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Yeah we file separate research tickets too, labeling them as 'spike'. But now this has become a tool to offload PM work onto engineers since the research is often non-technical in nature.
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Sep 18, 2019 00:21
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How important do you think it is for a Project Manager to have experience as a developer? I ask because I retire from the military next year and am looking into shifting career fields. I am finishing up a degree in Software Development and Security which is kind of a hybrid Computer Science/Cybersecurity degree without the super high end CS math. My military experience has nothing to do with software development but I do have more than a decade of solid experience leading teams of up to 30 or so people. I know there is a big difference in ordering people around who listen because they have to and managing a team of people who listen because it's in everyone's best interest to work together. My style is much closer to the latter and I don't think I am so indoctrinated in a military lifestyle that the adjustment will be too severe. I mostly think this might be a way for me to capitalize on some of the time spent for the last twenty years vs starting out competing against recent CS grads for dev positions who have degrees from more prestigious universities and are 20 years younger than me. Also, I really do like being a generalist and almost everyone I've been in a position to manage have told me that they are happy they had a chance to work with me. Hekk fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Sep 18, 2019 |
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Sep 18, 2019 00:45
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Project Managers with actual dev experience are rare; you'll more likely want a TPM job.
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Sep 18, 2019 01:13
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Volmarias posted:Project Managers with actual dev experience are rare; you'll more likely want a TPM job. This is where I show my ignorance because I thought people used the term Project/Product Manager and Technical Product Manager almost interchangeably.
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Sep 18, 2019 01:46
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There are few PMs with dev experience. They also tend not to have expertise with the business-side. It's no wonder most of them end up being bad. I'm currently working with a client-side PM that did a lateral move from a UI dev role. She's supporting a financial engine where she doesn't understand the finance aspect, and she doesn't understand the dev aspect. Doing a really bad job. What's interesting is seeing the role transform someone who was a competent dev into a PM who she'd likely have derided in the past. shrike82 fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Sep 18, 2019 |
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Sep 18, 2019 01:52
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the most important skill for a pm is probably being able to think in systems holistically. no one is gonna expect you to know how to produce an api response, but you should be able to explain what needs to be in the response, how each of the elements is important and where each of the elements derives from (not like which database row, but how did this information get into our system?)
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Sep 18, 2019 02:05
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That’s been my experience to a T with PMs this far.
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Sep 18, 2019 02:07
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the talent deficit posted:the most important skill for a pm is probably being able to think in systems holistically. no one is gonna expect you to know how to produce an api response, but you should be able to explain what needs to be in the response, how each of the elements is important and where each of the elements derives from (not like which database row, but how did this information get into our system?)
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Sep 18, 2019 02:31
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Vulture Culture posted:In this scenario, the most important skill for a PM is getting the stakeholders and the developers to agree what that API response should contain, not to come up with the answer themselves sure but unless your pm is just carrying notes from stakeholders to devs and vice versa they need to understand the details. i'm not saying they should dictate these things, but they need to understand them
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Sep 18, 2019 02:43
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I thought Product Managers and Project Managers were different but none of the good ones I’ve known in either category had development backgrounds.
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Sep 18, 2019 05:49
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Of the PMs you think were good, can any of you name qualities they shared that made them good at their jobs? Obviously attention to detail, I like the bit about thinking of systems holistically. I would add "thinking algorithmically". I wish my PMs conceptualized engineering the way my intro to programming books did: object oriented and imperative e.g. recipes and cooking appliances. Just that base level of understanding would improve requirements gathering, etc. immensely.
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Sep 18, 2019 06:15
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lol at the loving AI bubble a friend asked me to provide some (pro bono) advice for his seed-stage startup about how they can incorporate ML in their business model gradually. they are building an app with curated domain content and were up-front about not making a deep tech play. over the past week, they were apparently pushed by their investors into building in AI capability at launch so want help in coming up with a plan to build an AI recommendation system within 3 months shrike82 fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Sep 18, 2019 |
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Sep 18, 2019 10:00
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Nostalgia4Ass posted:How important do you think it is for a Project Manager to have experience as a developer? I ask because I retire from the military next year and am looking into shifting career fields. I am finishing up a degree in Software Development and Security which is kind of a hybrid Computer Science/Cybersecurity degree without the super high end CS math. My military experience has nothing to do with software development but I do have more than a decade of solid experience leading teams of up to 30 or so people. Being a developer who moved into this role after a period of management: I never started low or competing with recent grads as my clients value all my other experience as well. Now I have found that not having a mono-focused career is really beneficial to the dev work where I understand very well what the need is the software is filling and can aim my efforts well. As a result, I don't have to work that hard which is something I like a lot. If you are a natural leader, you will float to the top pretty fast so don't worry about it. I would still recommend to start writing code for money, it is a fun thing to do.
