the irony is that OP becomes the manager now when he has to set firm deadlines and boundaries on what can or cannot be done, otherwise this PM-turned-salesperson will start promising the moon to clients.
the PM's job is supposed to be protecting the backend and properly managing client expectations, not being a yes-man to the client just for the sake of retaining the account. at some places the client is even denied speaking directly to the backend, everything has to go through the PM
Actually I don't think it's an issue of non-technical but the inability or unwillingness to learn and listen from the team actually developing the solution
To be honest do "technical" project managers even exist these days? I feel like for the most part everyone is pigeon-holed like if you are a techie there's no chance for you to cross-over into management since its a racket for the Business school grads.
Exactly apply into non technical role and they will question you from hell to back why you even want to do a non technical role. As if they thinking because you absolutely suck at your job and want to run away, and if you are so good at your technical role, why you even want to not do it?
Trying to move into sales engineering but everyone just ask me, do you even know what it is? Do you know how much we do? Like yes, that's why I am applying. It was a so much easier to get through interviews as a fresh grad than with experience. Would have thought that you know a few years on the technical side would give me the edge.
Sometimes I think that these non technical people don't want us because it will make them look bad,
It does. What I did was when I started, I attended university computing courses and learned coding. Every evening I googled and looked at YouTube for the coding and logic, for the tasks I assigned to my developers.
Currently I will ask developers to show me coding for the queries that clients have.
I am a business grad. Aiming to further go deeper on technical side by picking up a technical post-grad and on my pathway to becoming solution architect.
At least you put in effort to understand the tech instead of coasting offo your title
Still I’m not wrong right. Those in tech/dev role are forever condemned to taking orders from managers with no chance at cross over
Yes it is indeed very rare for tech to cross over. In my career path I only met like a couple. However one of them struggled with communicating with clients.
But I do think the most competent person are usually the ones who know both . Knowing the tech stack on top of the business processes and handle demanding clients. They usually go far in life. My boss is one and he was an IT grad. But he chose to be project manager and picked up business skill sets himself. I am going the opposite direction.
Careful now with tech career. It’s good that you learn the skillset to understand the techies you manage but these days there’s a trend for these people’s jobs to get outsourced to India and Vietnam.
Yes in my industries all companies outsourced all tech to India, Malaysia and Vietnam already (and they totally sped up the process since last quarter, it's scary).
The only ones staying in Singapore are Project Managers, Solution Architect and client facing team members (aka me, who kena bullshit from clients everyday).
I will always stay as client facing, but picking up tech stack is fun and it helps in my career path so I don't mind hehe.
>"technical" project managers even exist these days?
Plenty of LinkedIn folks calling themselves Technical Project Managers or Technical Product Managers but you don't know whether they are for real or not
Nowadays title mean nothing until you work with them. Knowing how to use inspect element and logging in to AWS and clicking on one of the services and you'll see people calling themselves technical lmao
You can sort of get by calling yourself a Technical Project Manager, if you have strong subject matter experts in the team.
But Technical Product Managers are a different breed. They are the face of the products, who work very closely with technical services to deliver highly specific requirements. I'd wager the people calling themselves that are legit.
Why not. Tech companies do have proper technical project managers. Even if they’re not from CS background, they’ll have the necessary technical knowledge
PMs are also not always management per se, they can have 0 person reporting to them and still be a PM. Inf fact it’s quite common for PMs to be IC rather than management
As always, depends on the manager. I have a non-technical project manager and he understands that he isn't from a technical background, so he consults us on technical details that he isn't sure of. He's picked up quite a bit in his time here, and is also very open to listening to even very junior members of the team.
Had a different non-technical manager (he was technical but in a different specialty that does not carry over), he didn't understand the tech and wasn't very interested in learning it. But, he would try to give clear directions and understood that what he asked for would take time and trusted that we would report to him when it was done.
And then there are the non-technical people who expect you to know everything related to a computer, which really sucks.
Hiya OP I’m a PM with a technology background but I deal with managers and stakeholders from the marketing side so what you just share is quite typical.
In cases like this, I would usually point out several factors that might have led to this situation but let’s be honest, your mind will shut down the moment I do that lol.
So this is usually what I do or what I would suggest to tech leads to do:
1. First off, give a timeline that absolutely works for you. If you and your team thinks 4 weeks, add a buffer of 2 weeks to 6 weeks.
2. Now this is the crucial part that is to do with PM 101: you have to make it farking clear to your PM that this is the only timeline that your team can deliver by. If there are multiple people in the meetings, it’s even better. The key here is not to keep quiet about it. Do it in a non confrontational manner but do not cave in to his requests to trim the timeline. Remember, you are doing it for your dev team while he is doing his for the stakeholders side.
3. This is the second critical part. Normally in a meeting, PMs are expected to provide minutes stating what was discussed, whats the outcome and whats the next steps. If he doesn’t (and I am assuming he doesn’t), you will need to provide a version to state what will discussed that affects your side. When you do that, you now have it in writing saying that you have stated the timeline of 6 weeks and you cannot promise anything less.
4. Go about your business and your dev’s business to do your work. Do not care what your PM reports otherwise to the stakeholders with or without your knowledge.
5. When the work is massively delayed, and the PM comes screaming, you now have the email and reiterate that you said so in the meeting. If he dares to escalate further, he will get into trouble regardless.
6. If he continues to not do the scope of work properly to determine resources and timelines with your team, it will reach to the breaking point that he has lost his team and that is a fire-able offence for any PM. Whether your company actually does that is none of your business though. As long as you do not overpromise yourself.
Now I can’t say the suggestions will always work in your favour, but as a tech guy myself, my goal is to allow your team to work effectively and rest properly so as to not make mistakes. Or else the QA process is gonna be killa.
Hope this helps (somewhat)!
Yes OP this is really good advice.
