views:

306

answers:

9

Or they (team members) need someone to keep pushing?

Edit:

  1. The above line was supposed to be sarcastically funny. Sorry to throw you guys off.
  2. I am talking more in the lines of distributing that work within the team, and not having one person assume and/or perform project management activities.
A: 

It's less about pushing and more about planning the way forward. Somebody has to figure out what order things are going to be built, what the dependencies are, what resources are needed, etc. If it's not done by a dedicated project manager then the team will have to do it themselves.

Stewart Johnson
A: 

It's possible.

It's just not very likely.

However a bad PM can definitely prevent a team functioning predictably and delivering on time.

duncan
+7  A: 

You may not need a project manager as an exclusive role (depending on the size of the project in question) but you do need someone to track activity and make sure everyone is reaching their objectives, and assign extra resources to bottlenecks. In a large project, this is a full time job, and you would need someone just for that. In smaller projects, one of the team members can do this in addition to their other contributions. Of course, the project manager is, in fact, a member of the team, but I assume by team members you refer to the computing group.

Elie
It's just as you say - somebody needs to hold people accountable. +1
Eran Galperin
Please read point # 2 in my edit.
publicRavi
In which case, my point is precisely the same, that someone needs to do this work. If "everyone" is accountable then "no one" is accountable.
Elie
I am assuming that you are basing this on your experience. But, has someone actually tried it?
publicRavi
I've been on teams run both ways. And on teams with no one managing the team. And the team with no one managing the team would have failed had we not picked someone from the team and asked them to shift some of their work to the rest of the team and focus on organization.
Elie
I may still need some convincing. I am very tempted to have this in place in our project. If the entire team is held accountable (and, say, their bonuses depend on the project's success), I see team members motivating and pushing each other to meet the target. But again, that's the happy path.
publicRavi
It's not a given that any specific person has to be the project manager. In a harmonious team, people can push each other and play the "project manager game" in turns, depending on motivation, mood etc.
Eran Galperin
A: 

I think it's likely the team will arrive at a destination, but with no acting PM or PM, who knows what that destination will be.

The PM keeps people on target, on schedule, and then adjusts when the target moves and the schedule is missed. Relying on a team to group communication is probably destined for trouble in more cases than not.

Kieveli
+3  A: 

Its definitely doable, if you have a team that self polices itself. I've worked on projects where the team seemed to be more in tune with the time lines than the manager...

Also, I'm sure that there are plenty of examples small/medium size open source projects that get released without an official project manager.

Giovanni Galbo
+1  A: 

Can they: Yes certainly. There are particular personality types that will work on time with little or no supervision.

Is this a good idea: Probably not. The type of people who are going to function at a high level in this type of setting are very few and far between. Once you have more than 2-3 people working on a project you will start bringing in people who need supervision. At that time a) one of the programmers will become the defacto project manager, b) the person will not contribute to their full potential or c) you won't ship :)

JaredPar
I like your point (+1). Can we tackle this by holding the entire team accountable? Say, no bonuses.
publicRavi
+2  A: 

depends on the team, and how they work together

i've worked with agile teams that self-organize, mutually-motivate, and deliver promptly, all with no project manager

i've also worked with teams that had project managers, business analysts, quality assurance teams, network administrative teams, database administrators, et al, that delivered late and with less than optimal quality - mostly due to the "can't say no when the client is your boss" factor

Steven A. Lowe
Been there (both the places). +1
publicRavi
Project manager doesn't have to be "the boss", just someone in charge of administration and making sure everybody is making good progress. Probably even your agile teams had some people who pushed and motivated more than others. If not, they were all project managers :)
Eran Galperin
A: 

It depends on who are the members of the team. If the team is filled with newbies or bums there's no future for the project, but if it's got motivated programmer who are focused and respect their goals, they can deliver more than what's expected.

Take Jo Peabody for example, he employed a team of programmers, let them run amok and earned some million dollars (At least that's what he claims in the book he wrote after he became a millionaire from Tripod). The book was 'Lucky or Smart'

So like I said, it depends on the team.

Cyril Gupta
+1  A: 

Yes, at least to some degree, as I explained in my recent Meeting-avoidance for self-managing developers conference presentation.

Peter Hilton