Project management
Hello, I’m Kristof, a human being like you, and an easy to work with, friendly guy.
I've been a programmer, a consultant, CIO in startups, head of software development in government, and built two software companies.
Some days I’m coding Golang in the guts of a system and other days I'm wearing a suit to help clients with their DevOps practices.
Table of Contents
A project manager is recommended when you need to have the efforts of several people (programmers, designers, testers, seo experts, system administrators, etc) orchestrated towards a specific outcome; especially if you only wish to be involved with the project at the executive level, and let somebody else deal with the details.
Projects usually consist of a “planning” and a “development” phase:
During the planning phase, a project manager should: #
- Write the specifications
- Creatie mock-up screens, use cases or database structures
- Advise on technologies and methodologies
- Interview and choosing the right people for you, if needed
- Create the project execution plan
During the development phase, a project manager should: #
Each week, one full briefing with the team (in Agile methodology it’s called the “weekly scrum meeting”), where:
- compile tasks from user cases or requirements
- examine the project status and best practices
- give technical and/or technological advice to the team as needed
- Finally, write a report to all stakeholders about the project status.
Every day a short status meeting with the team (one can call it the “daily scrum”, in Agile-speak).
- This keeps the project flowing nicely.
- Developer time is not wasted in meetings.
- Obstacles can be detected early, and thus, can be avoided.
Note: I take on a maximum of four projects to manage at the same time (and that is only when there are no other commitments for me). Nobody can seriously manage more than four projects, it’s physically impossible (see why).