review of publications for the week
What interesting things have you written about project management over the past week? As usual, I read all the posts and chose the coolest and most useful ones. Read annotations, save and apply!
Basic theory and guides
Estimation and planning in Agile: when is it time to “kill” an unsuccessful project? (~7 min)
Is there life without story points, how to find out deadlines without an estimate, and when it’s time to “kill” an unsuccessful project.
How to conduct custom developments: we talk about four cool tools and give analytics templates (~5 min)
Not exactly about projects, but on a related topic – a practical and detailed guide to studying user wishes and requirements through custom development.
How to formulate tasks in a project (~7 min)
About the role of a technical specification or brief, why the performer is not a fool and how to set tasks normally.
SAFe's Approach to Product Ownership (~4 min)
How are SAFe Product Owners different from Scrum Guide Product Owners? Why is product ownership divided between the Product Owner and the Product Manager in SAFe?
AI In Project Management: How Safe Is Your Job? (~10 min)
AI is a concern for many project managers these days, and for good reason. We answer your burning questions about how much of a project manager's job can be done by AI or replaced entirely. Plus how you can prepare for the changes brought about by this new technology.
Project Manager: Career and Skills
Large Study Report on Project Manager Salaries 2023.pdf (+ link to report in PowerBI) (~15 min)
Key results: The presence of higher education affects the size of wages, – The median salary without bonus in Moscow is 258,000 rubles. The median salary without bonus in Russia (excluding Moscow) is 170,000 rubles. 2/3 of respondents receive bonuses. Most often these are annual, tied to project results. The most popular certifications are PMI and Scrum. Most aspiring project managers are women
Guide for team leads: planning, Agile and that’s all (~10 min)
Is there an ideal planning process? What is the role of the team lead in this process? Is it possible to refuse new tasks and how to do this? How do agile methodologies help us and what tools are available to us?
How to stop overcomplicating and start living (~10 min)
Interesting and controversial material about what overcomplication is, what variants/dimensions it may have, what causes it and how to deal with it.
How to overcome the fears that prevent us from making the right decisions (~5 min)
How three fears – missed opportunities, the best option and analysis paralysis – ruin your life and what to do about them. Summary of the book “FOMO Sapiens” by Patrick Maginnis.
Women in project management: what challenges they face and how they grow in their careers (~10 min)
Interview with female project managers. Topics and questions include what tools they use, how their career developed (and continues), what difficulties they experience and how they cope with them.
Horizontally or vertically: should a technical specialist go into management? (~7 min)
How can a technical specialist move to a management position without harming himself and his interests? And will he be able to become a good manager?
I got a job at RBC Pro and became a certified project manager: my experience studying at PMCLUB (~4 min)
A short but informative story about how the certificate was received and how it helped in work, career and life.
What are the competencies in project management and assessment methods (~6 min)
How PMs can develop and confirm the necessary competencies.
The project team
Main KPIs for effective team work (~3 min)
The bank's IT manager explains why KPIs are needed at all, what path his company has taken, and what an ideal KPI system should be like.
How to grow soft spots for a young man: tips and real stories. Part 2. Be responsible for the results (~7 min)
About the formation within the team and company of a culture of working with tasks and communication on the project.
We conduct and pass an interview on system design (~14 min)
How to organize a system design interview in your company, how to prepare on both the interviewer's and the candidate's part, what to look for during an interview, and how to send the right signal.
How I automated ad-hoc analyst tasks (~6 min)
Ad-hoc tasks are the main enemies of analysts. The author of the article was able to build a process for automating such tasks and reminded us how a team transforms when working with a new tool.
Lazy product: how to collect ready-made ideas for product development from colleagues (~5 min)
How to replenish the product backlog with ideas from colleagues from different departments of the company using Kaiten
How to quickly and effectively burn out at work: the experience of a survivor (~9 min)
A great guide on how to deal with burnout, and ideally, even prevent it from occurring. Lots of experience, practice and tools.
“Swim, sausages”: a guide to teamwork (~34 min)
A very extensive publication about team formation, roles, working with tasks, decision making. The authors have their own methodology.
Delegation Board and Decision Matrix, like the eternal chicken and egg dilemma (~5 min)
Several tools for forming areas of delegation in a team.
Cases, experience, advice, opinions
How Frank Gehry Delivers On Time and On Budget (~10 min)
As an architect, Frank Gehry managed to complete the most ambitious projects on time and on budget – considering that, according to statistics, only 0.5% of projects were completed on time and within budget and brought the expected benefits.
The rise and fall of Xerox: from IT legend to vegetation (~5 min)
It’s always interesting to read about Xerox – thanks to their projects, our world has changed a lot. The article went over both the projects and the reasons for the “decline” of the tech giant.
When they say 'Do it well': Recommendations for developers to improve the process (~7 min)
What do poorly formulated tasks lead to (nothing good, of course) and how a clear and specific statement of tasks allows you to minimize time for clarification and correction and focus the team’s efforts on quality development
How a girl can manage development: stories and advice from personal experience (~11 min)
The interesting experience of a female head of the development department – about the beginning of the journey, stereotypes, career, skills and management tools.
How I managed the implementation of the knowledge base. It worked the second time (~7 min)
About the project for implementing an internal corporate knowledge base.
Nikita Mikheenkov, founder of Nimax Digital Agency: “It’s more difficult to find a good employee for a project than the projects themselves” (~10 min)
The agency's CEO's view of business, projects, project managers and plans.
The office is better than remote work or the top 10 reasons for office work. Experience of Pirobyte developers, where the team works from a luxury office (~12 min)
A large and provocative (over 500 comments) story about how office work turned out to be more effective and productive than remote work.
How project management has changed over 25 years and how AI can help here (~10 min)
Podcast material with Askhat Urazbaev – how the work of the project has changed, what competencies to develop now, what awaits project management in the future.
“Agile accounting? Are you completely cuckoo there?” (~10 min)
About the attempt (seemingly successful) to transfer the back office to “agile methodologies”.
Tools
Express study of corporate communications in Russia 2023
How to choose an online board for your team without spending too much? Review of Russian solutions
Kaiten – task, project and team management tool | Similar to Jira and Trello
How to help employees who “again didn’t manage to do anything”
Megaplan as an analogue of Notion for preparing and storing instructions
YouTube
This was the week of publications about projects. If we suddenly missed any interesting material, share it in the comments.
