Program Management Best Practices
Program vs. Project Management in Program Manager Position
The other day my friend asked me about differences between program management and project management in a software company such as Microsoft. After our conversation I thought about sending her links to articles that discuss the topic in detail. To my surprise, all the articles I was able to find were just discussing theoretical definitions as provided by the PMI in their PMBOK Guide. Perhaps in some companies program managers perform activities as described by PMI, but I have yet to learn about any such company in the software industry. The role of the program manager and PM responsibilities in software development can be more simply defined and differentiated. So, I have decided to summarize the differences between program and project management, based on what I have learned from experience. Read more…
Posted in Program Management, Program Manager's Snacks, Project Management - 6 commentsSimple Issue Tracking in Small Teams
A colleague of mine asked me the other day about a simple way to track open issues in a feature crew. If you are not familiar with the term “feature crew”, it is basically 10-15 team members working on a feature in a software product. I have tried several techniques and tools over the years, and I have learned that sometimes the simplest solutions work best. Description below. Read more…
Posted in Program Management, Project Management - No commentWhy Performance Reviews Are Hated By Everyone?
WSJ has published a great article on how performance reviews are hated by everyone in corporations. It raises a good topic, but in my opinion it fails to answer why performance reviews are hated. It focuses only on how manager communicates with her or his reports. Perhaps it may make performance reviews better, but it does not the fix the real problem. I believe communication is not the key reason for many corporate employers hate performance reviews. In my opinion, the true reason is that many managers when they go over a performance review with an employee, they loose connection between performance and review’s result. Primarily because managers forget about employee’s performance because reviews are done once or twice a year.
Employees need evaluations they can believe and based on achievements they still remember. This is why evaluations have to happen often like every month or every quarter. The goal is to evaluate something that everyone still remembers. And good work, smart work has to be reward right away. Everyone has to clearly understand the connection between working harder, doing it smarter, producing more and the next paycheck or amount of the bonus.
Only if performance reviews build a strong connection between how smart an employee worked and the reward she receives when both parties remember that work clearly, only then performance reviews are useful.
Posted in Program Management, Project Management - No comment