Topic ObjectivesThis topic is raised for the project manager. The position of this article is to give the project manager a psychological analysis. This revelation should help you do a good job in project management, coordinates the relationship between the upper layer and the technical personnel, and gives all developers greater enthusiasm for work.
1. IntroductionCurrently, project management is a concept that everyone knows and is familiar with. However, when talking about project management, project management always involves planning, management, personnel, resources, and tasks ...... No one has ever mentioned the word psychology. I believe that many people have read the "Psychology of program development" by winberger. Maybe many people think that the psychology of program development is enough here. In fact, winberger's "Psychology of Program Development" only writes part of program development, that is, programmer psychology in program development. In fact, the psychology of program development should include at least investor psychology and customer psychology. Some may ask: Customers do have close relationships with software projects, but investors do not seem to have a close relationship with software projects. Therefore, investors should not consider their psychology. The definition of investors here is different from the definition of investors in the traditional sense. The definition here is defined according to different environments, one is within the company, your senior management is the investor of the Project. Although they get the money from the customer to do the project, in fact, they are also measuring the proportional relationship between the amount of money they get and the cost of the project. If not, they will suspend your project. The other is when you look for real investors, or venture capital investors, to invest in your software products, at this time, the psychology of investors will also affect your product development process. Therefore, investor psychology is also a question that must be studied. Now, we have talked about psychology. It seems that the topic of mentality confrontation has not been introduced yet. Next, let's take a step-by-step analysis: Since there are three parts of investor psychology, customer psychology, and programmer psychology, the Project Manager or Project Manager also has his own project management mentality, or project manager psychology. These four psychology are the complete psychology of program development! The four psychology of four types of people collide with each other because of the existence of software projects, which will inevitably lead to the challenge of mentality confrontation. If this mentality is not well handled, the results may lead to a dangerous situation for projects with high progress, and if it is well handled, it may bring the desperate projects back to life. Therefore, mentality confrontation or mentality analysis has become the focus of this research. Given the length and time of this article, we cannot fully analyze these four kinds of psychology. We can only conduct some targeted analysis, other content may be discussed in subsequent texts in the future. Because this article is for the project manager, the management of the project team is the primary task, so here we mainly do the confrontation analysis between the project manager psychology and the programmer psychology.
2. Role PositioningIn a basic project team, there are two main roles: project managers and programmers.
2.1. Project ManagerA project manager is generally called a project manager. For project managers, there are differences between regular definitions and technical personnel. It can be said that for programmers and other technical personnel, they generally think that the project manager should be a technical role rather than simply a management role. In general definition, project managers are both management roles rather than technical roles. This difference in role definition makes the conflicts between programmers and project managers very intense. In traditional Chinese concepts, they are both excellent in learning and learning! How can we learn and optimize it? In the software industry, your technology level is higher than that of others. The traditional concept of learning and being superior has strengthened the technical personnel's innate awareness of high technology by several times. Therefore, the difficulty of non-technical personnel to be project managers has greatly increased. In addition, many project managers in small and medium-sized companies have little project experience and do not know how to coordinate relationships, making it even more difficult to serve the public. We often see problems like this: l
Three people are responsible for a small project. You are the team lead. What should you do? The other two always disagree. What should you do?L
Some people say: as a project manager, what should I do if my team does not take you seriously? Technology is better than them, but I don't want to show it.L
Ask a very realistic question. If the quality of programmers in a team is low, how should we manage it?
There are four
A is full of people falling in love every day, and he is taking a nap after work, but he is still very conscientious and responsible during the day, but he is not enterprising at all, so he has a bad attitude.
B. He is very active in his work and has the spirit of Tang Miao. If he does not give up, he will never give up. That is, he has amnesia and is easy to forget. Even if he has repeatedly stressed things for dozens of times, he will forget, in addition, we never do things as needed. We only rely on our own mood, regardless of the customer's requirements.
C. The psychology is very young, people do things like children, and talking and doing things do not count on the consequences. My colleagues are always crying and laughing. Sometimes I really want to flatten him, but I don't know him as much as I know if he is a child. Take work seriously and responsibly. Although there are complaints, 100% of them do things as needed. The most serious drawback is that they are extremely hard-thinking and enterprising, and the true outlook on life is simple. The above uses a variety of incentives to beat dogs with meat buns.
