What Project Managers actually do in your company? are they useful to your team?
Posted by PressureHumble3604@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 56 comments
I noticed that in my career (several companies of every size and different industries) the only thing they have done is to show up n times per week for the scrum meeting, chasing people for (a poorly configured) Jira burocracy and nothing else.
What else they do? How many teams they follow in your company? have they ever been actually useful and if they are not why?
kiriloman@reddit
Doing customer demos, deciding the product future and even vibe coding a little bit.
QuitTypical3210@reddit
Ask me when something will be done
react_dev@reddit
Do they not determine what something is
Hog_enthusiast@reddit
Legitimately no they do not
schmidtssss@reddit
I’ve had a project manager communicate upwards for me when I said no rarely and it’s usually them arguing with me that it has to be done.
I’ve never had a project manager determine what something is. 90%+ have never had any technical role and the ones who have have either been out of it for so long it’s irrelevant or they pivoted because they failed.
react_dev@reddit
Sounds like you had terrible PMs.
schmidtssss@reddit
I’ve had a lot of pms in my ~15 year career, had to quasi-wear the hat myself a few times, and if I’ve had 95%+ terrible pms that isn’t a function of me but of the role.
react_dev@reddit
What a long string of bad luck. I’ve been in finance and fang for 17 now and I’ll just say that I am happy I don’t have to do their jobs
schmidtssss@reddit
Im currently at a FAANG, I’ve worked in finance, been in consulting, telecom….as a consultant also insurance, federal organizations, aerospace, hospitality, automotive….itnsounds like you’ve been lucky not that everyone else is unlucky.
Some of the biggest money pits I’ve seen are tpms at FAANG organizations. Half the time they may be decent but don’t even come close to your description, the other half, well, is ass.
impressflow@reddit
Oof. Please slow down and pay closer attention.
This thread is about PROJECT managers, not PRODUCT managers. Project managers do not write PRDs.
originalchronoguy@reddit
They serve a purpose for me. If I dont want to attend a meeting, they take good notes and give info I need to process.
necheffa@reddit
A good project manager will help keep the team organized and flag impossible schedule demands early, they'll shield you from accounting crap and whiney middle management, they'll handle all the fiddly administrative stuff like finding that 1 hour slot where everyone is available to meet for your presentation.
A good project manager is a valuable part of the team.
PressureHumble3604@reddit (OP)
I know, but they don’t seem to exist or to be allowed to be one.
w3woody@reddit
A lot of companies don't know the value of a good project manager, a good *product* manager (he's the guy who talks to the sales team and goes out in the field and figures out what people want), or even a good QA--or even the difference between a QA and a QAE. And the vast majority of companies no longer use tech writers--even when they desperately need one. (No, comments in code cannot be scraped and used to generate documentation.)
Though 'scrum masters' have quietly surfaced who do some of the work a good project manager would be doing.
aroras@reddit
I agree that a good project manager might be useful, but Scrum, as practiced today, is largely a ritualistic waste of time
PineappleLemur@reddit
Like any "good" staff... It's rare to find.
hibikir_40k@reddit
It's one of those jobs where the people that hire have a lot of trouble knowing exactly what to hire for, so there's a lot of really bad ones around. Like how developers in really small shops can be downright awful.
If I hire a developer, and I have another 300, and they work together, they sure can point out who is way worse than the rest. Few companies have 300 project managers that actually work with each other, and have any reason to point out the incompetent.
The same happens on many a layer of management, as bad behavior pointing downward is invisible to the person who they report to, so it's basically uncorrectable. Without regular skip levels (and many managers never do skip levels!) you are almost always guaranteed bad behavior will seep in, and it will not be trained up.
diablo1128@reddit
I don't know if this translates to every company, but I find good managers I've had at the ones that I didn't seem to do anything. What really was happening was they were doing a lot and not letting all the shit roll down hill. So when it got to the SW Team it was just seemed like normal work.
apartment-seeker@reddit
https://youtu.be/U0tpjs8zflQ?t=11
Beneficial_Target_31@reddit
A good PM is worth 10 engineers for the price of 1.
They are, at their core, skilled facilitators. That takes a lot of different roles. But the one I've seen the best is the one which can prevent engineering from going down the wrong path due to things engineering cannot see.
