone who shouldn't drop balls, it's a PM. So, my advice: make lists and track the status of eve…
I've spent 2016 with an average of 10 to 15 active projects I had to manage. Each one of them had an average of 5 stakeholders performing around 2 or 3 tasks per week I had to manage. That alone, using simple math, gave me 150 active tasks per week that I should track. You can easily double or triple that number if you had tasks created to yourself before (preparation) and after (follow-ups) each task due date. On to…
For a 40 hour week and 150 tasks per week to track, you have just 16 minutes per week per task. 16 minutes, to understand what's going on with a task that requires 13-20 hours to complete. How can you possibly develop an understanding of any of these tasks? I'm guessing that you can't, and that your 'tracking' must be limited to updating Basecamp with whether or not the task is on-track or blocked.
Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?
#54Out of interest, why are you switching to project management if you wouldn't mind me asking?
I'm not the OP but I'm thinking of switching too. My reasons: Often writing the code for microcontrollers can be overwhelming especially when it's full of bad style or I have to understand a new library. There is often a difficulty mismatch. I find myself hating my programming job for hours, only thinking about money. I have never tried program management and honestly it sounds easier. I watch my bosses just ask me f…
While I'd never recommend staying a career that you hate, I'm not sure switching to a position you think is cruisy is a great idea either. That's a recipe for under performance and bad management.
It does sound like you've never worked with a good PM, I'm not sure if I have either as I do struggle a lot with what value they actually add to projects.
99% of the time its better for people to speak directly and not relay information through other (probably non technical) people.
Of course you do need to limit distractions but I think you can set expectations with people about what distractions do and how often they should distract you.
Also find that a lot of PMs try play power games, I really think they need a new job title like Project Coordinator or something that sounds a little less in charge.
Interesting to see this thread has a very mixed idea of what a PM is, a number of people mention things I'd expect as part of a sales or BA role. I wonder if this is part of the reason people find PMs useless is that no one really knows what they should be doing.
Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?
#55I did the switch. The hard part is leaving your previous shoes behind. While not mandatory you have to choose how to partition your time and set your priorities straight. Chances are if getting promoted you are good at it, whatever that is, probably better than most your manages. Find someone that thinks in your same patterns and delegate as much technical issues to his guidance, so you will have no surprise if you n…
Top tip, don't even think of it as a promotion. You're not anyone's boss.
Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?
#56Many developers try to keep track of everything in their head. That won't work as a PM. Your time will usually be much more fractured than it was a dev, as you track multiple ongoing projects at various levels of detail. If you try to keep everything in your head, you will most likely start dropping balls, and if there's anyone who shouldn't drop balls, it's a PM. So, my advice: make lists and track the status of eve…
I've spent 2016 with an average of 10 to 15 active projects I had to manage. Each one of them had an average of 5 stakeholders performing around 2 or 3 tasks per week I had to manage. That alone, using simple math, gave me 150 active tasks per week that I should track. You can easily double or triple that number if you had tasks created to yourself before (preparation) and after (follow-ups) each task due date. On to…
Agreed. Your personal process is incredibly important, and lists or more advanced productivity tools are there to support that process.
Years ago I put into practice David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology. While I've significantly customized my own process since then, I still use techniques like immediate capture. When a todo / idea / concern comes up, I quickly capture it in a holding area and get back to what I was doing. Then I intentionally revisit that list at regular intervals to pick off items with my full attention.
Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've spent 2016 with an average of 10 to 15 active projects I had to manage. Each one of them had an average of 5 stakeholders performing around 2 or 3 tasks per week I had to manage. That alone, using simple math, gave me 150 active tasks per week that I should track. You can easily double or triple that number if you had tasks created to yourself before (preparation) and after (follow-ups) each task due date. On to…
For a 40 hour week and 150 tasks per week to track, you have just 16 minutes per week per task. 16 minutes, to understand what's going on with a task that requires 13-20 hours to complete. How can you possibly develop an understanding of any of these tasks? I'm guessing that you can't, and that your 'tracking' must be limited to updating Basecamp with whether or not the task is on-track or blocked.
It doesn't go that way because of the variety of projects/tasks you are handling. For some projects I check the entire Gantt chart in seconds, send 2 or 3 notifications and that's it, 5 minutes max. Other times it would take me 1 full hour to write a single email with 4 or 5 statements and send it to company executives. I have to choose my words, be careful and rewrite. So it depends.
You are not taking overtime into consideration. In 2015 alone I worked a full month worth of overtime. Working 40h a week for me was far from reality. On peak periods I was pushing from 12 to 16h a day.
Edit: tried to improve grammar. Added more details to improve context.
Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some PMs wear at times the peer hat. However I believe it is not a good idea to consider yourself a peer. Confusion about roles can lead to conflicts. By design the PM has to have to last word in most critical decisions, especially with outside contacts and that makes one stand out. An important part of the PM role is to say "NO" to all sides - while a peer may say only "no" - and this requires power. How to achieve…
> However I believe it is not a good idea to consider yourself a peer. But PMs are peers. PM is not a position of authority. If you are acting as a PM and try to present yourself as if you have the authority to override dev decisions or demand that they do certain things, it might work, or you might breed resentment and hurt your interactions as well as the general team dynamic. A PM should treat devs as peers and wo…
I think the difference here is between having responsibility vs acting like the guy with the crown. A manager should respect his engineers and shouldn't tell everybody that the engineers are "his guys" like he owns some slaves.
But in the end he's the one who should be allowed to override an engineer's decision on whether to work on task A or task B, when to pull extra hours and when it's okay to slack a little.
And if he's good he will be able to keep all the annoying meetings away from the engineers, which as well gives him more power over them but also allows them the freedom to focus on the code.
In a good relationship between PM and engineer it doesn't feel like one is on top of the other. But that doesn't mean there is no hierarchy in the company decision making perspective.
Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?
#59Many developers try to keep track of everything in their head. That won't work as a PM. Your time will usually be much more fractured than it was a dev, as you track multiple ongoing projects at various levels of detail. If you try to keep everything in your head, you will most likely start dropping balls, and if there's anyone who shouldn't drop balls, it's a PM. So, my advice: make lists and track the status of eve…
It's also harder to proof that you are doing your job if you are in the middle between a few teams. Therefore tracking activity in tools instead of your head is also an advantage. Best is not hand written lists, but official tools that are accepted as serious. E.g. the CRM or the issue tracker.
Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?
#60Tip: Find a real PM platform and ask them what they hate about engineers turning PMs. Here you get a lot of advice from engineers who basically say "be nicer to engineers than the other PMs I know". But there are reasons for these misunderstandings that go beyond PMs being arrogant pricks. If you can figure that out you'll certianly have an easier life.