How to manage a project without deep knowledge in all the technologies involved?

Question

In my organization, we have to handle several projects with various technologies, such as flex, iphone, .net, php, etc. The problem is that I only know java.

So, if the developer tells me that the problem will take 2 days, I really can not judge whether he is right or not.

How to cope with this situation?

Another problem is that, since I do not know any specific technology, it is therefore very difficult for me to say whether any particular thing is possible or not in this technology?

I draw up a project plan, documents, contact with customers, but I have little control over the developers, because I am not knowledgeable about all these technologies.

What can i do with this?

Answer 1

If the score hits you a little from the top, you should probably be able to explain what it is that will cause a delay. Especially if you know java - they will also be able to explain this to the non-technical project manager (in the end, the project manager may need to be explained to the client).

Besides; trust your developers. They probably do not underestimate you enough to find yourself in a difficult place, but when communicating with a client you should always give yourself an advantage. If they are constantly overestimating, you should notice this after a while.

Answer 2

This is from Scrum, but it is applicable even if you are not doing Scrum. In Scrum, only a developer is allowed to evaluate how long it will take to do something. Managers cannot give, recommend or in any way modify this assessment. Therefore, first of all trust this assessment.

But most programmers are inherently overly confident. If the programmer says 2 days, then it may take 3 days to complete the task. Assessment does not reflect reality (first).

The solution to this problem is to keep records of the assessment. Usually I write a task and evaluate it on a piece of the map and place it on a large board. If the task takes more time than the assessment, then tactfully remind the developer and pay attention. Next time, before making a new assessment, remove subtle (or not very subtle) clues about missed deadlines or early completion. Thus, developers will gradually learn to improve their grades.

Be cordial in all of this. The goal is to get accurate, reliable estimates - not to put pressure on people. The thing is to teach people to make more accurate assessments. Believe me, an accurate assessment is more important than missing a deadline. It is relatively easy to inform the client that the project will be postponed for 1 week, if by the end of this week you can actually complete the project. On the other hand, repeatedly informing the client that the project will be completed "tomorrow", the client will quickly lose confidence in you.

A few other notes:

When I started this process, it took about a month for most people to really give me accurate estimates. This does not mean that they intentionally lied about previous assessments. It’s just that people, especially programmers, don’t really know how to make good grades without training.

Whenever developers come with an assessment of more than 3 days, I automatically ask them to break the task into smaller subtasks, so that each subtask takes only 1 or 2 days. It also automatically generates milestones that you can track to see if the task is working well or is stuck.

Explain this process to your boss and get his support. It is very difficult (but not entirely impossible) to do this if your boss continues to click on you because you will ultimately put pressure on your developers. Your boss should understand that time estimates can only be made by people who spend time completing tasks.

Answer 3

you probably should trust your developer’s ratings, but expect them to not always be 100% accurate, remember that they are ratings. It might also be a good idea to use a process that has an acceptance based on the fact that the ratings are only ratings and either don't require them (e.g. Kanban) or have built-in functions to adapt to the nature of the ratings (e.g. Scrum).

PMs really do not need to know that much about technology, how are these developers, but I understand that this is not always the case, especially where PM also has technical responsibilities.

Therefore, judging by whether something is possible, it should not be your responsibility alone, this type of assessment should be delegated almost entirely to the developers, at least with regard to technical considerations. You can still provide your assessment when business, economic and customer considerations reflect the possibility or any other attempts.

In short, use the developer’s technical knowledge where necessary.

Answer 4

Make friends with your development team. Explain that your job is not to lure them or tell them how to do something and how long it takes, but to help them coordinate and protect them from direct interaction with customers.

Once you are in a situation of mutual trust, describe the needs of the client and rely on the estimates provided by your developers. In any case, these are those who have knowledge.

If the client asks you to give an assessment on the spot, answer that it is impossible to give an exact figure without putting some thoughts and knowledge into it. If they insist, respond to a large-scale figure (at least that you will need to do the same in a language that you know), and let them know that you will provide the actual numbers soon.

Answer 5

Perhaps your process can help with some help .. from your comments above I saw:

• Step 1 - PM must contact the client to create a project plan ...
• Step 2 - create a mock ups ---
• Step 3 - Get approval of these two documents from the client and management ....
• Step 4 - launch the project

Where do developers come and rate? If you ask them in Step 4 , it is too late because you have dedicated your schedule to your client and management.

For all expectations to be correct, take a trusted developer to Step 1 . Before submitting a plan, just ask dev; "How long could we build this with a team of n our developers?"

This has several advantages:

• Top grades
• Sets more precise expectations with the client and developer team.
• Increase commitment to these evaluations by the development team.

1 and 2 should be obvious, but point 3 is important because people rarely like to work with grades set by someone else. Although you may not be able to use the entire development team in your assessment, use a trusted advisor.

Answer 6

I also manage small projects, some COBOL, some MS, mostly java. I only know java and my skills need updating. We use an area assessment tool , in fact, just an excel sheet with fields that the developer fills in to assess the impact. This helps developers break the problem down into smaller parts, which makes them really think through the steps that need to be taken, and this gives us a more accurate assessment. Whatever the developer’s help, helps you. :) And then, when we are done, we will compare the assessment vs the actual and the base for future links. We define good grades as having a variance of 10% or less.

Do not blindly trust the estimates of the developer - you do not know where he is based from, no one can know 100% of the technology / structure or model of data or business rules or the like. Know what he considered in the estimates. I believe that trust deserves. If a developer gave bad grades before, can you trust the grades that he will present next are adequate? I definitely won’t, unless I see improvement.

I was a developer, and I made quite a few bad grades. (Hmm, maybe that's why I'm less of a developer and more of a manager ..)

Answer 7

The only way to get an accurate estimate is to break the task down into small units of work. The smaller and more focused units of work, the more accurate the assessment of the task.

Getting a joint team to discuss what will be associated with each task is a great way to evaluate the proposed technical solution. Often a more effective technical solution is displayed by the team through a detailed discussion of the problem. This is a great time to use, and you can easily restore the time spent viewing designer time after starting development.

If you participate in these discussions as a team, you will begin to understand this technology a little better, and you will begin to trust your programmers more, because you understand the problems from their point of view. This is also a great way to retrain a team, as you often hear the phrase “I didn’t know that you could do this,” as developers share their knowledge. Make sure the team reviews are not ego and friendly.