News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on At 83, I Decided to Develop an App. Parent comment

Re:At 83, I Decided to Develop an App by sopooneo on Sunday January 24, 2016 @10:27PM (#10965394)
To me, this seems like the sort of project that would benefit greatly by putting an experienced project manager between the client (ie Rumsfeld) and the dev team. Other than planning meetings, I really think non-technical stake holders should never communicate directly with developers. I say that as a developer.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:At 83, I Decided to Develop an App by voltagex_ on Sunday January 24, 2016 @11:32PM (#10965577)
Sometimes, especially in smaller teams, devs also have to act in a business analyst role as well as coding - I've got to know how to talk to business as well as other developers and managers.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:At 83, I Decided to Develop an App by briandear on Monday January 25, 2016 @09:10AM (#10967223)
So, we add another salary to the team for something that amounts to a small project? If devs don't have the acumen to deal with "clients" directly, then they ought not take on projects that would require working with clients.

I see this all the time, especially with offshore development. I was the lead for a US project with an additional India team. We had a US-based PM for the Indian contractor. Then we had an India based PM, then we had 3 developers. Any time I needed to discuss something, I had to consult with the US PM, the US PM consulted with the India-based PM and the India based PM would then ask the devs. Then the answer would go through that path in reverse. A simple question like, "Where is the setup script file in the repo?" That took literally 6 emails, with delays of several hours between responses.

Needless to say, that arrangement didn't last long before I fired the company.

My point is that you don't always need an experienced project manager depending on the scope of the project and the number of developers. 10 devs -- yes absolutely. But 2 or 3 devs? Not necessarily.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:At 83, I Decided to Develop an App by sopooneo on Monday January 25, 2016 @12:22PM (#10968445)
I agree with you completely. I think there is definitely a minimum project scope before a PM becomes a good investment. But I also think there should be a multiplier for how scattered/non-technical/crazy the client is.
[ Parent | on HN ]