The Project Management Thread: it cost more than I thought it would.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > The Project Management Thread: it cost more than I thought it would.

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

A question in the general thread sparked this for me when I realized there wasn't a project management thread. AND WHY NOT? :eng101:

I figure between the corporate thread and other lurkers there must be some other poor schmucks out there that got asked to manage a project, estimate how much a thing would take or cost, seen or worked with bad project managers or whatever else.

Consider this a space to talk about project management things.

Here are some project things you could talk about :

Dealing with shitdick PMs
Dealing with not totally shitdick PMs
How worthless PMPs are
How dare you call PMPs worthless
How to do forward and backwards passes with pen and paper on a beautifully drawn LOE diagram to identify your critical path and project slack on non-critical path activities the pad it all by 20%

You might be reading this and wondering what the gently caress "project management" even is and what is involved with it. You might have met an unlucky engineer that became a project manager through no fault of their own, or someone you work with was asked to step up "and just do the needful".

Let's start with what "project management" as a concept is.

Project Management applies to the set of tools, processes, and analysis techniques to successfully complete a scope of work that has a definite end point. That is, itself, the definition of a project. THey are time limited, budget constrained, and resource constrained pains in the asses that rarely finish when you expect them or be cheaper than you assumed.

What are the general stages of a project? I'll use the PMI set up for it (I know):
Here's a nice little article for reference

Initiation
This is the stage where some dipshit executive wants to "improve" your call center efficiency by implementing a series of measures and technologies so he can rub KPIs on his body and slap high-fives with his chadbro VP bruhskis.

Chad Dipshit drafts up a project charter which describes the "need", how it "provides value" to the organization" and a rough outline of how those goals will be achieved. This is considered the point where a project gets a soft-go or gets shitcanned.

Planning
At this point, Chad Dipshit got his idiot buddies in management sign off on the project because "gently caress those little nerds down in the call center".

In this stage, some overworked resource will get asked to put together a project plan to complete the identified scope of work. This is where the bulk of PM work goes into and where a project manager spends most of their time.

The PM then works with peopel to define the scope, or the boundaries of the project, or "how many crabs can we cram into this fuckin' bucket?"

Once the scope is defined, a series of linked activities is created that executes that scope. This is where the real work is as the PM works to figure out the right sequence of events, knowing it'll be blown apart on Day 2 of the project.

Once the sequence is determined, the PM can figure out how long everything will take, knowing it'll be blown apart on Day 2 of the project.

Some resources for how to estimate schedule can be found here.

Now that you know how long that crap is going to take, you can estimate cost based on the poorly out of date cost figures you have for labor, procurement, services, and

Execution & Control
Work is getting done on making call center nerds' lives more miserable, status and reporting happens, project controls analysis comes into play here. Phrases like "schedule variance" or "CPI" or "ETC" are used as if they're accurate.

Closure
High fives all around, we're done.

Obviously there's a lot more to it but for those that wanted a nutshell intro, there it is.

So let's hear it. Are you a current project manager? Are you trying to figure out some of this bullshit and want help from others? What are you tips or advice to new poor souls? Are you interested in a cert or is your org pushing one and not sure where to start?

Do you just want to poo poo post about vaguely related business things?

# ¿ Apr 1, 2018 01:24

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 03:25

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

oh rly posted:

I'll start. I have worked with many useless PMs who are promoted into the role because they used to be an SME of something, but have no real project management experience.

Many of them are quick to draw a line in the sand claiming what is and what isn't their job. My favorite is the belief their job does not include getting other people to communicate.

Many PMs stand by their favorite response which is "I e-mailed them, but they wont' respond."

My plan of attack for any communication is e-mail, instant message, phone, or standing at their loving desk until I get an answer.

Any good PM knows how to get people to communicate. A technique I learned from the world of construction is called the committal schedule. The committal schedule is a separate schedule listing out tasks when resources are forced to make decisions or have a scheduled meeting to make a decision. I have found that putting a meeting on a calendar to make the decision has been an effective method to get project stakeholders and leadership to be prepared to make a decision versus kicking the can down the road.

