PM & The Sagacity of a Developer’s Time
I was reminded today of one of the most important ways a project manager can help ensure a project’s success. In software development often the most important aspect of a project’s success is if it can be deploy on a specific deadline. A good project manager understands (in these sorts of projects especially) that one of the best ways to boost productivity is to make sure that developers have everything they need before they need it. One of the questions I like to ask during iteration meetings (in addition to the “whatchu doing?” and “when’s it gonna be done”) is “do you have everything you need to accomplish it?”.
Some managers think the answer to everything is to squeeze as much effort as possible out of developers. Asking them to pull crazy hours only gets you so far and quite often is only a temporary solution. As an alternative, all of the following can be used as a first step in attempting to meet crazy deadlines:
- Ensuring business requirements are crystal clear
- Providing the right tools (software/hardware/code libraries)
- Access to development libraries and code bases before they need to ask for them
- Immediate answers to questions they may ask and getting these answers before they have to ask wherever possible
- Making lunch runs
- Keeping meetings short and relevant
- Keeping developers a step or two removed from politics or drama that may come up with managing the client
- In general making sure developers are enjoying what they are doing to the greatest extent possible
One of the hardest aspects of this is knowing what everyone is working on and knowing exactly what is next for each person. Nothing kills efficiency like resources sitting on their hands waiting for answers, designs, or for a project manager to get organized.
When timelines get tough is when the project manager needs to be their smartest. It’s easy to cop out and demand overtime. That should be the last resort. The first response should be to get ducks in a row.
Tags: crunch time, Project Management, Resource Management, software development, timelines
Andy Branch is a project manager/producer at
A good project manager also defends his developers from Zone interruptions. An excellent way to kill productivity is to rip a developer out of his “Zone”.