Must Project Managers Be Technically Savvy?

Oct
08
2012
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This topic has been questioned and answered several times in the past, yet it relevant for today. Individuals have different thoughts on the same. While some believe that a project manager must be technically sound to manage projects, others believe that a project manager doesn't have to be technically savvy. Certainly there are pros and cons for being a technical or non-technical project manager.

Sometimes it is a plus for a project manager to not to have a sound knowledge on technical aspects. Then the project manager will not compelled to micro-manage and estimate tasks on behalf of the team. Sometimes, it may be difficult to get estimations from the team or to rely on their estimations, but project managers can use their people skills to get things done in the right way and get help from experts if there are any doubts on estimations. Also, they can diversify efforts on leading and managing aspects while the team managing technical aspects. However, micro-managing, estimating tasks for the team and imposing technical solutions on them can lead to poor productivity resulting demotivated team. As a consequence, this will lead to an unsuccessful project management.

Some believe that having a sound knowledge on technical side can be a huge advantage when it comes to risk management. Though this is true, a non-technical project manager can also effectively manage risks by consulting the technical architect and the tech lead. Also, some say that a technical project manager has an ability to blend with the team well since they all speak the same language. This is an agreeable statement; nevertheless a non-technical project manager can also blend with teams using people skills and with the help of technical experts.

The important fact is; a project manager must be good at organizing, communicating and massaging the team’s morale. This requires heavy people skills to get the maximum out of the team. If not, Irrespective of whether technically savvy or not, a project manager will not be able to survive in the project world.
Conclusion is; a project manager doesn't have to be a technical savvy. But then again, having some sort of a technical knowledge could be a benefit.

PM Book List

Aug
27
2012
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Here is a list of good project management books which is very helpful to understand the basic concepts and enter in to the project management arena. The list is compiled in order of the edition’s publishing date.

  • The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management  by Tom DeMacro
    This book set in the form of a novel. The author, in a fascinating way laid out all the typical mistakes of project management, and shows the methods and solutions.
      
  • Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams  by Tom DeMacro, Timothy Lister
    This book shows why the human aspects of project management are usually more difficult to manage than technology. It presents good recommendations for effectively managing IT projects and teams.






Agile Project Management Book List

Jul
02
2012
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Reading helps us to learn about theories, best practices, and techniques which are useful to maintain the expert status. Here is a list of books which is very helpful to learn about Agile Project Management.  The list is compiled in order of the edition’s publishing date.

  • Agile Software Development with Scrum by Ken Schwaber, Mike Beedle
    Agile Software Development with Scrum shows the philosophy behind Scrum and it is a great introduction to Scrum. This is a good book for beginners.



  • Agile Project Management with Scrum by Ken Schwaber
    This contains a series of case studies to explain how to use Scrum by showing different situations and cases of success and failure.

  • Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn
    This is an excellent book to learn about planning, estimation, feature and schedule management aspects of agile.





Learning with Social Networks

Apr
25
2012
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Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter have become a vital part of life. We wander through these sites at least once a day. Some people say it’s a waste of time while others say it’s a very useful way to be in touch with their colleagues, families, and friends, and be up-to-date with the industry.

Blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and other Q&A websites such as StackOverflow provides a vast knowledge on practical aspects as well as best practices of project management and other streams. If you are a PM enthusiast, here are some suggestions to get involve and be up-to-date with the industry.

Twitter
Since you can filter information through hashtags on Twitter it is easy to keep a track and monitor the conversations. Here are some useful hashtags to monitor project management,

#pm
#pmot
#projectmanagement
#pmi
#agile
#scrum
#kanban
#PMChat

LinkedIn
There are lots of professional groups in LinkedIn that you can join, have some conversations, and be in touch with the professionals. Here are some project management related groups that you might be interested to join,
Blogs
There are lots of project management related blogs that share industry experiences and best practices. You can read blog posts and if you have any questions or have different views you can comment and share your knowledge. You can add blogs to your Google Reader, organize your favorite blogs by category and be updated whenever a new blog post has been published. There are lots of favorite blogs of mine; I will mention some of them here for you to check out,
Q&A websites
There are some Q&A sites that can post any question you want to get answered as well as you can answer some questions that you might know the answer. This is very useful when you can’t find any answers or you are confused with some questions. Here are some Q&A websites that you might be interested,
Facebook
Project Management Institute has a very active page on Facebook with over 81,000 likes. You can also like the page and get updated with news, articles and comment on anything and share your thoughts.

Google Alerts
If you want to be up-to-date with the industry regularly or don’t want to miss any news in the industry, one of the best and easy ways to be updated is via Google Alert.

There are more online resources which you can be in touch with the industry. Whenever you read an article, tweet, or question; if you have any views or you know some better answers or you have a question, remember to leave a comment. So, you can socially interact with other professionals and gain more knowledge.