D. I don't want to do anything. I think that if a person arrives at the company every day, he can get his salary directly. Others ask him to do things. He keeps complaining and says that his colleagues have problems. However, if he is familiar with his close colleagues, he will do his best to get through the truth. (I used to read him the Mythical man-month.)
Such a team will delay every project in our company by at least three times, and the boss is very angry!The above are some of the common ideas that the project manager may gain when looking at programmers. We will analyze in detail the reasons for this and how to solve these problems. One of the main responsibilities of a project manager is to manage the program and coordinate the project progress according to the plan. However, in software projects, programmers are both designers and implementers, therefore, if the project manager does not have more technical roots and experience than the programmer in grasping the project progress, then he cannot grasp the project progress more accurately than the programmer, however, even with such technical roots and experiences, such estimation tends to be idealistic when you do not develop it on your own, that is, the estimated time is too short or the development time is used to plan the development time of ordinary low-level programmers. During this development time, this ordinary low-level programmer cannot do it, as a result, the estimated workload of the project is too small, and the results also bring about discord between programmers and project managers.
2.2. ProgrammersIn software projects, programmers are the subjects, and each stage of software projects is the work of programmers. Programmers in China are mainly masters, undergraduates, or college graduates. Basically, they have received higher education. In addition to the fact that some schools are not responsible for students after the expansion in recent years, it should be said that most of the students still have the corresponding quality and culture. These students have strong personal autonomy, most of which are on this career path because of their interests. Therefore, their self-esteem and confidence need to be respected. Since writing a program is a creative job, it has a strong similarity with scientific research, so many people have invested in the software industry, many of them have high IQ but have no chance to climb the scientific research Road. These people have gradually become the top forces of this group. Programmers have a high level of quality, and they are also persistent in their views. Therefore, it is quite difficult to easily change their ideas and opinions. Programmers want to explore new technologies and develop new products under certain conditions because of the above foundations, this is especially true for projects or problems that others have not done. Of course, the practitioners of the programmer profession also have a certain level of division, so there are also some people who are eager to enjoy it, I only want to get some seemingly relatively high incomes through the reputation of programmers, and then I find that it is not what I think, so I began to be mediocre or quickly turn around.
2.3. peripheral role AnalysisThe surrounding roles are mainly customers and investors. For customers, they are mainly concerned about whether people who come to my research needs can make me look pleasing to the eye, and whether the product is easy to use and whether it can improve efficiency and save manpower. For the company, in addition to paying attention to income and expenditure issues, he will also consider the stability of the team. For example, someone asked the following question: how can I make the company's technical strength, does it not change with technical personnel?
This person said: there are only six developers in a company. If three developers come in and three new developers come in, the company's technical strength will change greatly. If all six people change, the company's technical strength will be determined by the new six. I would like to ask how to avoid this situation and how to make the company's technical strength possible, does it not change with technical personnel? Or minimize the impact?In the same way, the general manager of a Shandong company also asked me this question. He even told me that he was very difficult to train people, and all of them dared to speak to him, it makes him sleep hard every day and worries every day. What should I do if a person leaves? He said that although the technical staff there have backups, most of these backups are too old and are currently engaged in management transactions (he did not say much later, that is to say, these backups may not be valid ).
3. Analysis of mentality confrontationIn order to explain how this mentality confrontation is generated, we have described the mentality of each role in project development in a proper amount, next, let's take a look at the analysis of these mentality and confrontation analysis.