I always tell the PMs that I work with that the best PMs are annoying. If that PM is annoying enough, then every time a resource sees a message from the PM or sees the PM in person, then they will be reminded of the deliverables or tasks from that project.

That's a sad truth. Good PMs always seem to have a way of getting a decision or status update out of someone. I think the culture shock for a lot of people is when they find out being a project manager is 80% emails, phone calls, sitting in meetings to get people to agree to something and emailing, calling, and hounding people for answers.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2018 19:55

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Veskit posted:

Does anyone have any strong feelings about the COCOMO system, function points the whole shebang. It looks like a reasonable tool I could use for my department but it's also kind of heavy.

Nevermind i spent forever researching it. It's old and clunky but that's how we roll here in the creating vba macros / sql databases department

I was going to say, after researching, I�m not sure what it would do that standard bottoms up or historical knowledge for tasking couldn�t.

Which brings up a good point, what PM software do ya�ll is if you do use it? I�ve seen mainly MS Project and P6 but I�d love to find a better alternative to either.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2018 20:53

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Veskit posted:

I feel like our org spits in the face of pm a lot

4 posts in and there�s a better thread title

# ¿ Apr 5, 2018 17:17

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Sundae posted:

So, where would you PMs recommend getting started with learning formal project management approaches / skills? I've been managing projects for like six years now, but it's only sheer luck that none of them have blown up in my face yet. I have no formal training for project management and one of these days, someone is going to notice.

My first introduction to it was through a book they had us read in business school called �Making It Happen�. One of those fictional �novels� that seem kind of dumb at first. It walks pretty well through the core basics of project planning, scheduling, budgeting, controlling, etc.

I can try to dig up some other resources later. PMI has a lot of good stuff though a lot of people tend to not like them since a lot of their stuff is behind a paywall.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2018 20:34

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Veskit posted:

Project management is the most made up scientific sounding loving field I've ever heard.

project controls engineer: a real and not made up job title.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2018 20:36

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Veskit posted:

How do i tell MS project that when using a resource pool, please schedule the dates according to the workload and based on the resource being used. IE bryan's calendar doesn't have availability until 08/25, so don't schedule him until then, and on a 80 hour project if i put the start date please schedule it out 2 weeks.

I haven�t used ms project in awhile but there should be an option to set it so all tasks don�t ignore resource calendars when scheduling and then set a constraint to start as soon as possible on the task.

Might also look into resource leveling options which take resource constraints into account and set the task schedules accordingly.

I used to spend my time fighting Primavera P6 so YMMV on this one.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2018 17:19

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Veskit posted:

I'll try it out thanks. Are there better options for this resource planning stuff because it's a nightmare.

I honestly take a softer approach because my projects are more ambiguous and ~agile~ but my assumptions run off of available staff FTEs I can get for my projects. I take their average availability percentage * available hours in each month * charge out rate and peanut butter spread that cost across the timing I have for the project.

It�s not perfectly accurate but it gets it pretty close which tends to be good enough for my project sponsors. It sets up nicely for spending spikes and valleys due to the nature of my projects.

Getting it down the gnats rear end, though, I can�t think of a better way than using a shared resource pool in a Project server environment that all your project staff is entered into with available working hours then resource loading every task. It takes a lot of planning but t gets you the most accurate project costs and sets you up for some detailed Earned Value reporting that management gets wet over.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2018 20:57

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

spwrozek posted:

We us P6. My engineers tend to show 60-80 hours a week because we don't understand how to load and balance resources.

I grew up as a little project controls specialist using P6. It was pretty powerful but oh so loving infuriating at times. My favorite was trying to run reports from its backend SQL database and getting 15 different start dates for any given task.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2018 00:48

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Dik Hz posted:

Can I hang out in this thread if I don't have any formal PM title, but have taken half a certificate program on it and gotten real good at managing without authority? Because I love it, but figuring out how to get people to do poo poo to move your project forward without having any formal authority over them seems to be the essence of project management.

In fact I'd propose that as the thread title: Bitcoin, Forex, and Candles > The Project Management Thread: Managing without authority.

It�s a slow as poo poo thread with a niche audience but welcome! Sounds like you fit the bill bud

What kind of stuff you got goin on?

