Many programmers don’t understand why they
need a person in their team who can’t write a good
code. This person makes agile planning, writes documentation, assigns tasks and
always tries to control their work. Do they really need Projects Managers for
making good software? The answer is yes. Two of these roles, Project Manager
and Software developer are really important for the successful finishing of the
project. Poor communication and lack of respect can crash even the most
talented teams. So, both worlds should live in mutual understanding.
Firstly, we should understand what
responsibilities Project Managers and Developers have.
A project manager is a person who has the
overall responsibility for the successful initiation, planning, design,
execution, monitoring, controlling and closure of a project.
Developers are responsible for the design,
testing and maintenance of software programs for computer operating systems or
applications. In agile methodology, which is very popular in modern IT world,
the description of developer’s responsibilities is a lot easier. Developers are
typically assigned to tasks, essential pieces of the project, by their
managers. They are responsible for reporting on iterations of the project, or
what is known as “sprints.”
So, who is responsible for miscommunication
and discontent of the project? Could developers be the real reason of that? I
think no. All problems definitely should solve the Project Manager.
Also, good Project Managers must prevent the
problems and make the life of developers easier.
Secondly, we should realize that the real
root case not poor communication between Project Managers and Developers, but it’s
how do communicate each of them. There is a table that I found in
some blog that describes their likes
and dislikes:
Project managers Developers
Communication channels Personal meetings, email Slack
Work schedules Early risers Night
owls
Task management Excel, PM tools (Jira) (would rather not)
Code management (would rather not) Repo tools like Github
Because the Project Managers are
ultimately responsible for the project, they must strive to completely engage
their developers. So how do they get it done?
1. Involve your software development team early on
Even at the first stage of project,
for example during the planning phase or even earlier, Project Managers should inform their team what is
going to happen: does client
accept an offer, what was discussed on the last meeting with a client
etc. The best way to deliver
that part of information to the team is to create a group channel for example on Slack.
2. Let the developers know about deadlines in advance
Project
Managers have to create a good timetable, which lets developers check what task they
are responsible for and when these tasks should be done. It’s very important to
know when a project
starts and when a project ends.
3. Shield developers from outside issues
In a post by
Frederico Tomassetti, a former TripAdvisor developer, about how PMs can help
developers be more productive, he mentions “shielding developers from issues.”, e.g. from
office politics or endless debates over small product changes.
4. Project Manager must know what programming means
Of course, that is not necessary for Project Managers to have
knowledge of programming or have a computer science degree to get a job, but in
my opinion, if a Project Manager wants to be respected by his/her team they
should know the difference between front-end or back end and that JavaScript is
not an extension of Java.
Could you answer my questions that relate to
this topic please:
1. Do you agree that project managers and
developers often have communication problems? Why/Why not?
2. Have you ever had communication problems
with your PM at your work or in projects that you were involved in? How were
they resolved?
3. What advice could you give to PMs?
Comments
In my opinion, everybody in a company should have to complete a two-week or so course about full life cycle of the company, so that everybody can be an HR, a PM, and even a CEO for one day, just to see, how everything is done. PMs have to get a super basic programming knowledge, enough to, for example, write a calculator. Developers should know the basics of planning and communication with client. It is actually a big mistake, than many of us do -- desperatley attempt to escape from other humans into the depths of code realm. Despite of how alluring it is, we cannot deny that face that we have to live and deal with other humans. Thus, we need to communicate.
No, I never had problems with communication with my PM.
Advice : know technologies(at least at the initial level) with which they work, know how project built inside(at least core solutions). In my work now I making a similar program(with some differences), that developers in my team already developed, and my PM exactly explain me how this program works, what changes I should do, and he always answer my questions, when I have problems with programming.
2. I have experienced communication problems with my project manager. My project manager just doesn't know what is possible and not possible in the technology that I use as a developer. Sometimes my PM gives me "easy" tasks that are not so easy or overexplains something that is actually trivial. I try my best to clarify as much as I can, but PMs do not always tend to listen. The same goes for the developers though.
