I am doing pm at Microsoft...

[Original article address: Workshop

It is not easy to make a PM. (Who is easy this year?) I have been asked this question for countless times since my title was officially changed to PM.

-What are you doing at Microsoft?

-PM

-Wow, I became a project manager when I was so young!

-No, I am a program manager.

-Oh, but what is program manager?

This is indeed a good question. Microsoft does not have the Project Manager position. Therefore, PM refers to program manager. By the way, my name is Lu Rong, a PM of the development tool group, and I am participating in the development of the next Visual Studio team release ect version.

I want to explain that Microsoft's PM's job responsibilities must be part of the PM's job. Otherwise, why do you see this article... It does not seem easy to tell the story in a few words. I have heard of a metaphor. If you compare a project to a big cake, developers will cut it apart, testers will cut it apart, and user experience experts will cut it apart, user educators also cut a huge chunk, and all the rest-whether it's the rest of the big cake, the small piece of cream, half a strawberry, the one left between the cake taken by the developer and the tester, and so on, all belong to PM. This metaphor is not completely accurate, but at least explains why I cannot tell this story in just a few words.

Now, let's get down to the truth. In my understanding, PM's responsibilities include but are not limited to the following:

A) understand and understand customer requirements

B) design product functions

C) communicate with other personnel in the project team so that they can understand and agree with your design

D) Develop a schedule for the project and manage the project progress

E) Clear all obstacles that affect the progress, so that the product can be delivered on time and by quality

F) Introduce and present products (bosses, other groups, partners, customers, etc.) to people outside the project team ...)

I admit, these descriptions may still be useless. Let's take a look at the specific example... Software development is a reasonable human social activity (of course !), Therefore, it is easy to find other social activities that can be analogous to software development. If you are a DIY enthusiast, you must have had many experiences like this: preparing your own wedding, designing and decorating your own house, and planning your own travel... These tasks can be viewed as projects, and you have played the PM role in the project many times.

Suppose you are planning to help your parents reorganize their current residence, because the house was decorated ten years ago and is not comfortable enough. Now you are pm, and your parents are users. You have also found a very experienced decoration team and a very professional supervision team.

** You have long noticed that there is a problem with the line of a lamp in the study of this old house. This must be done during renovation.

-- This is called the problem that PM needs to fix in the current version.

** During a chat with her mom, she mentioned that the Korean drama that was played at every night was very nice. It was cool to watch TV in the living room at night. You said, I will give you an air conditioner in the living room.

-- This is to understand the customer's needs.

** Mom said, yo, it's a lot of electricity. So you said, just give you another TV in the bedroom. I will design a TV cabinet for you in the bedroom.

-- This is to understand the real needs of users and design product functions to meet their needs.

** You are now designing a TV cabinet. You first thought about how much TV you should buy, and then thought about the location where the TV cabinet should be played, the length, width, height, a few drawers, and the drawer handle, and so on. You have written everything into the decoration contract.

-- This is to design the product features and write the function description (functional specification ).

** With the contract, you will have a meeting with the decoration team and the supervision team. You explained your ideas to them first, and asked them to carefully read the contract to see if it is reasonable. They did not raise any objection to the design, so they immediately signed the contract.

-- This allows other project members to understand and agree with your design.

** You asked them to estimate the workload separately. The decoration team said it would take two months, and the supervision team estimated it would take one month after that. Therefore, you set the schedule (Schedule) as three months long and set multiple milestones (milestone) in it ).

-- This is to create a schedule for the project.

** The next day, the decoration team called to say that the wall paint you wanted was out of stock recently. Without paint, you could not paint the wall, which would also affect the construction period of other tasks. It's imminent. you suddenly think of a friend who just bought the paint and asked where he bought it. I learned that there was still a surplus in a suburban store. I told the decoration team the information, so the wall was refreshed as scheduled.

-- This is to clear the project obstacles.

** Two weeks later, it was the first milestone. When you came to the house, the walls were painted. However, it was told that the weather was rainy recently, and it would take several days to finish the wall paint. So you can adjust the schedule in time to advance the repair of wire lines and other tasks.

-- This is called managing the project progress.

** Two months later, the supervision team told you that they had watched the TV cabinet and found that the length was slightly longer than the size specified in the contract. Two of the drawers could not be opened. Find the decoration team and discuss with the supervision team. In view of the high cost of fixing the length problem and little impact on user usage, we decided not to fix it. However, the use of drawers is a basic function and needs to be repaired.

-- This is called bug identification.

** The project will be successfully completed three months later. You will take your parents to visit every corner of the house after the house is decorated and show them how to use it.

-- This is to demonstrate the product to the user.

When you see the user-mom comfortably lying in bed watching Korean drama, you can see that Dad's study lights are as bright as ever again, do you feel satisfied?

At Microsoft, our users will not only be two people. In addition to the English version, we also released localized versions in multiple languages. Our users may have different appearances, different languages, and different corners of the world, but our products and our designs will also affect them, improve their work efficiency and enrich their lives.

Of course, the products we want to design are much more complicated than a TV cabinet. At Microsoft, our software design must not only meet user needs, but also make users feel useful. If you are enthusiastic about designing practical and useful software, Microsoft's PM position will be perfect for you.

Of course, our project management is far more complex than the management and decoration project. At Microsoft, PM needs to communicate with many people. It can be said that communication is a very important part of PM work. What is most needed in large projects is not more people, but communication between people. PM should assume the responsibility of the team's lubricant to ensure the smooth operation of this big machine in the project. In my opinion, communication is not limited to the fluency of Chinese and English. Good communication requires skill. First, listen carefully to the opinions of the other party. After hearing this, we 'd better further understand the Implied Meaning of the other party or stand on the other party's standpoint to think about his/her starting point. On this basis, expressing your own opinions will be targeted, and it is easier to achieve the effect of communication. Express yourself blindly, sometimes the effect is not ideal. If you like to communicate with people or you are full of talent for communication, Microsoft's PM position will be suitable for you.

Microsoft has many different positions. There are no good or bad positions, but their work content is different. The only criterion is, what kind of work do you like?

A year ago, I was a developer and tester. At that time, I was most interested in finding out as many bugs as possible (before the product was released, of course ...), Born to be a child who likes to split things...

With my understanding of Microsoft's development model, I gradually discovered something that interests me more, that is, finding customer needs and designing my own product features! I became more and more fascinated by this and told my boss what I thought. Later, I learned that our team was about to recruit a pm, so I couldn't resist the temptation to switch from a tester to a PM... I feel very happy for the past year. Although I am still interested in testing and occasionally report bugs, I have never regretted the decision because I found the job I want.

Have you found it?

A picture is attached. This is my favorite whiteboard, because it records every footprint we left in the previous development project.