# ¿ Jul 29, 2018 04:50

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

I've said it in other threads, but I'm a fan of Confluence for project documentation. We've been using it for all of our software and IT projects for a few years now. It's easy to organize in a way that's professional looking, keeps all documentation together and easily accessible enough to most people. It can even work as a psuedo-document library in that you can load files but not great for revision tracking and all that for files.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2018 19:39

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Partycat posted:

How are you using this for tasks and breakdowns?

We use Jira for task tracking which is in the same family of products owned by Atlassian, works out pretty well

# ¿ Jul 30, 2018 01:58

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

CarForumPoster posted:

I�m considering confluence for requirements tracking since I use Jira and bit bucket. Anyone use it to track requirements? Does it allow the use of a linked unique ID like DOORS or MS Project?

Not sure on those integrations but my teams do use confluence to track requirements. The nutshell of it is that we generate software feature pages that have a table of requirements broken down into enough detail and acceptance test language that our devs can work and test them.

Confluence then has a feature that lets you covert a table of detailed requirements into a series of Jira tasks that we can then track or decompose further into sub tasks if needed. This includes a nice two-way thing that shows that task status on the confluence page and gives me an easy status report to run my stand ups with.

I�m not sure if that answers you questions but that�s roughly how I manage my software projects.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2018 23:42

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

I think it�s heavily industry dependent. Things are pretty saturated with PMPs. There�s a lot of trash project managers with PMPs and a lot of good ones, it�s really just a basic discriminator.

In regards to the other question, w/r/t interviewing and job hunting as a project manager; showing a history managing, leading without authority, defining scope and controlling projects all translate well into nearly any field without starting from the bottom again. There are exceptions, like specific industry things for construction, pharma, software, etc but mostly you can fit into other orgs.

Like the other poster mentioned, though, networking and �who you know� will almost always win out.

Higgy fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Jul 31, 2018

# ¿ Jul 31, 2018 01:19

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Really depends on the org. Where I work Project Manager exists as their own role. Some rise up from being technical contributors but others, like me, rose up as project controls specialists then got more responsibility as a project manager. I have some technical depth in the areas that I manage but only enough to call bullshit and translate to upper management.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2018 03:23

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

D-Pad posted:

It takes 2 years of project experience not PM experience. Most of my hours were from various roles I had as part of a project, not direct PM roles.

Edit: I just checked the PMI website and either I am crazy or they changed it to say directing/leading projects. When I got my PMP in 2013 my boss told me I just needed project experience and not direct experience. PMI accepted my hours. Maybe they just didn't catch it because I wasn't selected for an audit or maybe they have changed the requirements since then to be more specific.

They�re very loose in their definition of �project management� still to this day

# ¿ Aug 2, 2018 22:17

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Jedi Knight Luigi posted:

Oh man totally forgot about this thread.

We are going through demos for choosing a new ERP software and it is gruuuuuuuuuuuuuuueling. Thankfully we had it whittled down to 2 bids but still.

Have fun with it being a disaster no matter which bid you settle on.

ApolloSuna posted:

My dream is to become a project manager. Should I just kill myself now or wait till I get really into it? Any advice?

what the other poster said with heavy emphasis on "influencing without authority". The technical aspects of managing scope, schedule, and budget is the easy poo poo. It's the soft skill leadership poo poo that will make you want to take a header into an oven. Enjoy!

# ¿ Dec 28, 2018 23:15

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

High Lord Elbow posted:

Oh boy, so glad to see this thread. I lead a PMO in a company you've definitely heard of. I'm poo poo at managing projects because I have no attention span or attention to detail and hate working with people. However, I've made a career of building a framework where anal retentive, OCD Type-A project managers can actually contribute to an organization's success.

A few fundamental truths I've learned:

90% of your job is fighting against human nature. People instinctively do things that are counterproductive, and even when they understand that, they still do them.

If you work in a technical field, you will get very little respect or appreciation from the people who need you most. If they were good at managing work within their own function or communicating with people in other areas, your job wouldn't exist. When you hear people bitch about you, just know that their shortcomings keep you employed. Want to be loved? Go be a nurse or a teacher.

Most enterprise project management software is utter poo poo, good only for creating job security for a bloated PMO. The lightweight boutique packages that cater to a particular methodology are way better.

