Project Manager growth diary (5) -- five fingers have different lengths and capabilities

 

It finally ended nearly an hour of boring meetings. Every Friday, the weekly meeting of a company-level project is like a routine check, which is a bit cool, most of the time it is a routine, each project team reports the situation and needs of their respective projects in sequence. If there is no major problem, that is, there is a local playing, and there is no such process. Some people may think this is a waste of time and of little significance. They waste an hour every week to restate the problems and project progress that have already been explained in the email, however, there is value in existence. The biggest function of this meeting is to try to make some messaging between different project teams as much as possible, so that you can at least understand what others are doing, this avoids the isolation of each project group.

today's weekly meeting is a bit long, the main reason is that the discussion of the two things exceeds the agenda of the meeting. The first thing is that there is a problem with the progress of the project under Dawei's responsibility. At present, the staff are in a tight state of continuous overtime. Even so, for the final release the time is still relatively fixed. In Dawei's words, it is:" We can finish it on time, but it may ." A vague toast. If the official words are used: "We are optimistic that the project can be completed on time ." In addition, this is good news for the company. The company will launch a new project next month. This project is the largest project this year, and its business direction is mainly for the US medical field, the approximate scale is 150 person / month.

this project will be arranged in our project team for processing, and the message is a challenge for me. For myself, the project of this scale is beyond all previous projects, I was excited when I heard that this project would be taken over at the meeting, but the excitement was quickly diluted, I roughly considered the current workload and current personnel situation in the project team. I cannot help but feel that this is not a good job. However, there is pressure to be motivated. This is my consistent style of work. The class is that this kind of knowledge will make a lot of effort, and the more confident I will be. In my notebook, I wrote down the following key work for next week: confirm the project's specific start time and end time; and adjust the work content of the current project team; ask the customer for some development-related materials first, and check the Personnel Status of other project teams within the company.

I didn't hear much about the last half of the meeting, I only went back to my discussions about Dawei's problems. Although Dawei said that he was confident in ensuring the progress of the project, for the sake of security, we hope that two people will be seconded from other project teams to assist them in testing, so that the overall progress can be further guaranteed. In the current architecture model of the company, each project team is relatively independent. If we want to seconded personnel from other project teams, it is sometimes difficult for short-term personnel to be seconded, because each project team is currently in a relatively busy stage, there are not many people at leisure. Even if other project teams are willing to lend, most of the people who release the project are relatively weak in ability, under normal circumstances, it is impossible for a person to seconded excellent personnel from the project team, which may also be a private affair.

Under the coordination arrangement of the company, Dawei was finally given support for the two members, so that the discussion was paused. After the meeting, I sat down in the meeting room for a while. I was still thinking about the sequence of work next week in my head, staring at my notebook and refining the problem I just wrote, break down the work into every day of the next week. Suddenly a thick smell of smoke poured into my nose, I don't have to look up to guess it is Dawei, this smoke gun is at least a pack of cigarettes a day, if you work overtime or is in a bad mood, it is estimated that two to three packages are possible.

"How do you feel bad if you smoke less ?" I asked, looking at Dawei's smoke circles.

"No, it's just a little tired ." Dawei's mouth was filled with smoke, and there was no emotion in his eyes.

"I saw the students in your project team who just graduated last year, who recently worked overtime every day till night.11Point. What is going on ?"

"Oh, I did it on purpose ."

"Intentional ?" I did not understand for a moment, and asked with a doubt, "Why do you mean it ?"

"I arrange jobs for new people based on my own work abilities. If I can finish my work during work hours, those new people must work overtime. So that they can make progress ." Dawei began to show a proud look.

"No wonder they have to work overtime. How many years have you worked, and how many years have they been working? Besides, can you get the same salary as they do ?"

"I will tell them that if you want to earn the same salary as me, you will have a chance to complete these jobs on time ." Dawei put out his cigarette head and pressed his face with a pair of hands.

"Shouldn't you estimate the project based on your capabilities ?" I cannot disagree with this logic of Dawei, but I still want to know about the project.

"Well....."David replied.

"Haha, you are self-satisfied ." I said to David with a mocking laugh.

I cannot disagree with Dawei's practice, although his mistake lies in his early estimation being too optimistic and inaccurate. However, there is a big problem in the way new employees are arranged. If there is a mistake in the preliminary estimation, if these errors can be remedied by adding personnel at the beginning of the project in the future, the improper use of personnel will be treated as a serious problem throughout the project, it will affect the entire project process.

there are several different levels of capabilities for developers in the project team, system Architect ( systems architect ) , Senior Engineer ( Senior Engineer ) , intermediate Engineer ( middle
engineer ) and junior Engineers ( Junior
engineer ) and so on. There are some differences in the abilities and development skills of personnel at each level. Like the fingers in our hands, the five fingers have different lengths and capabilities. Personnel with different abilities should have corresponding work content and workload in the project team.

in normal projects, we focus on making the best use of people, however, a project cannot be imagined at the beginning by taking full advantage of the super-standard of the project team personnel. Many people say that they are able to exert their abilities under a certain amount of pressure, but they say that all people can make breakthroughs in this environment, many people may suffer from poor spirits and depression under a long period of high pressure. Therefore, as a project management, we can no longer adopt this foothold in the beginning of the project for development.

for Wei, I can only respond to self-satisfied answers. We are gradually learning and making progress for individuals. If there is a certain amount of pressure disaster, it is indeed a more effective promotion for learning. But as a project manager, we need to understand the problem. Our responsibility lies in projects, rather than training new people. After new people enter the project organization, through the work and study of the project process, they can improve their capabilities. These are the by-products of the project. First, we must ensure the progress and quality of the project. In actual project development, the work plans for new users are based on their capabilities 80%-90% arrange, rarely target new users 100% assign work tasks. If you encounter problems in the project due to lack of experience, the methods and ideas they adopt to solve these problems all have time risks. Sometimes they may be difficult due to a problem, consuming a long time. Even if I keep stressing that a problem cannot be solved within an hour, I have to give it to everyone to handle it together, however, when this problem is finally forced to be raised, it is always after a day or longer. The probability of new users encountering these problems during development is very high, so this risk must be taken into account in the work arrangement project. Once the first overtime card is pushed down, it will be the multi-Milo effect in the future, and overtime will be out of control and enter a vicious circle.

in actual projects, I will adopt the method of reducing calculation to arrange work, because I need to reserve a greater maneuver buffer time for the overall progress of the project. I will adopt the same strategy for both newcomers and senior engineers, intermediate engineers and junior engineers. Because the human brain is not a machine, we cannot ensure that we can operate normally at all times. However, during normal learning or non-practical project exercises, I will adopt an overloaded work arrangement model, in this case, the workload schedule is 100%-120% degree, because my main purpose at this time is personnel training, so we need a super-strong environment to create a pressure atmosphere. In fact, the development process is not a battlefield without smoke. If you want not to be hurt on the battlefield, you will be able to cope with it in a timely manner only when there are many injuries at ordinary times.

For the project team, we need to have a clear understanding of the abilities and personalities of each member. If we can understand their abilities as clearly as we look at our fingers, we can rely on their lengths, let them coordinate to make full play. We need to avoid having to arrange jobs in an even way without being competent, not to pin our projects on the basis of the superior performance of our members. In our work, we need to understand the final purpose of the project, whether the project is successful or trained, so that we can use the method of subtraction or addition of work arrangements.

 

Author:Yice (Xiao Yu)

Source:Http://www.yice800.cn

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