3.1. project managers and programmersProject managers often encounter the following problems: 1. The project cycle is tight and must be completed as soon as possible. How can programmers actively and efficiently complete development tasks. 2. Low wages, less enthusiasm for programmers, and no cooperation. 3. I have some technical experience, but I do not want to intervene in the current technology. I am worried that my work cannot be completed, another feeling is that you do not need to write code or think you do not want to express your own technical skills (as shown in the previous article ). 4. Programmers are lazy and do not do things (the previous article has examples ). 5. programmers often fail to develop as required (as shown in the previous article )....... To sum up, there are mainly the following problems: 1. Low programmer treatment (2 above ). 2. There are differences between Task Analysis and programmers (3 above ). 3. programmers do not cooperate with themselves or are less motivated (the top 2, 3, 4, 5 ). Due to their responsibilities, the project manager must ensure that the project is completed on schedule with quality and quantity. In actual situations, almost 90% of projects will be postponed (see "Death Journey"). the reason is not limited to the above, but this section mainly analyzes the relationship between the project manager and the programmer, so the external relationship and the reason are not considered for the moment. For the first question, this is a problem related to the overall management of the company. Of course, the general goal is that the wage income level of programmers in China is relatively low, this problem is often solved by project managers who do not have the right to do so. For project managers, what you can do is to report the relevant information to senior managers based on the performance of the programmers in the team and gain the understanding of senior managers, at least within the project cycle, you can get a certain proportion of the monthly bonus distribution rights (this is a measure that many companies will take in the project, which is not only selfish to the boss, he will also make appropriate concessions in this regard considering the progress of the project and the completion of the problem, and give the project manager the corresponding power ). For the vast majority of small and medium-sized companies in China, as long as the project manager is really fighting for programmers in the team, all programmers will see and appreciate you, at least in the controllable project process, the programmer will cooperate with your work relatively, rather than completely cooperating or completely passive neglect. For programmers, since the company is not very large, basically everyone will hear and hear about what actually happens. If they see that the project manager is doing this for me, they will strive for benefits and ensure my interests, anyone, not just a programmer, will take the initiative to accomplish something within their own share of you with a positive attitude. For the second question, such disagreements may expand or disappear. The key is how the project manager coordinates and controls them. You need to know that programmers, especially excellent programmers, tend to be stubborn and stick to what they see or agree, it is not easy to change your understanding to include others' opinions at will. Project managers should take this into consideration, and then make appropriate concessions to make the atmosphere easier, and even consider allowing programmers to carry out practices that they agree with within a certain range, this not only shows respect for the opinions of the programmer himself, but also shows the generosity of the project manager. If this programmer's opinion is correct, project managers can avoid project go astray to a certain extent because they do not carry out actual development work. On the contrary, if the project manager stubbornly sticks to his or her own opinions (because many project managers are also or have been relatively good programmers), this confrontation will continue due to lack of certification, it wastes time (the discussion time is greatly extended) and delays normal project progress. For the third question, when programmers do not cooperate or have poor enthusiasm, the project manager needs to have a detailed understanding of the programmer himself or his recent behavior and family information, check whether the problematic nodes are in the company or outside the company. If the critical node of the problem is outside the company, you may wish to lead the project manager or programmer. Ask the programmer to have a meal, chat, and analyze it, let him feel your concern for him. If the problem is in the company, even if it seems unreasonable, you can record the problem and report it to the top management, and strive to solve it or solve it locally. On the contrary, even if the reverse response does not solve the problem, the programmer will not be less grateful to you if he sees that you are actually helping him solve the problem and help him think about the problem, at least within your project cycle, he will not easily consider resignation or irresponsible work. For project managers, no matter how high your technical skills are, as long as you are not developing this module, then you need to consider how to coordinate your work and analyze your mentality. The programmer will not take the initiative to analyze your mentality for your consideration, but he will think about whether the lead is really helping me think about it. If so, he will be grateful to you and cooperate with you. If not, he will also resist you. There is also a saying: Standing up does not hurt your waist! This is to say that people who do not do things are standing and talking, and those who work are bent. Of course, if you don't bend over, you don't know the back pain, of course, your plan and consideration will be different from those who have been working for a long time and are tired! At this time, the project manager's practice will reflect his own management level! This basically ends the confrontation between the project manager and the programmer. You can see a lot about the negative textbooks in your real life and work, and we will not make a meaningless list here!