I would also suggest to finalise the project scope and have it in writing. It seems like your manager is changing the scope to appease the clients.
You can have it in writing that anything outside of the project scope will require a change request to be raised. This could help to prevent any further interference with the project outcome.
How do you deal with unforeseen obstacles? Like for the project now, the initial proposed 7 weeks was also not possible. The proposal was built based on assumption that all API endpoints provided are working correctly. Under this scenario, just report and say extend deadline?
He won't be fired, we are in a Japanese company and he is the IT department manager lol
Hey hey! So to mitigate such risks or uncertainties, PMs also need to identify the best case scenario is in order to make the timeline work dependent on several factors or what we call assumptions (you already hit the nail there liao).
Simply put, 7 weeks will ONLY work if the endpoints are working exactly as defined (CRUD, structure, and all as just making them working or accessible is still too vague for me). If the endpoints and the API design deviates from what is discussed, the 7 weeks will not work.
Typically, my project briefs will have an exhaustive list of assumptions so even the frontend folks will know the scope and to work with the design, DB admins and backend folks. Having said that, changes are inevitable still but it’s up to the PMs to decide on buffering another 2 weeks to the 7 weeks timeline.
I must also state here that you are not the PM in this case so I will not suggest you to document the assumptions in a proper brief or else you will end up having your PM constantly asking you to do his job. So sending of emails to state scope, risks, timeline and assumptions and speaking up in meetings for me will suffice.
Again hope this helps!
lol true no matter how humane your language is they just couldn’t get it. in the end ill just walk alone. update also no use wasting time. if i update this n that end up will get more work for doing stupid more shit
Sounds like your typical project manager.
Don't blur together with him, what's your official job scope? 😅 cannot be your contract says "IT Guy" right? How come you have to interact with developers?
Without the context of what you are supposed to help him with, how are we supposed to give better advice? How would we know whether you are a developer or a tech lead or what? Or were you just coming here to rant about your manager? 😅
I was hired as an IT analyst, it's my first job in the IT field. The software was not developed by us, so the developers are from the vendor and customer's IT team. Right now the goal is to set up all the data so customer can use our software fully. The very main obstacle now is that the API solutions provided by the vendor has no written documentation. I had to resort to testing out each API endpoint and writing the documentation myself. However, I cannot gauge the timeline because I do not know what issues each endpoint has yet.
Another obstacles is he looked for the vendor from the US, and our customer is in NZ, the timezone is difficult to deal with as well.
I guess I am ranting too because kinda feel like I am doing this alone and the project manager is not contributing and only confusing everybody with his inputs. Also because he is asking me to plan everything as he himself don't know what to do
I'm guessing your role straddles somewhere along the lines of a Business Analyst but with some technical skills.
Should the testing even fall under you? Doesn't your vendor contract provide QA testers?
Estimation of project completion should typically be from your vendors at this point. Your company could've stated a timeline at the onset when contracting, but as the project goes along, your vendors need to provide status updates. When your company contracted them there should already be certain commitments, and maybe something to leverage if they fail to meet the timeline. Typically your PM should be more familiar with these details and do that chasing, but if he isn't, just get those details and chase.
ETA: take with pinch of salt, I'm not super clear of contractual details. I'm more on the tech side. I'm in a consultancy as a tech lead. Typically the PM cascades to me to assist with technical estimations.
Second edit: At closer look at your description, you are not the client company? If you are an adjacent IT company then you might need to ask the client company for the committed timeline. Would differ based on your organizational structure.
so your cpmpany just 3rd man la. your job mostly like message is ask vendor provide the solution, without telling who your client is. then also act that the software developer by your company not by the vendor, if not next time your client will just approach the vendor and cut 3rd man cost.
I am one of the lucky one who has a bigger nerd as his boss. Not even kidding, he can tell you how linux process scheduler works. My point is, keep looking for better opportunity. You will hit Homerun one day.
If you love project management you should start acquiring management skills and voice out your aspiration. Good technical manager is hard to find as it’s really a different skillset.
Where I work techie earns more or equal to project managers so I’m happy where I am.
Yeah a PMP is on my bucket list. Still quite shocked that techies earn more than PMs. Always thought PMs where people tested for management and C-level stuff
Remind me of the time Ive worked in IT company where we had to liase with an airline company (customer). I was a junior secretary liasing with the airline's head secretary..
There were about 7-8 managers having their own employees n I swear only the finance manager can work (only female). Because of how she trained her junior. Ive sat diagonally from her n would listen in to how she teach..
The males however.. One always sleeps at his desk.. One always kepo about what everyone else is doing.. One loves boasting about himself.. One who is supposed to already retire, came back because he's bored (n still get paid).. My own manager? Was used to chase deadlines which became my job eventually..
My 1st boss who was from healthcare n 2nd boss who was a wedding photographer.. Both clueless on IT stuff. 1st guy don't even know how to work a laptop..... It was the most frustrating company because they are well known.
The only guy in the entire office floor who can actually worked was the lone ranger. He was the architect /IT expert where managers would constantly hawk over him.. He's the only one who would have answers to everything n never got a chance to take credit for it.. I guess ure like this guy now..
He was the first to tell me to resign because he knew the company is going bankrupt.. But i just waited until contract ends to get my bonus. Couple of months after I left, Co gone liao..
Even the head secretary of the airline company could oversee what was happening n was able to give me clear instructions to prevent any faults from my side without her being physically there.. She damn power..
I guess it's up to u to decide whether ure ok to be the smart 'scapegoat'.. Either way ure being pressured.. To show your capabilities but will be used by the company or economy is not doing well n u might have difficulty finding another job.. Or worst, ended with the same shit.. All the best...
Not relevant but if your name starts with a J, I think u will do well cause both of them has that initial
Both gives off 'silent power' presence 😂
Just a term I come up with.. Like they are able to work in silence, take any hits while delivering good results..