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Sep 18, 2019 12:00
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vonnegutt posted:I work remotely, usually from my home office, which theoretically would make it hard to "switch off" at the end of the day. In practice I don't find it too hard. A big part of it is that I try to be very deliberate with my working time, because after I finish my work, there's no "butt in seat" time to fill - it's all my free time. So every morning when I drink my coffee I decide what I'm going to get done that day. I try not to do busywork or pseudo-work like checking email and instead to identify exactly what would be my best contribution. If I finish that early, great. Do you use your home office for anything besides work? I work remote from home as well and sometimes I have real productivity problems where I just can't focus. I try lots of different things like pomodoro, blocking distracting websites, disabling notifications, etc. but some days it feels like I just can't make myself work. As far as I can tell it's never been a major issue because my employers have always been happy with my output, but the days where I just kinda float through not really working but also not really not working can be pretty frustrating. I think for me it's especially an issue when I need to work on something that either doesn't have very well-defined requirements, or is just boring/the wrong kind of difficult. I actually had this problem when I worked in an office too (with the added bonus of getting distracted by open office BS), I guess because when your job is to be on the computer it's just really easy to find things to do that aren't work. For example it's my day off right now but here I am sitting in my office posting on SA and about to start playing computer games.
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Sep 18, 2019 13:53
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shrike82 posted:lol at the loving AI bubble Classical AI and linear recommendation algorithms count right? 
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Sep 18, 2019 14:11
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prom candy posted:Do you use your home office for anything besides work? I work remote from home as well and sometimes I have real productivity problems where I just can't focus. I have this problem myself and the best way I can mitigate it is dedicate some early morning time to loving around and once it’s out of my system I can focus more on work. I also do a lot of consulting so keeping the lights on is usually a good motivating factor, but that may not apply to you.
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Sep 18, 2019 14:15
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prom candy posted:Do you use your home office for anything besides work? I work remote from home as well and sometimes I have real productivity problems where I just can't focus. I justify that by noting that when I worked in an office, I had days where I had real productivity problems. At least with WFH, if I get a second wind at 8 pm, I can grab my laptop and get some stuff done while hanging out with my wife. 
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Sep 18, 2019 15:00
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raminasi posted:I thought Product Managers and Project Managers were different but none of the good ones I’ve known in either category had development backgrounds. They are different, but it's very uncommon for either of them to actually have backgrounds in development. WRT good qualities, they include
Volmarias fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Sep 18, 2019 |
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Sep 18, 2019 15:22
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I worked with a great PO last job. He would sit down and interview all us devs during release planning, 3 times a year, and advocate for things we really wanted on top of the business needs.
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Sep 18, 2019 15:33
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My favorite PM started as a tester in the QA department, so they already had an understanding of how a lot of the site worked and what our recurring issues were. They also had the initiative to go investigate stuff on their own, without needing one of us devs to walk them through a feature. Also, importantly, they knew when they had hit the end of what they could do on their own and asked us for advice, unlike some of the other PM's, who would just stumble around for a bit, then make a bunch of incorrect assumptions. I miss having a good PM (and that one, in particular!).
