How much time should a Project Manager spend on a typical IT based project

Question

Hi,

We've had a number of projects where the costs have been scrutinised recently and one thing that has come out is that people believe there is too much time allocated to the project managers' role.

For example, we have a development project which will take 10 days of development time, 5 days for testing, 3 days for technical documentation, 1 day for functional spec and 7 days for PM.

Generally (for IT projects) what are peoples thought on percentage of time for each role? Development, Testing, BA, PM etc.??

Update: Assuming the BA has done a good job and the requirements are sufficient for minimal rework

Answer 1

we have %20 ratio which means that if PM is also developer(in my case it's me) if I spent 180hrs for all the implementation in a project I can use 36hrs for PM stuff. But it is mostly dependent on your organization type.

Answer 2

This is a biiiiiiig question with no specific answers, only opinions and suggestions.

How good are your developers at estimation? 10 perfect days for development actually means 15 real days because nobody can code at 100% speed (velocity) - there are invariably interruptions during the day which suck up time (and your concentration).

You cannot put a figure on how much time the BA or PM should spend on a project, there are too many variables. Everyone has to work harder if the BA hasn't done a good job. The testers and the PM have to work harder if the developer doesn't do a good job. Everyone has to work harder if the requirements are changing due to too much client input. You see what i mean.

Answer 3

I guess it depends on how responsive your customers are when working with the PM. If those seven days the PM spends means that the developers know all they need to know before they start coding, it is probably just fine.

If the developers are constantly blocked because the PM didn't do a good enough job collecting the requirements and goals from your customers, then the PM is taking a long time to not do the job well enough.

If the PM is spending all his or her time perfecting diagrams or making pretty powerpoints, maybe it isn't time well spent.

It's really tough to say, but based on the fact that there is grumbling, I wonder if that is a polite way of criticizing the quality of the PM's work.