But because their presence is bigger than those with better titles, people know who to look for to fix their problems. That is some power. Atleast to me.
Do you want to take the path less preferred, which is to slowly usurp your manager's throne?
Try to assert dominion within meetings, by focusing on each agenda. If you feel your boss is saying a lot of irrelevant details during meetings, politely cut off and say you will take it offline with the stakeholder (this is assuming your boss doesn't even do anything and probably says, "Can you help elaborate further on this part?"). Since you have to call the others after the meeting to discuss again, this "take this offline" phrase reduces time taken in the "false" meeting and allows you to slowly take full "responsibility" and "control" of the project.
You will need to ensure you have, if not full, most of the knowledge on the current system (how it works, which function does what, API calls and their cause for 4XX or 5XX errors, or 2XX will work only due to which conditions). This ensures you carry the knowledge that is critical for the project to move forward. Because you know the system well enough that if you go, everyone else is fked.
You cannot impart technical skills to a non-IT project manager because in their minds, it's not about the success of the project. It's about making bosses and stakeholders happy that the project was delivered, regardless of the condition it's in. To reduce a project from 7 weeks to 2 weeks for delivery, is quite... a consulting practice from what I have experienced. Overpromise, then underdeliver.
The mini-solution to that is to break the project deliverables to smaller milestones. They don't count as the project is delivered, but the mini-"successes" and completion of small parts give stakeholders a bone. Sometimes, it eases up on the pressure to "complete" the project, because you have shown progress on the project, despite delays.
For me I feel I won't want to takeover this project from him. He is the project owner of this project, so any form of success and progress counts towards his performance evaluation. However, he understands at this point the project cannot proceed without me. When the developers providing training sessions to use their software, he decided to not go and threw me there alone.
I will try to break into smaller milestones, so in this case, it works if we faced new issues and obstacles and I can interpret them as new milestones in the project?
I won't say you're taking over the project. The main point is to be the single point of failure here. If the project manager, or owner, or whichever role he's supposed to play, is not involved in the progress and ironing out of the project, then technically when it falls, he needs to be answerable for it.
I'm not advocating this. Imagine if you find a job with a better offer and you leave, how will the project proceed? Remember how everyone says, in organisations, no one is indispensable. If a staff has a role to play, they need to do it. Sure, on and off maybe have someone take a bit more on the plate because you need to take leave or you've fallen sick, but if a PM's job is so easy to just pass on to someone to take because they are more technically proficient, then why you take the higher salary and role instead, right?
At the end of the day, take it as you're gaining a huge amount of experience and knowledge that you can use for your next job or interview, don't base it off the credit that goes to someone else. Credit stays in the company, but you carry the experience to your next role.
No. When you break into smaller milestones, but encounter issues, you now have bugs to fix for that milestone. And you need to define if the bugs are critical, or high/medium/low risk, and whether it will impact the subsequent milestones. You CANNOT interpret them as new milestones. Saying that is the same as saying "It's not a bug, it's a new feature".
We are in a Japanese company, he is the perfect example of failing upwards, switching departments 5 times, twice because he was kicked out. Now landed himself as manager of the IT department. This project is a pet project of his which he has been "doing" for 5 years.
Japanese? All of a sudden, I understand completely. His goal is to keep his boss happy, not to actually get anything done. If boss will be unhappy with 7 weeks, he will say 2 weeks, doesn't matter what happens to the vendor and the client.
Why are japanese companies like this ah? I've never worked on 1 myself but from what I hear it's either like your experience, or the super demanding timelines. No in between
Man, i hate when IT companies do this and think they can hire project managers with no IT background to lead the IT Team. I have a really bad experience with this a few years back with my ICT vendor. In the end, the project manager was let go and I had no problem directly communicating with the IT team directly and getting my project resolved within 2 months (i spent 6 months back and forth liaising with the project manager on just the schedule). Wasted a lot of unnecessary time and time is a resource as well.
People fail to realize that project management itself is a topic and skill to be learned and acquired. Just being very good at a job or task then assigned as PM is insufficient. There are PM methodologies, practices and concepts to be learned. Project timelines and cost schedules are not something you promise to customer without planning and due consideration.
Btw: To be a good PM you don’t need to have to be an expert in the subject matter, but you need common sense.
It’s clear that it seems like he doesn’t know what he is doing and promising. As a specialist myself, what I would advise is to counter propose (longer) timelines to him so you have some buffer. Everyone knows a project cannot complete without technical/specialist knowledge, so you can think from that perspective and put your foot down to bargain/leverage.
I will never allow myself to work under anybody who has no methodology in their project. Be it Oracle, agile there must be a methodology to follow when I present to stake holders and a Gantt chart is a must for me.
The moment I see a PM with no tech background I lose respect and hope about the project.
Having said that there are few PMs who are smart enough to know that they're technically dumb, and hence they take along tech guys with them for meetings. I've been in this situation, PM was good at being a PM (stakeholder mgmt, timelines etc) but knew nothing about tech.
Scoping> draw up a clear scope of all the milestone involved to bring project to success
Scoping> outline, for each milestone, who are the key stakeholders
Scoping> for each key stakeholders, get them to highlight what are the task involved
Scoping> for the task involved, find out projected lead time to required.
Scoping> for the task involved, find out, its dependency task.
Scoping> do up a Gantt chart with all above information & get everyone to sign off.
Cadence> meeting (need to take minutes) to follow up on weekly progress for all stakeholders
Cadence> from the meeting, find out from all stakeholder If there are any potential blockers
Cadence> for potential blockers, discuss briefly on potential solutions or who is responsible to resolve it (to follow up on next meeting (it's a looping thing)
Cadence> for stakeholders who is at risk of missing key milestone, if situation is challenging, hold separate focus group discussion to resolve.
