Re:Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What...
by _betty_ on Friday December 30, 2016 @01:30PM
(#13286105)
While I'd never recommend staying a career that you hate, I'm not sure switching to a position you think is cruisy is a great idea either. That's a recipe for under performance and bad management.
It does sound like you've never worked with a good PM, I'm not sure if I have either as I do struggle a lot with what value they actually add to projects.
99% of the time its better for people to speak directly and not relay information through other (probably non technical) people.
Of course you do need to limit distractions but I think you can set expectations with people about what distractions do and how often they should distract you.
Also find that a lot of PMs try play power games, I really think they need a new job title like Project Coordinator or something that sounds a little less in charge.
Interesting to see this thread has a very mixed idea of what a PM is, a number of people mention things I'd expect as part of a sales or BA role. I wonder if this is part of the reason people find PMs useless is that no one really knows what they should be doing.
It does sound like you've never worked with a good PM, I'm not sure if I have either as I do struggle a lot with what value they actually add to projects.
99% of the time its better for people to speak directly and not relay information through other (probably non technical) people.
Of course you do need to limit distractions but I think you can set expectations with people about what distractions do and how often they should distract you.
Also find that a lot of PMs try play power games, I really think they need a new job title like Project Coordinator or something that sounds a little less in charge.
Interesting to see this thread has a very mixed idea of what a PM is, a number of people mention things I'd expect as part of a sales or BA role. I wonder if this is part of the reason people find PMs useless is that no one really knows what they should be doing.