In the wake of a weekend rollout, I had more than the usual amount of housekeeping to do in the bug-tracking software that I bastardize for project management. That's sort of a duplication of effort, given that some of the same information also ends up on my timesheet, and there's absolutely no overlap between those two applications. Like any self-respecting geek, I'd much rather be heads-down in a new project--and, according to a looming deadline, I really should be.
Maybe it's the fact that my "project manager" title translates to "chief cook and bottle-washer," but I didn't realize until today that a certain Heisenberg-esque uncertainty applies to PMs who actually "manage" other people.
The buzz in the halls, the patter of email hitting your inbox, the flurries of code check-ins, the bug-tickets opened and closed, timesheet numbers: These and more are the indicators of momentum. But there is a limit to the precision to which these can measure the miles or yards left before the milestone. Yet, holding an all-hands status meeting (or even, in a sense, one-on-one meetings scheduled with implacable regularity) give the project's position at that moment in time, but leaves its momentum a matter of conjecture (however empirically-founded).
Like I mentioned, the only "team" I manage is me, myself and I. Even the time my co-workers spend testing, writing reports, and sometimes even promoting code is requested on a peer-to-peer (as opposed to manager-to-underling) basis. Then, too, I've had five years with this particular application, and somehow--despite some epic screw-ups--manage to work on a very, very long leash.
But, in other jobs, with other bosses, this is a (cough) "revelation" (cough) I wish I'd had much, much earlier, with other bosses. At the time, I considered the incessant need for status more than a little insulting--as in "What--I can't be trusted to do my bloody job?!" In hindsight, however, some folks I considered "helicopter managers" were probably motivated by that fundamental uncertainty. (Not all, but that's another story...)
Such a realization would likely have saved some friction and at least one sucker-punch. Because then I would have thought, "Ooh--that would make me a Heisenberg Compensator--just like in Star Trek!" Which, as we we know, makes all the difference in the world. [insert self-deprecating eyeroll]