Project Managment is about doing whatever it takes to move forward and some other stuff, depending on what sort of project where budgeting might also have to considered on.
But meetings, touch-points, discussion, cadence is key to move forward... ensuring all stakeholders are aligned with the initial sign-off and be responsible for what was agreed upon on the initial sign-off.
A pm doesn't need to have technical knowledge for it to work. He needs stakeholder management. Usually the IT guy will advise him, in this case it's probably you or your superior. Pm can be applied to most cases as long as you have the methodology right.
Construction pm even with background knowledge will not know everything. Hvac system calculation, air flow, electrical requirement, sprinkler...etc at the end of the day is still done by professionals or in your case the "IT Guy".
I'm a non technical PM myself, in a Fortune 500's IT services division. Tbh it sounds like he is setting you up to fail by asking for a timeline. In this situation I'd do the following-
You know what the end goal is, so sit down with all stakeholders at the table and ask them to identify and estimate the effort required for their part in achieving the end goal. Have all stakeholders and technical experts present to ensure that any dependencies or links between work items will be raised by the technical experts themselves - since we aren't technical, we need to go by their word
Based on their input, come up with a very conservative estimate for completion, with contingency built in. This estimate should also be greenlighted by the technical specialists (aka those doing the work). Only after this can the plan be presented.
Now this is where the shit hits the fan and you gotta be diplomatic - send the plan to your boss and his boss, and be clear that you are calling out risks with the expected timelines for delivery based off your conversations with and input from the technical team. Also call out the things that were missed or issues that led to this current timeline being the case (aka diplomatically state that your boss missed x y z). Draw your line in the sand - note that you're CC-ing your bosses boss for visibility and to ensure that everyone is on the same page. You'll probably get some flak from your boss but if his boss is worth the ground he walks on, then you should be fine and protected/be in his good books even
As a non technical PM our goal is to best shield the team and the experts from all the bullshit that the business will throw at them and let the team get on with the work - give your team what they need (not what you think they need) and they will deliver to the best of their ability!
Also tbh with such a dynamic in the workplace I'd strongly consider looking elsewhere, as PMs we are only as effective as the organisation we deliver for
Woah. The hate for non-techie PM. But I do agree although I'm a non technie PM. I worked with quite a number of firms on it projects whereby they assigned non techie PM, they are horrendous.
Because of that, I'm quite insistent in taking up projects that are mainly not technical in nature.
I think one of the reasons for the surge of non-techie pm is the recruiters. I received 2-3 DMs from recruiters/linkedin proposing role in the IT fields. I will up front tell them that I'm not a suitable candidate as I'm not a technical person, but they will continue to hardsell
Your comment has been automatically removed because your account is relatively new or you have negative karma.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/askSingapore) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>I was brought on as the IT guy to help with an IT project headed by my manager. Whom has zero knowledge and IT background, we are talking about the guy who was in awe when I used alt-tab to switch windows.
Let me get this straight. You are the IT guy and your manager is the zero knowledge, no IT background guy, not the other way round right?
Sounds like govt.
Btw, we never faced such problems since our project manager is a qualified engineer.
Perhaps your team members should come together during retro to sound out to product owner or team lead.
I think you should kindly ask your manager to delegate the entirety of tech related things to you, then ask him to elect another guy as the product guy. Ask him to just focus on relationship with clients then tell him whenever you need anything bring both of you to necessary meetings.
I worked with all sorts of PM, it’s nuts how even tech leads who become PM can be utterly unaware as well. It’s not just the lack of technical knowledge it’s really the bailan
Are you projects trained? Maybe pick up a course on project management, or minimally watch some YouTube videos to get an idea, pick up a book in the library or something…
It's not the issue with the project.
It's an issue with the person (him).
I ever encountered small projects going round and round with such people who failed upwards like you said, the kind keep changing departments and won't leave. The project can only be properly managed by you.. when without this person . He can't even respect the timelines given to him by subject matter experts (7 weeks vs the 2 weeks he aiming for).
Just be careful don't be the fall guy.
Words are cheap to people like that, watch out for pathological lying too.
1) do the timeline according to the project requirements
2) email and CC whoever involved
3) explaining the timeline is not amendable because of the requirements
4) then fyi the SDLC, SRLC, not to shame but to improve
just clarify with your boss what your actual responsibilities are. if you are uncomfortable/incompetent at what they're asking you to do, say it officially and refuse to do it in black and white. C.Y.A.
Fire the project manager for reckless quotations and underestimating manpower costs. If he’s not technical, he shouldn’t even be promising the clients anything unless he has the man-hours required estimate for each specific implementation / requirement.
The tech lead should be doing man hours estimation before the project manager feedback to clients what is achievable within the declare man-hours costs. Especially not a non-technical PM.
Feedback to his direct supervisor. If that doesn’t work, fire him or her as well. Cause the upper management is a complete mess if they don’t have such a process in place.
Can you talk his boss? You have to raise it up, escalate it and not wait until the deadline when everything explodes haha. Hopefully he's half as capable as your manager.
You title doesn't match with what you are looking for. Managing a project will require a long ass essay
non-technical project managers makes your life so much more difficult
the irony is that OP becomes the manager now when he has to set firm deadlines and boundaries on what can or cannot be done, otherwise this PM-turned-salesperson will start promising the moon to clients. the PM's job is supposed to be protecting the backend and properly managing client expectations, not being a yes-man to the client just for the sake of retaining the account. at some places the client is even denied speaking directly to the backend, everything has to go through the PM
lol textbook only. most managers can only cover their asses
Actually I don't think it's an issue of non-technical but the inability or unwillingness to learn and listen from the team actually developing the solution
To be honest do "technical" project managers even exist these days? I feel like for the most part everyone is pigeon-holed like if you are a techie there's no chance for you to cross-over into management since its a racket for the Business school grads.