3. Advice for PMs - listen to what developers have to say. My advice to developers - speak up and your PM will listen. If you want to have a good communication with the other side you have to talk. It’s as simple as that.
-As long as there are at least 2 people involved, there will always, sooner or later, be a communication problem. This specific issue is most likely caused by one of the oldest discord in any business related aspect. Precisely speaking, what does the customer want and what can be provided.
2. Have you ever had communication problems with your PM at your work or in projects that you were involved in? How were they resolved?
-Not yet, and hopefully not any time soon
3. What advice could you give to PMs?
-It is always important to take others’ opinions to consideration cause every situation should be considered a potential classroom and every person a potential teacher.
Generally, I can't agree with some points in this article. To be honest, a lot of differences comes from stereotypes. Of course, I don't want to detract important of project manager work, but I think that your arguments are not adquate to topic.
Moving on to the substance, I think that in good project management, PM and developers team should not have any problems with communication. That's why DSMs, SCRUM methodology, JIRA etc. exists.
2. Have you ever had communication problems with your PM at your work or in projects that you were involved in? How were they resolved?
Only once and it comes from simple lack of knowledge. We resolved it very quickly, without any pain.
3. What advice could you give to PMs?
Hmm... to be confident and also to listen other team members.
Theoretically there are shouldn't be any problems in good project management but in practice they are always exist. So could you answer one more question please: What is the good project management? How we could specify good quality of project management?
Yes, I agree, I have seen such clashes a couple of times at work. In my opinion, because the work of the manager and the developer is not coordinated, there is a misunderstanding from here and in the end, the manager may not agree on important information for the developer or say the end date. Also, there may be problems on the part of the developers, if suddenly the work was not done entirely or according to plan.
No, to my luck, I have an excellent manager in the project, he always accurately describes the amount of work and deadlines, always answers all my questions and is an excellent person in general.
I could give advice: not to be evil and selfish. Most often, questions are asked if I don’t understand something or want to clarify, if the manager doesn’t have a minute now, she will appear in the very near future to settle all the questions. A manager should always think on the front and have a backup plan.
Generally I have only positive experience with technical PM. On the other hand I can’t say that other PMs are bad and don’t understand anything in programing and that communication with them is completely a disaster. I would say that there is no such thing like untechnical PM. When a person is surrounded mostly by developers he/she starts learning their language, their jargon and in order to understand what those geeks are talking about good PM should dive deeper in computer science aspects.
I did sometimes have communication problems with PMs at work - most of the time the problems are fairly easy to resolve simply by talking about the problems in some way. In fact, this is something that I noticed about life in general - a lot of interpersonal problems can be solved by simply talking to each other about them. Not all of them, of course, life isn't as simple as that, but many more than you'd think.
As for advice I could give to PMs, don't assume that developers are not doing things the way you want them to out of malice. Making such an assumption is one of the worst thing you can do, as it will make resolving the problem harder and will anger the developers if they suspect that you think lowly of them.
I think that it comes from different approach. Project manager is responsible for "translating" what client needs to developer. Sometimes developer can't "transfer" his point of view or his thoughts, so there are those communication problems. I don't know how to deal with it
2. Have you ever had communication problems with your PM at your work or in projects that you were involved in? How were they resolved?
Yes, but we do like each other so we didn't had any bigger problems :) usually we just had a talk and everything went fine.
3. What advice could you give to PMs?
Try to understand developers. And do not promise things, that you are not 100% sure we (developers) can do!
Yes. Probably because of not well determined roles and responsibilities in the project. I think that in opposite of that table that developers also prefer direct communication or feedback than some slack channels.
2. Have you ever had communication problems with your PM at your work or in projects that you were involved in? How were they resolved?
