If you are a project manager you definitely have ever told your colleagues “I hate these reports! Why do they require those stupid report for every tracked hour? I spend several hours to create it!” You have a weekly call with the customer on the status and have to prepare for it whole the day? You hate Mondays, not only because it is the hardest day of the working week but also because report call? You have to explain each hour spent on the project? It rings the bell? If yes, we are on the same side.
Where the miracle begins
About two months ago I had a severe argue with one of our lead developers about ‘agile stuff’. After 15 min of listening to my enthusiastic speech his face became red and I could read “Woman, what do you know about the real life?” from it. And then he said the phrase I can’t forget: “And why do we need all of that? Why we can’t just collect our best architects and analytics and write down all requirements, describe models, create the ideal architecture, plan everything and then start development?”
Writing emails
This is a post for PMs only. High risk of PM tricks and manipulations techniques been uncovered.
No doubt, PMs write a lot of emails every day and this is one of the main communication channels for us. As we are trying to communicate more verbally now – emails are usually used for discussion of some important topics with boss, customers, users, etc. – situations, when PM should be rather careful with language and phrases he uses in emails 🙂 So it is time to switch on your brains and create the text, that can be understood by the person on the other end.
Why time & materials?
It is one of the first questions PM hears from the client. From the client’s side the ideal situation will be: receive the application he desires for the fixed price and fixed time. And no excuses) But is it as simple as the client thinks? I tied to gather the cons of the fixed price projects and pros of time & materials to prove my point of view – either client and developer receive a great benefits if they work on a time&materials contract.
@tisquirrel 