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Sep 18, 2019 15:43
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prom candy posted:Do you use your home office for anything besides work? I work remote from home as well and sometimes I have real productivity problems where I just can't focus. I try lots of different things like pomodoro, blocking distracting websites, disabling notifications, etc. but some days it feels like I just can't make myself work. As far as I can tell it's never been a major issue because my employers have always been happy with my output, but the days where I just kinda float through not really working but also not really not working can be pretty frustrating. I think for me it's especially an issue when I need to work on something that either doesn't have very well-defined requirements, or is just boring/the wrong kind of difficult. Yeah, it's also my art studio and I use the same laptop for work as I do for post-work dicking around on the internet, which is apparently sacrilege for working remote. As for procrastination and focus, I think everyone struggles no matter where they work. AFAIK procrastination comes down to either anxiety or boredom, and being able to identify which one you're feeling is useful. Boredom is easy (for me): isolate the boring task, then grab a cup of coffee, put on a good album, and pomodoro that sucker until it's done. Then, reward myself after finishing (snack, long break). Anxiety is harder. If I'm not sure how to code something, it's easy to get distracted and lose focus. For me, once I recognize that I'm procrastinating because I don't know what to do, I step away from the computer. This is why I go to the gym almost every day - get good and stuck, lift weights, revelation. Other times, writing things down helps. I keep a scratch pad next to my laptop at all times. Shut the laptop and try to write down all the steps in order to identify exactly where my problem is. Once I have a specific question, I can start reading documentation or asking around or googling. Feeling overwhelmed is another reason for anxiety procrastination for me. If there's just TOO MUCH to do, I'll open an empty text file and just write down all the things I can think of that need to be done. Then I'll spend some time reordering the list, seeing which are dependencies of others, which are requirements vs nice to haves, and try to come up with a solid task list. Then I copy down ONE thing from the list on to my scratch pad and do it to completion before I look at my file again. This is why goal setting is important: without deciding in advance what I want to finish per day, it's easy to have an anxiety spiral that you're "not getting enough done". Some days my goal is simply, "Resolve all unknowns into task list". Basically, it all comes down to attitude: I would rather finish work and feel like I have free time instead of spending my day doing not much and not having fun either. So I try to find coping strategies for procrastination - if I'm wasting time, it's my time I'm wasting.
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Sep 18, 2019 16:11
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raminasi posted:I thought Product Managers and Project Managers were different but none of the good ones I’ve known in either category had development backgrounds. In theory, the difference is that product managers are responsible for making sure that the product meets business requirements, and project managers are responsible for getting things out the door on time and under budget. At any given organization, the roles might be different in arbitrary ways.
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Sep 18, 2019 16:30
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vonnegutt posted:words I agree with all of that. I work remotely from home. Desk is setup in my bedroom, so I easily spend over half the day in one room albeit asleep for a good chunk of it. Probably been like that for around five years now at this point. I would never claim that it is ideal, but I can definitely still get work done. I feel like the concept of separating work from home is sound. Ultimately it is a mental thing though. Yes, sometimes physical separation helps with that. However, I don't think it is mandatory. When I have trouble getting things done, there is pretty much always some factor (vonnegutt covered this pretty well) other than the environment. Yes, there are distractions at home, but there are also distractions in the office.
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Sep 18, 2019 20:09
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Volmarias posted:They are different, but it's very uncommon for either of them to actually have backgrounds in development. yeah agree on these two. Especially with the latter, it's not uncommon to see PMs that view developers as means for them to clear a list of work items, rather than viewing themselves as facilitating dev work.
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Sep 19, 2019 01:35
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This is good stuff, thank you. In general how many hours of good-ish work do you fine posters feel like you should do to be fair to your employers? Nobody is actually cranking out 8 hours of good coding a day are they?
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Sep 19, 2019 03:53
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Some days you give a full eight, maybe more; some days you just can’t do anything. It evens out, I guess? As long as you’re not working too slowly such that you’re holding up a project or release or something.
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Sep 19, 2019 04:21
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[quote="Ferdinand the Bull" post="498423575"] All the jobs I've had there has been an expectation that I'm making noticable progress every day. I cherish the days when I have 8 hours to code and my work day isnt clogges up with meetings that just go on and on. It is fair to your employer that you [/quote Ferdinand the Bull fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Sep 21, 2019 |
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Sep 19, 2019 04:22
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Ferdinand the Bull posted:It is fair to your employer that you give maximal effort  no
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Sep 19, 2019 04:24
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It depends how poo poo of a time you want to have with the codebase you slog through every day. You also owe it to yourself to not suck at what you do. It takes effort to understand the space youre working in. Ferdinand the Bull fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Sep 19, 2019 |
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Sep 19, 2019 04:32
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The interesting thing about programming is that it doesn't tend to be a typical 9-5 job. You don't have a quota of widgets to stamp every day, you can typically do work until you feel like you're not really being effective anymore and then you leave (barring non work constraints on when you start and leave). This usually shakes out to an 8 hour workday for me but sometimes it's more and sometimes less.