No. I don’t need to communicate with PM. Only in case of some emergency access. We work in SCRUM so we tend to be self organised.
3. What advice could you give to PMs?
Transparency is great and developers often equally wants to deliver the product as PMs.
I agree, it really is. In most cases, these are people who have studied different areas and different approaches to projects; therefore, there is such a gap between them.
2. Have you ever had communication problems with your PM at your work or in projects that you were involved in? How were they resolved?
Yes, I came across a similar situation at work. There was a misunderstanding. But this is solved if both parties study in detail the approaches and the essence of the matter itself. In this way, you can come to any compromise.
3. What advice could you give to PMs?
Before you lead any of the projects, you need to examine in detail every detail in it, and fully surrender to the area in which the project is started up in order to understand all the participants.
I agree with that and I think it is becouse PM doesn't know what can be technically done and how many time is needed. Sometimes something which PM think is very small easy to do change. When developer look at that, it turns out that this is difficult and take a lot of time.
2. Have you ever had communication problems with your PM at your work or in projects that you were involved in? How were they resolved?
I have a luck and up to now I have good PM which listen and we discuss about possible solutions and currently I'm working in scrum team which is self-organised.
3. What advice could you give to PMs?
Listen and discuss and this is and advice to both PM and developer and one important thing ASAP (as soon as possible) is not the best way in most situations.
Rather, I did not have a communication problem. I am a fairly open person and I try to clearly specify what I mean.
I think that managers should broaden their knowledge towards programming and tools used by programmers.
I've never had any communication problems at my work. However, recently we had an interesting discussion about prioritizing the technical tasks.
What advice ? Developers are people too, do not require impossible from them :)
Actually, I had communication problems with my previous project manager about my fresh experience as a developer, And he didn't give me any solves, then I discover he doesn't work by Java basically, finally, I left the job :)
My advice to PMs: listen to the "fresh developer" problems and help him/her at training period.
As I mentioned, to build a good relationship with your manager you also have to put some effort into it. The solution that worked for us was the change of the process of how we approach the clients. We used to let only project managers be on essential calls with the clients, but now we try to have at least one developer on each teleconference which is related to the product. Why did it help? It's easy to miss something, especially if it is an urgent call and something wrong has happened like the team didn't meet the deadline. There is not so much time to make notes then. It leads to miscommunication. Also, the project manager usually doesn't know the details of the work so he or she cannot answer detailed questions. This is where we are needed. Sometimes it's all about just being there (just in case). It relaxes the project manages (he or she knows that he or she can rely on us and delegate problematic questions to us). Basically, that's how we resolved all of the problems. We ask to see most of the communication that is happening and record the calls that we cannot be in. Of course, I assume that such basic stuff as retrospections, daily and other meetings when you can honestly say that something is wrong and feel confident that nobody will punish you are a standard.
I'm slowly reaching to the point in my career when I'm becoming a somebody project manager, so there is not enough space for me to write about all I learned recently, but if I have to select the most critical aspects then they will be:
- be honest
- try to understand others not judge them
- often offer your help and remind you about it
- make them comfortable
- socialize and try to know them better, ask about family, hobbies, grab some beers after work, etc. it will improve your relationship and in the long term your performance and trust in each other
A book which is worth 20 euros (just first 4 chapters) and it's highly recommended to read by anyone who is interested in project management (or wants to push his or her carrier forward):
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/1491973897
1. Do you agree that project managers and developers often have communication problems? Why/Why not?
I cannot fully agree with statement, because it really depends on personalities. Some developers even don't need managers to get work done, and some managers cannot organize work even they have best developers available.
2. Have you ever had communication problems with your PM at your work or in projects that you were involved in? How were they resolved?
Usually project managers always was on my site. But I had a problem of bad management when managers don't translate and transform development problems to clients so the gap between the team and the customer become giant.
3. What advice could you give to PMs?
Try to understand how development works and just trust the developers because you really need to trust your team as your team should rely on you.