80% of project managers are trash at their job, hiding in those bloated PMOs where they can't be easily evaluated based on their own performance. The dirty secret of this job is that it's hard for management to tell when someone does it badly because it's so easy to blame things beyond your control.

Every duration estimate you've ever heard is hugely padded, and people's only incentive is to keep you from finding that out. If you lock them in a room and make an intern watch them work, that two-week task will be done before lunch.

Everyone knows that multitasking is hugely counterproductive, but our organizations are typically set up to encourage it. If you've got someone pivotal on your project being pulled in six directions, you can be their personal savior by giving them clear task priorities and letting them focus on banging one out at a time.

The PMP certification doesn't say much for your ability, but you should probably go ahead and do it (then let it expire) if this is a field you want to make a career of and you're actively seeking lower level PM jobs. Once you have proven experience, no one will care anymore.

If you really learn MS Project, Excel, and VBA , you can drastically simplify your job by automating everything tedious. I'm not familiar with the "collaboration" bells and whistles in MSP2013 and beyond, but I'm an absolute ace at writing VBA macros for MS Project (and Excel) or just general configuration stuff - happy to answer questions about that in this thread or by PM, because I'm an absolute nerd and I love it.

Everything here is insanely spot on in almost every facet from my experience.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2019 06:19

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Stormtrooper posted:

I'm a tech lead being tasked with more and more project management work. As someone coming from a development background, what should I keep in mind to be successful?

Protect your tech�s time from your sponsor/client/customer/whateverr, understand what they care about, and make it your mission to remove the poo poo that stops them from doing their job or generally just annoys them. That�ll put you in the top few percent of PMs.

The rest is busywork imo

# ¿ Jun 25, 2019 04:07

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

High Lord Elbow posted:

Correction: If people who are good at their jobs were good at aligning with people in other jobs and people weren�t inherently lazy without transparency and accountability, you wouldn�t need project managers.

But people are people, so overhead increases.

A lot of words to say �if people could communicate effectively�

The technical/wonky PM work of scheduling, calculating, and budgeting are 5% of the job. Good (such a big stress on �good�) PMs act as conduits for communication and not much else.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2019 02:31

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

LawfulWaffle posted:

Is it common for your boss's boss to actively be a problem to your projects?

Double posting just to say that you�re in the right thread, friend.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2019 02:33

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Golden Bee posted:

What�s on a good PM resume?
I worked with a ton of different clients while running my own company for half a decade, and I�m looking for more metrics than people managed.

I can�t just say I did projects early over and over, because then it looks like I misbudgeted time.

Food for thought:

List impacts of the projects; dollars saved if it was process improvement, revenue increased, efficiencies gained, safety improved, etc etc

What were the budgets and complexities of those projects? Any particular clients you want to advertise?

Think about any challenges in them too, like risks that came to light and how you handled them or planned for them.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2019 14:26

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Planner fails at trying to be Jira and doesn't come close to being good for project management. I've found really only useful for managing small tasks across a small team. I'm sorry you have to use it.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2020 02:10

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

We use jira and primavera p6 depending on the flavor of project. P6 can be an unwieldy beast without proper training though, it�s insanely powerful and data driven but that also means it has a thousand settings and calculations for our entry level project controls folks to gently caress up and have me reporting the wrong ETCs for a quarter to my client. No I�m not mad why do you ask?

# ¿ Jan 16, 2020 05:40

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

THE MACHO MAN posted:

As far as the PMP cert is concerned, what is the definition of leading a project

At my current place, myself and the other PM are also the spec writers. He tends to be the primary on that (like a 75-25 split) where as I run our day to day task management, scheduling, resource management, aligning dependencies, clearing blockers, stakeholder management, etc for all the projects, even ones that I did not write requirements for. For things I did not write specs for, my name isn't going to appear on any documentation, quality documents, etc. Our PM hours are not logged anywhere at all for any of those tasks.

sure sounds like a bunch of bitch work to keep the project on track

as in that sounds like managing and leading a project to me

also

spwrozek posted:

They will not care, they just want you to take their class and pay for the exam.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2020 01:01

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Does anyone have a good source of PDUs?