When they are doing their job well, the only thing engineers think about is the next task. When they are not, engineers start asking what are we even doing.
They shield, lead and predict timelines. But, for the most part, most PMs (product or project) are terrible.
When you get a good PM, you'll know.
baezizbae@reddit
Still trying to figure that out. I met them once. Once. Their calendar looks like a brick wall of meeting blocks. So they're doing something.
If my calendar looked like that I know what I'd be doing: drinking.
Pineapple-dancer@reddit
I'm going to be honest and try not to be disrespectful, but I haven't really ever felt like BA/PMs have been useful for my work. I'm good at trending and tracking what I'm working on or need to and typically meet deadlines unless I encounter and obvious roadblocks. I've worked on plenty of high impact and large scale projects. Maybe it depends on folks personality/work style.
Outside-Storage-1523@reddit
They are there for better communication between the teams and with management. They are like coordinators so good ones can multiply while bad ones actually drag down the whole thing.
It is very hard to train a good PM because the PM needs to at least know a bit about everything. That’s why I always think PM is a senior position and should command a good salary.
Physical-Compote4594@reddit
A good PM is the interface between your customers, both internal and external, and your product/dev team. This person will gather customer requests, figure out what the real requirements are, work with the prod/dev team to write specs and tickets and schedule work, make sure the right things get built at the right time.
A good PM is incredibly valuable, and are not so easy to find.
A not-good PM is a waste of time and money. They are easier to find.
ConnaitLesRisques@reddit
Coordinating between the engineering, customers, and shielding us from the boss’s latest manic episode.
I’d say also asking uncomfortable questions to engineering (why is this necessary, this feels like procrastination) and fostering accountability.
I like it, it makes my job easier in so far that I don’t define my job as just programming. We’re making a product as an organization and people have to be aligned and coordinated somehow.
LousyGardener@reddit
I see this repeated ad nauseum. I wonder how many developers have actually worked directly with a customer and feel like this is true?
FWIW I think the PMs goal is more like hiding the developers from the customer, that way the dev doesn’t get any ideas about breaking out on his own. Non compete agreements have the same goal
Tired__Dev@reddit
Pontificate and act performative in meetings then all of the software engineers do their job. They're not useful what so ever. I've had great project managers, but they had another role as well.
Then-Bumblebee1850@reddit
They talk to people instead of me. Hell yes they are useful.
metaphorm@reddit
we don't have project managers. we have Product Managers and Tech Leads, who collaborate together to manage projects.
labab99@reddit
Who does the finances?
metaphorm@reddit
Eng Mng manages team budget, reports to VP Eng manages the department budget, reports to CFO manages the company budget.
wtf_is_a_reddit@reddit
That’s the SEMs function
The_Penguinologist@reddit
We have a product manager, product owner, tech leads, and technical managers resulting in essentially too many cooks in the kitchen but they’re all incompetent because it’s just a “oh but you were gonna do that, right?” shitshow
ButWhatIfPotato@reddit
Good managers manage client and stakeholders expectations. Really good managers manage client and stakeholders expectations in such a way that they take the crazy decreed demands, shape them in a way that is actually feasible to develop with the current available resources and present it in a way that clients/stakeholders think it was their idea so their feefees don't get hurt and their corporate pp still looks might and stiffy, which is a very crucial component in keeping development smooth and hassle free.
the-jelly47@reddit
I am fortunate to have an extremely talented project manager right now. Dude is a workaholic from Berkeley Haas and his coding skill is better than our juniors. He contributes to open source and would step in and write code when we are extremely shorthanded. He handles project management and customer engagement very well too.
drunkandy@reddit
I’ve had great highly-engaged PMs who work closely with engineers and have very strong ideas of what they want. I’ve also had PMs who just talk in abstracts and barely even show up to standup.
amdphenom@reddit
My PM started as a user of the tools we now work on, turns out he's a great PM because of it, who could've guessed?
beefyweefles@reddit
I too had a single experience with a PM that was very proactive and knowledgeable, it was unbelievable.
obelix_dogmatix@reddit
Herd cats. It is actually useful. Although the line between project and product manager continues to diminish, you need a person or two who have a bird’s eye view of the entire project.
