Mind Your Own Business

It may be difficult for the technical Project Manager to mind his or her own business. Let me explain. Functional employees (say programmers) are like the engineer on a locomotive. It's a great job. You get to pull levers and stick your head out the window. You are on the front line. You are the first to see an obstacle on the tracks ahead. Very exciting. Many PMs just love to ride in the front locomotive and diddle with the levers. These PMs tend to slow project delivery. Other figurehead PMs like to ride in the front cab just to pull the steam whistle. In either case, these PMs riding in locomotive bother the real engineer.

The mature project manager recognizes his critical role on the project train and stays out of the locomotive cab. Like a train conductor, the project manager is the focal point for project communication. He or she coordinates activities, communicates status, and marshals the resources to respond to emergencies. He supervises rail service to ensure that the train runs efficiently and on schedule. Unfortunately, some of these key responsibilities are neglected when the PM is riding in the front blowing the whistle.

I'd argue that successful PMs let the crew do their job while he or she focuses on developing a high performance team. You are probably on a team right now. How much time does your PM spend developing the team? I'm guessing that the number is exceedingly low <5%. Is that the proper balance? How do you develop a team? It's not as simple as facilitating introductions between all of the team members, folks.

On the Cannball Express project, we're going to deliberately tip our hat to soft skills. We're going to explore the nature of team development throughout the journey. Let's see how it plays out.