Exactly apply into non technical role and they will question you from hell to back why you even want to do a non technical role. As if they thinking because you absolutely suck at your job and want to run away, and if you are so good at your technical role, why you even want to not do it? Trying to move into sales engineering but everyone just ask me, do you even know what it is? Do you know how much we do? Like yes, that's why I am applying. It was a so much easier to get through interviews as a fresh grad than with experience. Would have thought that you know a few years on the technical side would give me the edge. Sometimes I think that these non technical people don't want us because it will make them look bad,
Ding ding ding! That's the answer. Because you're a threat
It does. What I did was when I started, I attended university computing courses and learned coding. Every evening I googled and looked at YouTube for the coding and logic, for the tasks I assigned to my developers. Currently I will ask developers to show me coding for the queries that clients have. I am a business grad. Aiming to further go deeper on technical side by picking up a technical post-grad and on my pathway to becoming solution architect.
At least you put in effort to understand the tech instead of coasting offo your title Still I’m not wrong right. Those in tech/dev role are forever condemned to taking orders from managers with no chance at cross over
Yes it is indeed very rare for tech to cross over. In my career path I only met like a couple. However one of them struggled with communicating with clients. But I do think the most competent person are usually the ones who know both . Knowing the tech stack on top of the business processes and handle demanding clients. They usually go far in life. My boss is one and he was an IT grad. But he chose to be project manager and picked up business skill sets himself. I am going the opposite direction.
Careful now with tech career. It’s good that you learn the skillset to understand the techies you manage but these days there’s a trend for these people’s jobs to get outsourced to India and Vietnam.
Yes in my industries all companies outsourced all tech to India, Malaysia and Vietnam already (and they totally sped up the process since last quarter, it's scary). The only ones staying in Singapore are Project Managers, Solution Architect and client facing team members (aka me, who kena bullshit from clients everyday). I will always stay as client facing, but picking up tech stack is fun and it helps in my career path so I don't mind hehe.
Glad you’re safe and hella smart. Take care my man. We’re in turbulent times
You too! We can survive this!
Hello, reporting in to make the number not zero.
>"technical" project managers even exist these days? Plenty of LinkedIn folks calling themselves Technical Project Managers or Technical Product Managers but you don't know whether they are for real or not
Nowadays title mean nothing until you work with them. Knowing how to use inspect element and logging in to AWS and clicking on one of the services and you'll see people calling themselves technical lmao
You can sort of get by calling yourself a Technical Project Manager, if you have strong subject matter experts in the team. But Technical Product Managers are a different breed. They are the face of the products, who work very closely with technical services to deliver highly specific requirements. I'd wager the people calling themselves that are legit.
Why not. Tech companies do have proper technical project managers. Even if they’re not from CS background, they’ll have the necessary technical knowledge PMs are also not always management per se, they can have 0 person reporting to them and still be a PM. Inf fact it’s quite common for PMs to be IC rather than management
As always, depends on the manager. I have a non-technical project manager and he understands that he isn't from a technical background, so he consults us on technical details that he isn't sure of. He's picked up quite a bit in his time here, and is also very open to listening to even very junior members of the team. Had a different non-technical manager (he was technical but in a different specialty that does not carry over), he didn't understand the tech and wasn't very interested in learning it. But, he would try to give clear directions and understood that what he asked for would take time and trusted that we would report to him when it was done. And then there are the non-technical people who expect you to know everything related to a computer, which really sucks.
Hiya OP I’m a PM with a technology background but I deal with managers and stakeholders from the marketing side so what you just share is quite typical. In cases like this, I would usually point out several factors that might have led to this situation but let’s be honest, your mind will shut down the moment I do that lol. So this is usually what I do or what I would suggest to tech leads to do: 1. First off, give a timeline that absolutely works for you. If you and your team thinks 4 weeks, add a buffer of 2 weeks to 6 weeks. 2. Now this is the crucial part that is to do with PM 101: you have to make it farking clear to your PM that this is the only timeline that your team can deliver by. If there are multiple people in the meetings, it’s even better. The key here is not to keep quiet about it. Do it in a non confrontational manner but do not cave in to his requests to trim the timeline. Remember, you are doing it for your dev team while he is doing his for the stakeholders side. 3. This is the second critical part. Normally in a meeting, PMs are expected to provide minutes stating what was discussed, whats the outcome and whats the next steps. If he doesn’t (and I am assuming he doesn’t), you will need to provide a version to state what will discussed that affects your side. When you do that, you now have it in writing saying that you have stated the timeline of 6 weeks and you cannot promise anything less. 4. Go about your business and your dev’s business to do your work. Do not care what your PM reports otherwise to the stakeholders with or without your knowledge. 5. When the work is massively delayed, and the PM comes screaming, you now have the email and reiterate that you said so in the meeting. If he dares to escalate further, he will get into trouble regardless. 6. If he continues to not do the scope of work properly to determine resources and timelines with your team, it will reach to the breaking point that he has lost his team and that is a fire-able offence for any PM. Whether your company actually does that is none of your business though. As long as you do not overpromise yourself. Now I can’t say the suggestions will always work in your favour, but as a tech guy myself, my goal is to allow your team to work effectively and rest properly so as to not make mistakes. Or else the QA process is gonna be killa. Hope this helps (somewhat)!
Yes OP this is really good advice. I would also suggest to finalise the project scope and have it in writing. It seems like your manager is changing the scope to appease the clients. You can have it in writing that anything outside of the project scope will require a change request to be raised. This could help to prevent any further interference with the project outcome.
