7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Project Managers
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This document outlines 7 habits of highly ineffective project managers. The habits include: spending too much time in meetings and not working on the project, assuming engineers are trying to sabotage the project, constantly checking in on engineers' progress instead of understanding technical details, allowing managers to interfere with project timelines and goals, treating all tasks as emergencies, damaging rapport with engineers, and making promises to stakeholders based on engineers' estimates without padding for errors. The document advises that effective project managers empower their team, assume competence, maintain credibility with managers, understand technical work, and communicate priorities clearly.
7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Project Managers
- 1. The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Project Managers Carol Smith Google, Inc.
- 2. Who am I? -Googler -Project manager in network operations, enterprise software, and now open source software -Administering the Google Summer of Code program for the Google Open Source Programs office
- 3. Habit 1 Spend more than 2 hours per week in meetings with the engineers going over the project.
- 4. Habit 1 Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule – Paul Graham
- 5. If you're spending more than 2 hours per week in meetings about the project, how much time have you got to actually work on it?
- 6. Ask yourself if you're empowered to do your job.
- 7. Habit 2 Assume all the engineers you work with are purposefully trying to do a bad job and sabotage the project.
- 8. Habit 2 Assume competence.
- 9. People want to take pride in their work and do a good job.
- 10. Habit 3 Keep a checklist.
- 11. Habit 3 Constant pings to an engineer about when a task will be done does not project management make.
- 12. Be familiar enough with the project and technical details to understand when an engineer tells you why a task has been delayed.
- 13. Habit 4 Let your middle-level and senior-level managers meddle with the timeline and the goals of the project whenever they see fit. Extra credit: Let managers talk to the engineers and confuse them about your own purpose on the project
- 14. Habit 4 It's human nature to want to meddle in something for which you are ultimately responsible.
- 15. Maintain your credibility and authority and managers will feel less inclined to meddle.
- 16. Habit 5 Make everything an emergency.
- 17. Habit 5 Don't cry wolf.
- 18. Get people to understand that when you do say something has to be done today it really does.
- 19. Habit 6 Break down your rapport with the engineers whenever possible.
- 20. Habit 6 Be personable, be approachable, be sensible.
- 21. Cookies
- 22. It takes some people time to feel comfortable with their coworkers; this is even more true for engineers.
- 23. Habit 7 Assume the dates that the engineers give you are spot-on and make promises to customers and coworkers based on these dates.
- 24. Habit 7 Everyone wants the reaction of, “Wow, I didn't know you could do it so quickly!” Not, “Wow, it's going to take you that long?”
- 25. Know the engineers you work with well enough to not have to ask them how much they are(or aren't) padding their estimates.
- 27. Special Thanks to: Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Josh Berkus, for the idea of the "7 Habits of Highly Ineffective..." Paul Graham, for the “Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule” article - http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
Editor's Notes
- #4: This is kind of like having one of those relationships with someone where all you do is talk about the relationship. You know the ones, right? You don't actually get a chance to have a relationship and instead all you do is spend your time talking about the kind of person you want to be and the kind of person he/she should be.
- #12: Really, this is sort of self-explanatory, but the more time you spend