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@asgs Yeah the guy brags that he’s a certified professional scrum product owner. But when I mentioned poker planning he didn’t know what I was talking about
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@black-kite If you mean Certified Product Owner (CSPO) from Scrum Alliance, it only proves that people sat down their ass for a 2 days course. There is not even a test to take.
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@TrevorTheRat care to share and elaborate a bit more about that rare and legendary breed?
What made the pm so great? Any particular methodologies? -
When I found myself in such situations I always provided numbers that are 2000-3000% higher than gut feeling size after reading the story once.
Next step was the 30min shouting of "how can this take so long" followed by a discussion that can bring down the numbers if given enough time and details to estimate them. -
@bioDan he was the one guy who had the ability to work well with the business and get all resources needed for the project signed.
All the other PMs have been really unsure about what they were talking about and would often delegate doing things to other people.
But this guy, he was really transparent with the business and knew how to say “No” and then work with the business to come up with a plan for what to do to help them.
If the business were ever pissed off with him he never showed it or let it trickle down to the dev team.
Most recent PM was the complete opposite. He was basically a pass through. All pressure from senior management and customers would come straight through him. Made me wonder what benefit he was actually adding. -
@TrevorTheRat thanks ++
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@gosubinit I guess what he meant by precise, was that he wanted the estimates to be in hours, not in story points. But that entailed doing all the design work and breaking down the user stories into tasks
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@TrevorTheRat Yep good managers are a rare species. I wouldn’t wanna be a manager myself in IT as I know I would suck at it and be hated by all. Managing in the IT world must be extra hard as on one side you’re dealing with the stakeholders that want everything to move quickly and on the other side developers that usually need a lot of time to get things done.
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Saw that one coming. Don't commit to work (estimating is work in this context) without knowing the details.
You can tell him:
If you can piece to me that the conditions are as stated over the phone "recite conditions" than indeed I'm untrustworthy if you changed the conditions you broke the agreement and cannot be trusted.
Good analogy to bounce back at the asshole: So you go to a car repair shop and get a price estimate for a dent. Than when your wreck gets towed in you say the repair man cannot be trusted because he charged way more all the sudden.
Look you have ..% backend stories because it's a completely different car not a paint job on the same model as you made it out to be.
Project manager logic.
If doctors were treated like web developers!
Client project manager calls me up one day
PM: hey can you make some precise estimates on some items for a project you’re not working on? It should be easy. It’s very similar to the project you ARE working on and it’s only a handful of user stories, mostly front end stuff. We´ll need this to be done by tomorrow night.
Me: um, I guess if it’s just a few simple items. ok
PM: great! I’ll let you know when you get access to the backlog.
Me: sounds good
Link to project is sent to me. Backlog contains over 20 user stories, most of which are backend related. And it doesn’t have much to do with my current project.
I contact PM: this isn’t exactly what you announced when I had you on the phone. If you want precise estimates with a minimum of design, this could take up to a week. I could however proceed to some ballpark estimates (poker planning) for starters if you need this quickly for your roadmap.
PM: no I need PRECISE estimates down to the hour for each item.
Me: ok then, it’ll take up to a week.
PM: 🤬🤬🤬. You told me it could be done in a day. I’m coming to realize your word can’t really be trusted.
Me: 🤦🏻♂️
rant
pm
retard
estimates