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Sep 19, 2019 04:52
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Ferdinand the Bull posted:It is fair to your employer that you give maximal effort at what you are assigned to do check out this collaborator
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Sep 19, 2019 06:46
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I didn't know my colleagues shared an account to post here. 
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Sep 19, 2019 07:42
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prom candy posted:This is good stuff, thank you. It depends. I try to set a reasonable goal each day that pushes the feature along in a steady, demonstrable way. Some days the amount of actual lines of code changed is nearly nil. Instead, it's understanding the problem space, reading docs, clarifying requirements, all that uphill work. Even when a task is well-defined from a business perspective, the existing code can be confusing. I try to avoid actual typing until I understand exactly what I'm changing and why. Despite not producing anything, it's much harder and I can probably only do about 4 hours per day of actual, heads-down focus. I've found that some concepts just need time to percolate so I don't try to push out more than I can handle. When I find myself struggling to remember a single line I just read, I know it's time to take a long break / stop for the day. Alternatively, I find the closer I am to the end of a feature, the faster I code. I know what I'm going to do and at that point it's just a matter of typing. I could easily do 6+ hours of that without feeling strained. My partner gets home around 4:30 pm so I never work much longer than that, except in rare circumstances. So I try to arrange things so I get my stuff done before then. As far as my relationship with my managers goes, I make a point to give them estimates as soon as I am reasonably certain, and then I make a point to meet them (this is rare in software development?? but I came from a graphics background where missing a deadline was a lost client). If I discover something and can't meet my self-imposed deadline, I let them know ASAP. If I have to push and work late to meet my own deadline, I will, but then I try to figure out what caused me to overestimate my own abilities and change it for next time. I'm lucky to have a couple reasonable people as my managers who trust me when I say X is going to take so long. Sometimes they push back, but I don't let them dictate deadlines, we just discuss how to get the scope smaller. After any super-features (2+ weeks), I make a point to take a few days and just do simple bugfixes to give myself something of a break. These are days when I really try to finish early and go on a hike or something.
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Sep 19, 2019 14:18
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Ferdinand the Bull posted:It is fair to your employer that you give maximal effort Hard no The unofficial motto here is "play hard, work medium". Work to live not live to work.
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Sep 19, 2019 15:56
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vonnegutt posted:As far as my relationship with my managers goes, I make a point to give them estimates as soon as I am reasonably certain, and then I make a point to meet them (this is rare in software development?? but I came from a graphics background where missing a deadline was a lost client). If I discover something and can't meet my self-imposed deadline, I let them know ASAP. If I have to push and work late to meet my own deadline, I will, but then I try to figure out what caused me to overestimate my own abilities and change it for next time. I'm lucky to have a couple reasonable people as my managers who trust me when I say X is going to take so long. Sometimes they push back, but I don't let them dictate deadlines, we just discuss how to get the scope smaller. For things that I am not 100% certain about, I've taken to using 50/80/99 estimating with managers and it's had good success in keeping expectations in check.
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Sep 19, 2019 16:53
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My Rhythmic Crotch posted:Hard no I agree with that if your company is writing tests for all your code.
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Sep 19, 2019 18:10
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Ferdinand the Bull posted:I agree with that if your company is writing tests for all your code. I interpret 'giving maximal effort' as working OT to meet deadlines, taking calls after hours, etc. Perhaps I was mistaken to interpret it that way. But I certainly write my own tests.
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Sep 19, 2019 18:42
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My Rhythmic Crotch posted:I interpret 'giving maximal effort' as working OT to meet deadlines, taking calls after hours, etc. Perhaps I was mistaken to interpret it that way. But I certainly write my own tests. Ah I see. Giving maximal effort is putting in your agreed upon hours per week and not dicking around and writing half assed code. Its not overworking yourself and giving more than promised, at least to me.
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Sep 19, 2019 19:14
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My Rhythmic Crotch posted:I interpret 'giving maximal effort' as working OT to meet deadlines, taking calls after hours, etc. Perhaps I was mistaken to interpret it that way. But I certainly write my own tests. Maximal effort for maximal salary. Now, what maximal salary means ... everyone will have a different number.
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Sep 19, 2019 19:39
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Also, don't play hard. Relax. Drink slower. Read a book.
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Sep 19, 2019 19:53
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