OdeeSS@reddit
Politic metrics and LARP.
I'm not saying that there isn't a need for the product manager, we desperately need people who can plan and coordinate, but the culture at my workplace hires clueless yes men.
lphomiej@reddit
Ours do the following, which I consider very useful:
- They have the mission/vision determined to keep everyone on the same page
- Creates quarterly/monthly business update and sprint review decks to explain what we did and why; give updates on previous deliverable status (outcomes), and roadmap future efforts.
- Look through user feedback and analytics for opportunities to improve
- Collaborate with business stakeholders on requirements
- Writing up new stories
- Working with design on upcoming stories
- Reviewing newly developed stories after release or as a part of QA
- Prioritize stories in the backlog
- Run certain sprint meetings
- Manages comms on certain types of internal collaboration (like confirming a team is available to do somehting when they said they would).
- Runs point on comms for certain kinds of outages/bugs
A lot of the work is hidden and it's hard to say if someone's doing "a great job", but its all super necessary.
Leopatto@reddit
They keep bureaucracy and shit from falling on (my version of waterfall) developers, they keep things organised - essentially they're a mouthpiece and a bridge between upper management and developers.
Breklin76@reddit
Manage all aspects of client projects.
Ttiamus@reddit
We have one Project Manager that generally helps keep track of 10 teams for our CPO. Its basically keeping status updates organized for senior leadership.
One of my teams also received a Project Manger recently where her task has been to aide in our customer on boarding. So instead of the devices and product managers holding the hands of customers to get them on boarded and trained, she is doing all of the out reach.
flerchin@reddit
A product manager
disposepriority@reddit
The worse the team is the more necessary a manager is - and vice versa.
syndbg@reddit
Depends on the company. Non-technical Project Manager, based on my experience, are mostly there to hold the engineers accountable and ask when something will be done. Quite frankly useless.
Technical Project Managers can actually improve the process, have engineering empathy and resolve a lot of confusion before it reaches the team. Effectively shielding the team from the most vague of requests and bring to the team more valuable discussions and problems.
SnugglyCoderGuy@reddit
They tell us what their boss's boss wants done
eloel-@reddit
They ensure work is ordered across teams so work that lands on engineer plates is ready to be worked on. They chase down requirements, they figure out product direction, they ensure we're all building what actually provides benefits to the company/customer instead of just building random shit in our silo. They (often) leave a paper trail of product decisions for future reference, shield the team from randomization by prioritizing work, and just overall ensure everyone stays productive.
Daveypesq@reddit
In my team there’s me (tech lead), a PM and a designer that work collaboratively. Day to day our PM handles marketing and comms for features: involves getting in app intercom messages setup, emails, change logs and updating our marketing material. He also handles most communication with senior leadership, keeps things like product board up to date, runs refinements from a business perspective (explains value etc), and will liaise with other PMs when we have a collaborative piece of work. As a three we also work together to agree iterations on a feature where things make sense to breakdown at a technical level vs a user value level.
All around he does a lot to ensure that what we release is the right thing, that users know about it and that collaborative efforts run smoothly
Pleasant-Memory-6530@reddit
Project managers are bit like DevOps specialists.
At lot of the work is getting everything set up in the first place and ensuring appropriate guardrails are in place to keep it running smoothly. After that they can be kind of invisible, and the project could probably get along fine without them for a while, but after a while friction gradually builds up and eventually nobody knows what the hell is going on.
Time_IsRelative@reddit
That's a good project manager. In my experience, they're unicorns. The vast majority seem to rely on "I don't understand all the technical details" to ignore vast swathes of the SDLC when setting their project deadlines.
Pleasant-Memory-6530@reddit
Even with a mediocre project manager, I think it's easy to underestimate the value added just by someone chasing up tasks and ensuring tickets get updated.
(Whether that person is massively overpaid for what they're actually doing is a separate question!)
PhaseStreet9860@reddit
Budgeting and act like a bridge between business and project team
Zerodriven@reddit
Project Managers? Lol.
/sigh
rwilcox@reddit
Theoretically our PMs work across teams (ie tech leads aren’t invited to Scrum Of Scrums), so they can point out if teams in the bigger whole are going to conflict.
And do paperwork/processes defined by the PM org.