{"id":706,"date":"2009-08-11T10:41:02","date_gmt":"2009-08-11T17:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/?p=706"},"modified":"2009-08-11T10:41:02","modified_gmt":"2009-08-11T17:41:02","slug":"coding-vs-non-coding-project-managers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2009\/08\/coding-vs-non-coding-project-managers\/","title":{"rendered":"Coding vs Non-Coding Project Managers"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my post\u00ading about becom\u00ading a Scrum Mas\u00adter<\/a>, I talked about teams with non-cod\u00ading pro\u00adject man\u00adagers often being more effect\u00adive than teams with pro\u00adject man\u00adagers who also code. It seems that that\u2019s a minor\u00adity view; most com\u00adpan\u00adies appear to assume that any pro\u00adject man\u00adager should also act\u00adively code. I agree that any pro\u00adject man\u00adager in the soft\u00adware industry should have a cod\u00ading back\u00adground; if you haven\u2019t been in the line of fire for a cus\u00adtom\u00ader deliv\u00ader\u00adable, or a demo for a con\u00adfer\u00adence, then you don\u2019t under\u00adstand the needs of the coders on the team. You also won\u2019t under\u00adstand when they\u2019re pulling the wool over your eyes, or mak\u00ading excuses because they don\u2019t feel like doing some bor\u00ading but neces\u00adsary task.<\/p>\n

In a mid-sized to large com\u00adpany, a pro\u00adject man\u00adager does the bor\u00ading stuff, talk\u00ading to leg\u00adal about copy\u00adright or licens\u00ading (for open source pro\u00adjects in par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar), talk\u00ading to sales people about when the pro\u00adject might become a product they can sell to their cus\u00adtom\u00aders, mak\u00ading sure the vari\u00adous parts of the team not only talk to each oth\u00ader, but under\u00adstand each oth\u00ader, and mak\u00ading sure the vari\u00adous parts of the pro\u00adject mesh togeth\u00ader. A pro\u00adject man\u00adager makes it pos\u00adsible for the team to work as effi\u00adciently as pos\u00adsible. This might mean shield\u00ading them from a man\u00adager who wants to change require\u00adments every day (one of the good things about Scrum, BTW<\/span>, is the sys\u00adtem for mak\u00ading sure that does\u00adn\u2019t hap\u00adpen), or schedul\u00ading the secur\u00adity reviews for the right phase of the product design and release cycles.<\/p>\n

In a small com\u00adpany, the pro\u00adject man\u00adager is often also the product man\u00adager, doing all of the above as well as talk\u00ading dir\u00adectly to cus\u00adtom\u00aders, tak\u00ading part in online dis\u00adcus\u00adsions, attend\u00ading con\u00adfer\u00adences, and tak\u00ading part in rel\u00adev\u00adant stand\u00adards activities.<\/p>\n

All of these are neces\u00adsary activ\u00adit\u00adies, and they all involve meet\u00ading with oth\u00ader people, wheth\u00ader in per\u00adson or via some oth\u00ader com\u00admu\u00adnic\u00ada\u00adtion mech\u00adan\u00adism. They aren\u2019t tasks that require you to shut your\u00adself away and think for hours, unlike, say, design\u00ading the serv\u00ader-side archi\u00adtec\u00adture, or hunt\u00ading down a recal\u00adcit\u00adrant bug. Paul Gra\u00adham recently wrote a rel\u00adev\u00adant piece entitled Maker\u00ad\u2019s Sched\u00adule, Man\u00adager\u00ad\u2019s Sched\u00adule<\/a>. Using this ter\u00admin\u00ado\u00adlogy, each team mem\u00adber is a maker. It\u2019s the pro\u00adject man\u00adager who takes care of the man\u00adager\u00ad\u2019s sched\u00adule on behalf of every\u00adone else, it\u2019s the pro\u00adject man\u00adager whose sched\u00adule is inter\u00adrupt\u00adible. The pro\u00adject man\u00adager does\u00adn\u2019t have the lux\u00adury of look\u00ading for\u00adward to a whole day of unin\u00adter\u00adrup\u00adted work, the time to get deep in the zone, the abil\u00adity to ignore the phone and email. A lead developer will get more done, and the team as a whole will get more done, if s\/he does\u00adn\u2019t also have to worry about HR<\/span> issues, or nego\u00adti\u00adat\u00ading an NDA<\/span>, or telling a sales per\u00adson why that large fea\u00adture for one cus\u00adtom\u00ader can\u00ad\u2019t be added between now and tomor\u00adrow morning. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my post\u00ading about becom\u00ading a Scrum Mas\u00adter, I talked about teams with non-cod\u00ading pro\u00adject man\u00adagers often being more effect\u00adive than teams with pro\u00adject man\u00adagers who also code. It seems that that\u2019s a minor\u00adity view; most com\u00adpan\u00adies appear to assume that any pro\u00adject man\u00adager should also act\u00adively code. I agree that any pro\u00adject man\u00adager in \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cCod\u00ading vs Non-Cod\u00ading Pro\u00adject Managers\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-project-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":716,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions\/716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}