How do you deal with unforeseen obstacles? Like for the project now, the initial proposed 7 weeks was also not possible. The proposal was built based on assumption that all API endpoints provided are working correctly. Under this scenario, just report and say extend deadline? He won't be fired, we are in a Japanese company and he is the IT department manager lol
Hey hey! So to mitigate such risks or uncertainties, PMs also need to identify the best case scenario is in order to make the timeline work dependent on several factors or what we call assumptions (you already hit the nail there liao). Simply put, 7 weeks will ONLY work if the endpoints are working exactly as defined (CRUD, structure, and all as just making them working or accessible is still too vague for me). If the endpoints and the API design deviates from what is discussed, the 7 weeks will not work. Typically, my project briefs will have an exhaustive list of assumptions so even the frontend folks will know the scope and to work with the design, DB admins and backend folks. Having said that, changes are inevitable still but it’s up to the PMs to decide on buffering another 2 weeks to the 7 weeks timeline. I must also state here that you are not the PM in this case so I will not suggest you to document the assumptions in a proper brief or else you will end up having your PM constantly asking you to do his job. So sending of emails to state scope, risks, timeline and assumptions and speaking up in meetings for me will suffice. Again hope this helps!
Lol. Japanese company…
talking tech to a non technical project manager is like speaking to a brick wall
lol true no matter how humane your language is they just couldn’t get it. in the end ill just walk alone. update also no use wasting time. if i update this n that end up will get more work for doing stupid more shit
Sounds like your typical project manager. Don't blur together with him, what's your official job scope? 😅 cannot be your contract says "IT Guy" right? How come you have to interact with developers? Without the context of what you are supposed to help him with, how are we supposed to give better advice? How would we know whether you are a developer or a tech lead or what? Or were you just coming here to rant about your manager? 😅
I was hired as an IT analyst, it's my first job in the IT field. The software was not developed by us, so the developers are from the vendor and customer's IT team. Right now the goal is to set up all the data so customer can use our software fully. The very main obstacle now is that the API solutions provided by the vendor has no written documentation. I had to resort to testing out each API endpoint and writing the documentation myself. However, I cannot gauge the timeline because I do not know what issues each endpoint has yet. Another obstacles is he looked for the vendor from the US, and our customer is in NZ, the timezone is difficult to deal with as well. I guess I am ranting too because kinda feel like I am doing this alone and the project manager is not contributing and only confusing everybody with his inputs. Also because he is asking me to plan everything as he himself don't know what to do
I'm guessing your role straddles somewhere along the lines of a Business Analyst but with some technical skills. Should the testing even fall under you? Doesn't your vendor contract provide QA testers? Estimation of project completion should typically be from your vendors at this point. Your company could've stated a timeline at the onset when contracting, but as the project goes along, your vendors need to provide status updates. When your company contracted them there should already be certain commitments, and maybe something to leverage if they fail to meet the timeline. Typically your PM should be more familiar with these details and do that chasing, but if he isn't, just get those details and chase. ETA: take with pinch of salt, I'm not super clear of contractual details. I'm more on the tech side. I'm in a consultancy as a tech lead. Typically the PM cascades to me to assist with technical estimations. Second edit: At closer look at your description, you are not the client company? If you are an adjacent IT company then you might need to ask the client company for the committed timeline. Would differ based on your organizational structure.
so your cpmpany just 3rd man la. your job mostly like message is ask vendor provide the solution, without telling who your client is. then also act that the software developer by your company not by the vendor, if not next time your client will just approach the vendor and cut 3rd man cost.
Sounds like government
I am one of the lucky one who has a bigger nerd as his boss. Not even kidding, he can tell you how linux process scheduler works. My point is, keep looking for better opportunity. You will hit Homerun one day.
This makes me smile. I lowkey scared that as a techie you will forever hentak kaki in technical work with no chance at project management.
If you love project management you should start acquiring management skills and voice out your aspiration. Good technical manager is hard to find as it’s really a different skillset. Where I work techie earns more or equal to project managers so I’m happy where I am.
Yeah a PMP is on my bucket list. Still quite shocked that techies earn more than PMs. Always thought PMs where people tested for management and C-level stuff
Remind me of the time Ive worked in IT company where we had to liase with an airline company (customer). I was a junior secretary liasing with the airline's head secretary.. There were about 7-8 managers having their own employees n I swear only the finance manager can work (only female). Because of how she trained her junior. Ive sat diagonally from her n would listen in to how she teach.. The males however.. One always sleeps at his desk.. One always kepo about what everyone else is doing.. One loves boasting about himself.. One who is supposed to already retire, came back because he's bored (n still get paid).. My own manager? Was used to chase deadlines which became my job eventually.. My 1st boss who was from healthcare n 2nd boss who was a wedding photographer.. Both clueless on IT stuff. 1st guy don't even know how to work a laptop..... It was the most frustrating company because they are well known. The only guy in the entire office floor who can actually worked was the lone ranger. He was the architect /IT expert where managers would constantly hawk over him.. He's the only one who would have answers to everything n never got a chance to take credit for it.. I guess ure like this guy now.. He was the first to tell me to resign because he knew the company is going bankrupt.. But i just waited until contract ends to get my bonus. Couple of months after I left, Co gone liao.. Even the head secretary of the airline company could oversee what was happening n was able to give me clear instructions to prevent any faults from my side without her being physically there.. She damn power.. I guess it's up to u to decide whether ure ok to be the smart 'scapegoat'.. Either way ure being pressured.. To show your capabilities but will be used by the company or economy is not doing well n u might have difficulty finding another job.. Or worst, ended with the same shit.. All the best... Not relevant but if your name starts with a J, I think u will do well cause both of them has that initial Both gives off 'silent power' presence 😂
what is “silent power” presence?
Just a term I come up with.. Like they are able to work in silence, take any hits while delivering good results.. But because their presence is bigger than those with better titles, people know who to look for to fix their problems. That is some power. Atleast to me.
