Becoming A Technical Project Manager

BECOMING A TECHNICAL PROJECT MANAGER

ABOUT SCOTT• Current: Director of Customer Success @Pantheon

• Past: Support Manager, Promet Solutions, Drupal dev shop

• Service Manager, MSP in Chicago

• IT Project Manager, Consultant; Oilily, Chiasso

• Management Consulting

• Certified Scrum Master

ABOUT JOHNNIE

• Current: Senior Project Manger @Prometsource

• Recovering Developer

• Construction Management

• Certified Scrum Master

RAREST ORCHIDS

Kinds of PMs in Drupal: • Previous Tech Exp • Owner • PMbot • “Assistant”

WHAT IT TAKES

1. PM skills

2. Technical knowledge

3. Soft skills

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

MAJOR METHODOLOGIES

AGILITY• In general, agility is defined as "the ability of a

[system] to rapidly respond to change by adapting its initial stable configuration”

• agility or nimbleness is the ability to change the body's position efficiently, and requires the integration of isolated movement skills using a combination of balance, coordination, speed, reflexes, strength, and endurance

AGILE MANIFESTO• We are uncovering better ways of developing software by

doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools • Working software over comprehensive documentation • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation • Responding to change over following a plan

• That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

LIES ABOUT AGILE• It is a silver bullet that fixes all problems

• Agile is the right approach for all projects

• One Agile framework is good for all the projects you do.

• Agile will stop you from making bad decisions

• Agile will immediately show results

• All clients love Agile

• Your love life will improve if you adopt agile.

AGILE FLAVORS!

Agile Modeling Crystal Clear Dynamic Systems Development method (DSDM) Exia Process Extreme Programming (XP)

Feature Driven Development Open Unified Process (Open UP) Scrum Velocity Tracking Kanban

WATERFALLit just flows!

• Discovery • Planning • Development • Implementation

DUNDER-MIFFLIN ♥’S WATERFALL

Document ObjectiveSOW What client wants

Charter Attributes of ProjectPRD

What you will buildTRDFunc Spec

WBS Fantasy timeline

Change Requests Reality

TECHNICAL SKILLS

JUST LEARN:

Linux Apache/NGINX Vim How to code Drupal: Entities/Taxonomy/Users Drupal: Site Building Drupal: Theme Layer Drupal: Panels? Domain Access? Display Suite? Drupal: the config & content database knot Drush IDE MySQL Application layer IP: http, ftp, ssh, ssl/tls, dns,

telnet, ldap Wireframing html CSS javascript PHP SASS xml rss REST/api CRUD CI simpletest caching reverse proxy caching performance testing

New Relic Symfony ux/ui SEO Version control Photoshop provisioning QA/selenium/behat SOAP PCI compliance Virtualization Vagrant Composer !!

JOHNNIE’S KEYS TO LEARNING

!

• Drupal Ladder

• Buildamodule

• Modules Unraveled

• Drupalize Me

• Google is your friend

• Have smart friends

• Someone on D.O has probably had same problem

ALWAYS BE LEARNING

• Projects aren’t the best place for it

• Build your own plan

• Things you should focus on:

JOHNNIE’S RECOMMENDATIONS

!

• Google is your friend

• someone on D.0 has probably done it before....

SCOTT’S RECOMMENDATIONS

• 1,000,000 questions

• 90 days of …

• Books:

• D7 Module development

• Front End Theming

!

• Build a Megasite

• Do your own retrospective

• Immersion: Podcasts, Blogs, Meetups, Classes

• Camps/cons

SAMPLE 90 DAY SPRINT• Objectives:

• Code everyday

• Build a site with CDN, SSL, SOLR, Redis

• Content from Feeds

• Deliverable: Site, Notes, Commits, Retrospective

TRACKING PROGRESS

守: Obey 破: Detach 離: Depart

Drupal X

Linux

Apache/NGINX

MySQL X X

PHP X

SOFT SKILLS

• How to handle 11th hour stakeholder

• Working with the enemy of success

• How to handle black swan events 

• How to handle the 11th hour stakeholder brought in by the project enemy during a black swan event

7 HABITS1. Constant Self Improvement

2. Confrontation: Get Good At It

1. Practice: “No,” “Not yet,” “That is out of scope”

3. Be Fun & Interesting

4. Ask, Listen, and Repeat

5. Relentlessly attack blockers

6. “Success” is subjective:

1. Detach with Love

2. Champion the project

7. The last 20% is what makes you a great PM

PROMISES

• Projects will succeed

• Authority and Trust will grow

• You will be surprised at what comes out of your mouth

• You will work more efficiently (so you may be busier, but less reactive!)

• You will be able to create the stuff you have in your head (if you want)