I used the PM-Podcast for my last cycle to listen in my commute and basically took care of my whole requirement but I�m always looking for other sources.

I figure I should get a head start with one year left on my next cycle....surely next time will be different right?

# ¿ Jan 18, 2020 02:01

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Something like jira/trello would work pretty well. Even something as simple as ms project to line up linked activities grouped by a rough wbs would help a ton.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2020 00:12

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

LawfulWaffle posted:

This is a bit of a rant, but I want to compare experiences for a second. I just joined my agency�s PMO in May and I really enjoy the work for the most part. I can see myself making Project Management my career, but not here. Brief backstory: I rose through the ranks starting as a temp in the call center through network technician and landed as a Management Analyst in the PMO, which is under IT.

I am now in charge of our project to replace 700 workstations with Windows 10 machines. That�s fine, and as I�m learning about the PMI best practices I try to stay on top of the planning, documentation, and communication for the project. However, due to some deadweight in the Helpdesk/technician side of the department, and the lack of Helpdesk supervisor to manage it, I�ve also been doing a lot of technical work related to the project. Like personally testing software on the computers, running training/initialization sessions for all the staff, delivering and installing hardware, and troubleshooting problems as they arise. It�s a lot, and it eats into a lot of what I think I should be doing. As such I�ve been working (paid) overtime for the first time since I started with this company, and I feel a lot of personal pressure when unforeseen problems come up because maybe I didn�t do enough. Learning more about the job academically, think I should be able to delegate these tasks, but there�s no one to delegate to. I don�t actually mind the technical work because I�m a) used to it after a few years doing it as a job and b) I�m a decent teacher for the sessions, but I have a lot of other things I have to do. This isn�t even my only project!

Is this sort of situation common? Not specifically with tech, but any field? If there�s a project and part of the work involves, say, calling customers, is the PM likely to be tasked with that? Or is it usually just assigning work out and receiving reports?

It�s extremely common to be an individual contributor in addition to PM. I worked project management for our IT org for awhile that had the expectation that the PM role should be no more than 20% of an FTE (40 hour week) so one had to either manage five or more projects simultaneously or contribute to them in other ways.

Your ability to delegate and get to a �higher level� of project managing will depend heavily on your organization, resource availability and project size. Like I said, I used to be right in your shoes but after changing jobs from managing a handful of $50k-$300k projects for a couple years and then moving to manage an $8M/year program, the difference in delegation of responsibilities is night and day.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2020 08:14

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Dik Hz posted:

I'm taking a PMP prep course right now (paid for by a training grant to my company). Our instructor is great, but boy is the coursework's ethics unit out in lala-land. There is considerable conflict between the right answers on the practice tests I've taken and the way the real world works.

Question: You don't have the authority to keep functional managers from taking all your resources. What do you do?

Answers:
A) Tell your sponsor you lack the resources to complete the project. (wrong)
B) Go to the authority well with your authority bucket and just get more authority. (correct)

Welcome to PMI�s world. You just live in it for now.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2020 02:41

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Jasper Tin Neck posted:

What project management software have you used and what were their pros and cons?

My organisation doesn't currently use any but it's becoming increasingly evident (at least to me) that Excel just doesn't cut it when managing ever larger and more time-constrained engineering consulting projects across multiple department boundaries.

Primavera P6:
Pros:
-incredibly detailed
-allows gnats rear end resource loading and ties into existing enterprise systems for labor rates
-lots of bells and whistles for analysis and reporting

Cons:
-unnecessarily complex and requires specialized training to be halfway proficient at it (this is where my career basically started)
-lots of support needed on the back end for data management
-$$$$!

MS Project:
Pros:
-decent enough to build out resource loaded project schedules
-ties into rest of M$ ecosystem if that�s where your company is at
-straight forward UI

Cons:
-limited data tie ins to other systems
-can sometimes not be detailed enough

# ¿ Jul 22, 2023 08:22

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 03:25

Higgy: Jul 6, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Also it�s really cool to see this thread still bopping about almost 5 years after I made it on a whim.

Carry on you poor souls!

# ¿ Jul 22, 2023 08:27

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > The Project Management Thread: it cost more than I thought it would.