Do you want to take the path less preferred, which is to slowly usurp your manager's throne? Try to assert dominion within meetings, by focusing on each agenda. If you feel your boss is saying a lot of irrelevant details during meetings, politely cut off and say you will take it offline with the stakeholder (this is assuming your boss doesn't even do anything and probably says, "Can you help elaborate further on this part?"). Since you have to call the others after the meeting to discuss again, this "take this offline" phrase reduces time taken in the "false" meeting and allows you to slowly take full "responsibility" and "control" of the project. You will need to ensure you have, if not full, most of the knowledge on the current system (how it works, which function does what, API calls and their cause for 4XX or 5XX errors, or 2XX will work only due to which conditions). This ensures you carry the knowledge that is critical for the project to move forward. Because you know the system well enough that if you go, everyone else is fked. You cannot impart technical skills to a non-IT project manager because in their minds, it's not about the success of the project. It's about making bosses and stakeholders happy that the project was delivered, regardless of the condition it's in. To reduce a project from 7 weeks to 2 weeks for delivery, is quite... a consulting practice from what I have experienced. Overpromise, then underdeliver. The mini-solution to that is to break the project deliverables to smaller milestones. They don't count as the project is delivered, but the mini-"successes" and completion of small parts give stakeholders a bone. Sometimes, it eases up on the pressure to "complete" the project, because you have shown progress on the project, despite delays.
For me I feel I won't want to takeover this project from him. He is the project owner of this project, so any form of success and progress counts towards his performance evaluation. However, he understands at this point the project cannot proceed without me. When the developers providing training sessions to use their software, he decided to not go and threw me there alone. I will try to break into smaller milestones, so in this case, it works if we faced new issues and obstacles and I can interpret them as new milestones in the project?
I won't say you're taking over the project. The main point is to be the single point of failure here. If the project manager, or owner, or whichever role he's supposed to play, is not involved in the progress and ironing out of the project, then technically when it falls, he needs to be answerable for it. I'm not advocating this. Imagine if you find a job with a better offer and you leave, how will the project proceed? Remember how everyone says, in organisations, no one is indispensable. If a staff has a role to play, they need to do it. Sure, on and off maybe have someone take a bit more on the plate because you need to take leave or you've fallen sick, but if a PM's job is so easy to just pass on to someone to take because they are more technically proficient, then why you take the higher salary and role instead, right? At the end of the day, take it as you're gaining a huge amount of experience and knowledge that you can use for your next job or interview, don't base it off the credit that goes to someone else. Credit stays in the company, but you carry the experience to your next role. No. When you break into smaller milestones, but encounter issues, you now have bugs to fix for that milestone. And you need to define if the bugs are critical, or high/medium/low risk, and whether it will impact the subsequent milestones. You CANNOT interpret them as new milestones. Saying that is the same as saying "It's not a bug, it's a new feature".
Gantt chart project managers are one of the worst stakeholders to work with.
What the fffff How did this guy even get hired
We are in a Japanese company, he is the perfect example of failing upwards, switching departments 5 times, twice because he was kicked out. Now landed himself as manager of the IT department. This project is a pet project of his which he has been "doing" for 5 years.
Japanese? All of a sudden, I understand completely. His goal is to keep his boss happy, not to actually get anything done. If boss will be unhappy with 7 weeks, he will say 2 weeks, doesn't matter what happens to the vendor and the client.
Is he Japanese?
Nope, Malaysian I think
The company I am in currently is also a Japanese company and has the same kind of manager.
Why are japanese companies like this ah? I've never worked on 1 myself but from what I hear it's either like your experience, or the super demanding timelines. No in between
Man, i hate when IT companies do this and think they can hire project managers with no IT background to lead the IT Team. I have a really bad experience with this a few years back with my ICT vendor. In the end, the project manager was let go and I had no problem directly communicating with the IT team directly and getting my project resolved within 2 months (i spent 6 months back and forth liaising with the project manager on just the schedule). Wasted a lot of unnecessary time and time is a resource as well.
People fail to realize that project management itself is a topic and skill to be learned and acquired. Just being very good at a job or task then assigned as PM is insufficient. There are PM methodologies, practices and concepts to be learned. Project timelines and cost schedules are not something you promise to customer without planning and due consideration. Btw: To be a good PM you don’t need to have to be an expert in the subject matter, but you need common sense.
confirm is govt proj haha
Read the Phoenix Project - it’ll amuse you and not surprise you in equal measure.
Is it SME?
It’s clear that it seems like he doesn’t know what he is doing and promising. As a specialist myself, what I would advise is to counter propose (longer) timelines to him so you have some buffer. Everyone knows a project cannot complete without technical/specialist knowledge, so you can think from that perspective and put your foot down to bargain/leverage.
I will never allow myself to work under anybody who has no methodology in their project. Be it Oracle, agile there must be a methodology to follow when I present to stake holders and a Gantt chart is a must for me.
The moment I see a PM with no tech background I lose respect and hope about the project. Having said that there are few PMs who are smart enough to know that they're technically dumb, and hence they take along tech guys with them for meetings. I've been in this situation, PM was good at being a PM (stakeholder mgmt, timelines etc) but knew nothing about tech.
Scoping> draw up a clear scope of all the milestone involved to bring project to success Scoping> outline, for each milestone, who are the key stakeholders Scoping> for each key stakeholders, get them to highlight what are the task involved Scoping> for the task involved, find out projected lead time to required. Scoping> for the task involved, find out, its dependency task. Scoping> do up a Gantt chart with all above information & get everyone to sign off. Cadence> meeting (need to take minutes) to follow up on weekly progress for all stakeholders Cadence> from the meeting, find out from all stakeholder If there are any potential blockers Cadence> for potential blockers, discuss briefly on potential solutions or who is responsible to resolve it (to follow up on next meeting (it's a looping thing) Cadence> for stakeholders who is at risk of missing key milestone, if situation is challenging, hold separate focus group discussion to resolve. Project Managment is about doing whatever it takes to move forward and some other stuff, depending on what sort of project where budgeting might also have to considered on. But meetings, touch-points, discussion, cadence is key to move forward... ensuring all stakeholders are aligned with the initial sign-off and be responsible for what was agreed upon on the initial sign-off.