Photo Credits http://www.mergesocialmedia.com/

Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life

Mar
06
2012
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Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life

 

I finished reading the book Personal Kanban: Maping Work | Navigating Life by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry. I’ve been practicing Personal Kanban for some time and this book gave me some more insights to improve my practice.

It gave me a better idea on personalizing Kanban board for different tasks by setting up different flows. I used to practice the basic flow of To-do, WIP and Done. The book explains how to set up further different flows. When I am studying, I have to do some research and collect notes for subjects; have to study, have to make short notes and have to review them. Rather than including all these tasks in WIP flow, I can set up different flows for these different tasks and add more clarity to my Personal Kanban system.

There are two rules that are very important in Personal Kanban; visualize your work, limit your work-in-progress. Throughout the book, Jim Benson and Tonianne Barry demonstrate the importance of these two rules and how to practice them. Even though Personal Kanban system has two rules, it is a very flexible system which can easily adaptable for changing environments.
 
The first chapter of the book explains rules, how they work and why Personal Kanban is needed. The next chapter explains how to create a Personal Kanban system for your work. The rest of the book explains the prioritization, time management, and how these things help to increase effectiveness.

Personal Kanban: Maping Work | Navigating Life was an easy read with lots of examples, cartoons, pictures, diagrams and clear explanations. The authors’ simple and forthright narrative style kept me out from getting bored on theories and principles. If you already know Kanban or practice Personal Kanban this book might not bring much new ideas. However, there are still good tips and explanations that make it worth the read.

“Personal Kanban is a simple, elegant mechanism that produces dramatic results. It helps us manage ourselves, but also lets us share our work, our goals, and our epiphanies with others. It’s a visual launched to personal effectiveness, spontaneous collaboration, and an integrated life. It’s low maintenance, but high yield. No crystals, no aromatherapy; just you, your work, and better planning.”       - Personal Kanban: Maping Work | Navigating Life

Personal Kanban at Home

Feb
20
2012
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When I first heard about Kanban, it really got my attention. Later, when I was reading on this topic I came across the term “Personal Kanban”. I was inspired by how people use it to organize their day-to-day life. So, I decided to have my own Personal Kanban board for my studies.

Timetable schedule, mind maps, text books
I used to study with a timetable before I started my Kanban study board. At that time I had no idea about how many topics I have completed and how many more topics remaining. Hence, I always had lots of stress and sometimes, rather than concentrating on the notes, I used to think about the work load.

Kanban door with To Do, WIP, and Done
I started my Kanban board with the basic terms of Personal Kanban by dividing my board (it’s my door since I didn’t have a white board) into three separate parts namely: To-Do, Work in progress, and Done. I took my timetable, sticky notes, and all the study materials and started to give a weight for each topic with a priority based on the subjects I had to complete. I used large sticky notes with three different colors for different subjects. For each topic on a subject, I used small sticky notes with different colors according to “Easy”, “Should read more”, and “difficult”.
Kanban door at the end of first week
When I was using Kanban study board, the first thought came in to my mind was, “now I can see all my work anytime and I can keep a track of my progress”. It helped me to be aware of;
  • what I have done?
  • how long it took me to complete a particular topic?
  • how many more topics I have to cover?
  • how long it will take to cover a particular subject?
  • what are the difficulties I had and might have?
This helped me to reduce my stress and increase productive time effectively more than the previous approach I have been practicing. Also, practicing Personal Kanban was very entertaining. Once I finished a task and moved to “Done” column, I felt relieved. At the same time, it was exciting to start a topic and finish it before the estimated time. This really helped me to cover the whole syllabus with a huge motivation under minimum stress.

Welcome to the Wandering through Projects

Jan
16
2012
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Since this is my first post on this blog, I thought of posting my story of how I got inspired on this career path and started this blog.

After finishing college, I worked as a coordinator in an IT company. While working, I started following Human Resources related courses since most of the work was related with People. At that time I didn’t have any idea about careers nor goals. Since I had a good knowledge on finance I planned to groom the academia further towards accountancy. However, before that I met my beloved husband and got married. So, I couldn’t complete any of those courses since after marriage I had to go overseas with him for a little period and that was a quite good experience.

When I got back, I started to follow a management degree and felt it’s not exactly my thing, though I liked it. Once when I was chatting with my husband about his work related stuff, I came across the term “Scrum”. It got my attention and compelled to read more about Scrum. Whilst reading about this Agile/Scrum, Project Management became the ultimate career and started to evolve the academia on Project Management.

Social media such as Twitter is a good place for research and to be updated. Following few interesting Tweeples related to PM and Agile also led me to practice Personal Kanban. Though some articles about PM issues sounded alienate, I still kept reading.

It has been quite a while I started reading articles, blog posts, tutorials, and videos on PM and Agile. I have learnt a lot from those. Reading them encouraged me to start my own blog on PM, even though I have quite little industrial experience. With this, I thought of evolving my knowledge on PM and Agile, and share them.
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