3.2. project managers and surrounding rolesAfter talking about the relationship between the project manager and the programmer, let's talk about how the project manager can coordinate and manage with the surrounding roles. First, we will analyze the mentality between the project manager and the company's senior management personnel. After obtaining the requirements of programmers, the project manager must report the requirements to the senior management personnel and expect the approval of the senior management personnel to facilitate the technical and resource support, in this way, we can effectively solve the programmer's problems and solve the problems encountered in software project development as soon as possible. For senior management personnel, it is important to save money, retain necessary technical personnel, complete the project as soon as possible, and ensure that contract funds can be recovered in a timely manner. However, there is a conflict between cost saving and retaining the necessary technical personnel. However, if you cannot retain the necessary technical personnel, the project cannot be completed as soon as possible, and contract funds cannot be recovered in a timely manner. Senior Management Personnel generally do not have direct contact with technical personnel. Therefore, they do not know which technical personnel must stay. Therefore, project managers should explain to senior management why they should do so, why are these extra bonuses required or why they need to be paid to these technicians. If the project manager cannot clarify the reasons for this, the senior management will reject the requirements of the project manager and have doubts about the subsequent requirements of the project manager, it will inevitably lead to instability of the programmer's mentality and bring internal risks to ongoing projects. From this we can see that the project manager should have strong logic thinking and reasoning capabilities, at the same time, persons with verbal skills who can clearly express their opinions (the content to be described in the section about technical competence discomfort is not described here ). Strong logical thinking and reasoning capabilities are one of the basic qualities that almost all excellent programmers possess. However, most technical staff have little contact with the outside world, especially good technical staff face machines rather than people for a long time, so their verbal skills are not very strong, and even many people have very poor verbal skills. It can be said that it is easier for a good technician to write an extremely difficult code than to persuade a primary school student. Even many programmers do not want to speak to others. Therefore, the traditional Chinese perspective of learning and superior talents needs to be especially careful in the selection of software project managers. The definition of IBM non-technical project manager is a type of project management model that I highly recommend. This is the role of a weak project manager in my definition, mainly responsible for coordinating tasks, rather than emphasizing management. In China, all people like the word "Guan", because the word "Guan" is under the control. Only when an official officer becomes an official can he make a fortune and make a fortune, it would be the best if a company's senior manager could select excellent technical personnel that can be justified. This is the strong project manager defined by the author in project management. If you cannot do this, you may wish to separate your project management roles, a project manager dedicated to project coordination, and a technical manager responsible for technology and implementation, this not only avoids the weakness of the programmer, but also gives full play to the advantages of the programmer. The Project Coordinator can serve as a project manager, a marketing engineer, or a management engineer. You can even consider assuming the project manager with an eloquent beauty (mostly male programmers. Speaking of this, we basically do not need to continue the analysis of the senior management personnel, because it is beyond the scope of this article, next we will discuss the mentality confrontation between project managers and customers. As mentioned above, the main task of a weak project manager is to coordinate the work. In addition to coordination between the project and the company, it is also necessary to coordinate the relationship with the customer at a certain time, it is even necessary to assist in business negotiation. Before the project manager arranges the technical personnel to the customer to carry out the survey, the project manager must go to the customer's site for an early investigation or observation. Take a closer look at the customer's staff and work environment. For example, if the customers are mostly old ladies and gentlemen, you need to arrange a sensible programmer to conduct demand research in the past. If the customers are mostly young people, you need to consider arranging for programmers to conduct demand research in the past. Of course, these programmers must understand the daily etiquette, learn how to modestly discuss issues with customers, and have a considerable technical level, so they do not refuse trivial work, instead of accusing customers of behaviors or misjudgments. For example, a researcher (haigui) from the previous work unit personally went to a state authority in Shenzhen to investigate and conduct preliminary installation and debugging of the equipment, they directly accused the other party's chief engineer of how he did not understand it. He also said to the Chief Engineer, "you, hand over the screwdriver to me." (when I say this, he has two technical staff around him who have taken him from Beijing to Shenzhen.) although the other party has done things according to his words, this behavior makes the other party very disgusted, after he returned to Beijing, the other party demanded that all equipment be removed immediately. If it was not the work of the market personnel or the involvement of the senior management, the project would almost end.
3.3. programmers and peripheral rolesProgrammers seldom deal with the outside world because of their special work and living environment. They are also mainly involved with project managers and related technical personnel in the company. The question about how senior managers leave programmers required by the Company is beyond the content of this article, so we will not continue to discuss it here, and may analyze it in the relevant subsequent chapters. The process for programmers to deal with customers is the content of the demand research work, or the work activities with some market work nature, which will not be further discussed in this article.
4. SummaryThis article analyzes the mentality confrontation in the process of software project development from four roles, and focuses on the in-depth psychological analysis of project managers and programmers. Whether a team can successfully complete the project depends on the team's technical strength on the one hand, without considering any changes to the company's external conditions, on the other hand, it is how the project manager leaves technical personnel during the project and inspires the enthusiasm of technical personnel. Otherwise, the project will inevitably be postponed or even die. Note: This article for Xiong Jianguo old brother to find my draft, first in itpub (http://tech.it168.com/m/a/2007-03-26/200703260931761.shtml), according to the requirements of a week can be released, I postponed my blog to one month. The old brother has been urging me to write the second article, but I have never had time to write it. I want to send the second article to the old brother this week.