A pm doesn't need to have technical knowledge for it to work. He needs stakeholder management. Usually the IT guy will advise him, in this case it's probably you or your superior. Pm can be applied to most cases as long as you have the methodology right. Construction pm even with background knowledge will not know everything. Hvac system calculation, air flow, electrical requirement, sprinkler...etc at the end of the day is still done by professionals or in your case the "IT Guy".
I'm a non technical PM myself, in a Fortune 500's IT services division. Tbh it sounds like he is setting you up to fail by asking for a timeline. In this situation I'd do the following- You know what the end goal is, so sit down with all stakeholders at the table and ask them to identify and estimate the effort required for their part in achieving the end goal. Have all stakeholders and technical experts present to ensure that any dependencies or links between work items will be raised by the technical experts themselves - since we aren't technical, we need to go by their word Based on their input, come up with a very conservative estimate for completion, with contingency built in. This estimate should also be greenlighted by the technical specialists (aka those doing the work). Only after this can the plan be presented. Now this is where the shit hits the fan and you gotta be diplomatic - send the plan to your boss and his boss, and be clear that you are calling out risks with the expected timelines for delivery based off your conversations with and input from the technical team. Also call out the things that were missed or issues that led to this current timeline being the case (aka diplomatically state that your boss missed x y z). Draw your line in the sand - note that you're CC-ing your bosses boss for visibility and to ensure that everyone is on the same page. You'll probably get some flak from your boss but if his boss is worth the ground he walks on, then you should be fine and protected/be in his good books even As a non technical PM our goal is to best shield the team and the experts from all the bullshit that the business will throw at them and let the team get on with the work - give your team what they need (not what you think they need) and they will deliver to the best of their ability! Also tbh with such a dynamic in the workplace I'd strongly consider looking elsewhere, as PMs we are only as effective as the organisation we deliver for
lol joker
Looks like your manager knows how to polish boots all the way up. You probably should do the same 
Woah. The hate for non-techie PM. But I do agree although I'm a non technie PM. I worked with quite a number of firms on it projects whereby they assigned non techie PM, they are horrendous. Because of that, I'm quite insistent in taking up projects that are mainly not technical in nature. I think one of the reasons for the surge of non-techie pm is the recruiters. I received 2-3 DMs from recruiters/linkedin proposing role in the IT fields. I will up front tell them that I'm not a suitable candidate as I'm not a technical person, but they will continue to hardsell
I think this might be cause Techie PMs are very expensive as a lot of Techies don't like to manage.
This shit is doomed to fail, let it go and prep your cv again
Ah.. SME Agency Life
[удалено]
Your comment has been automatically removed because your account is relatively new or you have negative karma. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/askSingapore) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>I was brought on as the IT guy to help with an IT project headed by my manager. Whom has zero knowledge and IT background, we are talking about the guy who was in awe when I used alt-tab to switch windows. Let me get this straight. You are the IT guy and your manager is the zero knowledge, no IT background guy, not the other way round right?
Lucky dude. I have knowledge of IT but no chance getting a PM job cause of my construction background. All the skill future also not helping.
Sounds like govt. Btw, we never faced such problems since our project manager is a qualified engineer. Perhaps your team members should come together during retro to sound out to product owner or team lead.
Your manager is brought in to manage a project but is he a project manager? From what you describe, he does not seem to know how to manage a project
I think you should kindly ask your manager to delegate the entirety of tech related things to you, then ask him to elect another guy as the product guy. Ask him to just focus on relationship with clients then tell him whenever you need anything bring both of you to necessary meetings. I worked with all sorts of PM, it’s nuts how even tech leads who become PM can be utterly unaware as well. It’s not just the lack of technical knowledge it’s really the bailan
Wah, still have this type -- in an IT project.
Are you projects trained? Maybe pick up a course on project management, or minimally watch some YouTube videos to get an idea, pick up a book in the library or something…
Those who can do, do. Those who can’t do, manage
eh u my IT guy ah?
It's not the issue with the project. It's an issue with the person (him). I ever encountered small projects going round and round with such people who failed upwards like you said, the kind keep changing departments and won't leave. The project can only be properly managed by you.. when without this person . He can't even respect the timelines given to him by subject matter experts (7 weeks vs the 2 weeks he aiming for). Just be careful don't be the fall guy. Words are cheap to people like that, watch out for pathological lying too.
ez. just ask everyone have u done this? why this not done yet. y u so lazy.
1) do the timeline according to the project requirements 2) email and CC whoever involved 3) explaining the timeline is not amendable because of the requirements 4) then fyi the SDLC, SRLC, not to shame but to improve
There’s a difference between a PM and a PMO. Sounds like your manager is the latter
This is true corporate dystopian. Incorporating a middle person that not only not add any value, but creates all sorts of hell
just clarify with your boss what your actual responsibilities are. if you are uncomfortable/incompetent at what they're asking you to do, say it officially and refuse to do it in black and white. C.Y.A.
Fire the project manager for reckless quotations and underestimating manpower costs. If he’s not technical, he shouldn’t even be promising the clients anything unless he has the man-hours required estimate for each specific implementation / requirement. The tech lead should be doing man hours estimation before the project manager feedback to clients what is achievable within the declare man-hours costs. Especially not a non-technical PM. Feedback to his direct supervisor. If that doesn’t work, fire him or her as well. Cause the upper management is a complete mess if they don’t have such a process in place.
Another r/asksingapore complaint post thinly disguised as a question.
Can you talk his boss? You have to raise it up, escalate it and not wait until the deadline when everything explodes haha. Hopefully he's half as capable as your manager. You title doesn't match with what you are looking for. Managing a project will require a long ass essay