Following at least these 10 commandments will be a big step towards becoming a well-respected, trusted, and optimal project manager:
- Always treat the person that’s working with you with respect.
- Always assume that your team is working as hard as they can, as fast as they can, and as well as they can.
- Always ask how long things are going to take, never assume.
- Code WILL break, it’s just a matter of WHEN.
- Describe tasks so even a person who’s never been on the project can figure it out.
- Angry, sad, and annoyed team members are non-optimal team members.
- The larger the project, the longer the estimate, the more likely it is for the estimate to be wrong.
- Anger is a sign of losing control, and not a sign of assertiveness.
- Let your team do what they do best, remove obstacles that can get in their way, provide support whenever possible.
- Always recount the things your team members did, and thank for the efforts it took to get it done.
There’s more to management than numbers. There’s more to communicate than words. There’s more to life than just work. A project manager is a person placed in a very important role, a bad PM can spell the death of an entire project, a good PM can be at the heart of it’s success. Learn the strengths and weaknesses of your team, and learn to harness their strengths, and try to reinforce their weakness. You catch more bees with honey than vinegar. A happy team is an efficient team, and you’re often times that’s exactly what you want.