With T cutting back by the billions . Why do we have an abundance of project managers doing nothing.
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Project Managers are being laid off across the tech industry, the job becoming totally obsolete. Watch Cisco
“This is the angry IT technologist that constantly spews vitriol, and badmouths ALL management, and brings nothing to the table himself. This guy posts here all day long; can tell it's him by his condescending tone of all of his posts. Soon he will start bragging about his incredible skillset, and how much money he makes. Loathsome, sad little man.”
Actually you’re referring to me, I didn’t make that post but I agree with it - I also wouldn’t refer to myself as a technologist unless you refer to yourself as a ‘managerist’ I’m a developer.
That being said, this opinion that most management (at this company) is largely useless and project managers don’t do anything besides sit on calls and make PowerPoints is basically universal in the development space here at T.
Is this true at all companies? No - but here it definitely is.
I have bosses in the technical space that don’t know what the difference between an api and database is - seriously.
I also agree, I view the ‘project manager’ types as secretaries and just give them the sh-t I don’t want to do.
Gotta fill out a Jira ticket in some d-mb T system to get someone off their a-s to actually work? Delegate it to the PM.
Gotta organize some meeting to get 5 different teams on the same page due to the required interdependency of legacy T software? Have that PM guy do it.
Their job is to do the stuff I don’t want to waste time doing since I’m actually implementing features
If we cut project managers, who will project manage project managers?! Duh the answer is obvious!
Project Managers = Adult participation trophy holders
Making $150,000 a year plus bonus.
“Agile is a ridiculous fad that accomplishes nothing but ensuring mediocrity as the end product. Funding is always cut as soon as the product reaches marginal functionality.
Everyone involved who is not writing code needs to be handed their walking papers. All the useless "scrum masters" or are nothing but the fat guy from Office Space. Turns out the customer CAN just give the requirements directly to the software developers”
I wouldn’t call Agile a fad. SAFe fixed a lot of the scaling issues and Scrum is a proven methodology, but nothing can overcome budget constraints, poor implementation and half baked requirements. Contrary to your belief, Scrum Masters and Business Analysts are critical to the overall process and success, especially if they have developer backgrounds.
That said, I do agree with you about mediocrity. The definition of Minimum Viable Product seems to have drifted over the last few years and leans more toward “Barely Working” now. Product owners get burned out and end up accepting broken features that haven’t been developed and tested properly so development teams end up with a massive backlog of break/fix stuff and can’t get new enhancements out the door with any consistency or reliability.
Off-shore development teams who really don’t care about the product or service assurance are cycled in and out of complex features so nobody really takes ownership of them.
What your left with is a buggy, unreliable money pit that causes never-ending user frustration and basically never evolves very far past “Minimum Viable Product”
“Because we have a sh@# ton of id--ts sitting in silos who think they need a PM to connect two parties for communication coming from a phone company and no automation”.
Bingo!!!!
Because we have a sh@# ton of id--ts sitting in silos who think they need a PM to connect two parties for communication coming from a phone company and no automation.
If you are a legacy hire and can do PowerPoint you are a project manager here.
Agile is a ridiculous fad that accomplishes nothing but ensuring mediocrity as the end product. Funding is always cut as soon as the product reaches marginal functionality.
Everyone involved who is not writing code needs to be handed their walking papers. All the useless "scrum masters" or are nothing but the fat guy from Office Space. Turns out the customer CAN just give the requirements directly to the software developers.
A lot of truth in this. It’s unfortunate, but how T rolls. So few project management folks are actually PMP it’s kind of sad really.
When the powers that be spawned the technical career pathway and created the disciplines and job titles, they didn’t do a very good job outlining very specifically who is really PM and not. “Program management” is now a baked in function of a lot of technical titles and shouldn’t be.
I’ve never been a PM and have no desire to be a PMP, but I’m constantly tasked with managing several “programs” at any given time. Both when I was a Technology support manager and now as a hybrid Developer/BA.
This is a win for the company because they don’t have to hire dedicated droves of PMP professionals. We end up just managing the best we can and pull in real PMP’s when it gets to big or complex.
doing scale agile is GOOD, only if you do it right; unfortunately, T's agile program a very SAD, as it only complies less than 5% of standard, but they tried to use all the buzzz words and they're really are still doing waterfall.....SAD; they need to revamp the whole program
Because family and friends need jobs too, the economy is rough haven’t you heard?
" I work in IT as an actual technologist so I’m acutely aware of just how worthless a PM is at AT&T. "
I retract my previous statement.
This is the angry IT technologist that constantly spews vitriol, and badmouths ALL management, and brings nothing to the table himself.
This guy posts here all day long; can tell it's him by his condescending tone of all of his posts. Soon he will start bragging about his incredible skillset, and how much money he makes. Loathsome, sad little man.
“ send PM work to actual PM orgs and PM's that DO exist here....that would help. But there is still a lot of croney-ism in those types of market based orgs.”
That would be a hard sell. 1. The various orgs wouldn’t be able to totally control their narrative. 2. The various orgs wouldn’t want to possibly give up headcount to another group depending on the amount of work they would be turning over.
Also don’t believe that every PM that doesn’t have the various certifications don’t do a good job. Been out of that world for awhile but was always interesting to find out a project you were working on had another group were doing (or had done) a lot of the same things from a different angle. Perhaps that has changed but that that duplication of resources was pretty stupid.
“ This is your typical "angry guy" that constantly spews vitriol, and badmouths ALL management, and brings nothing to the table himself.”
Classic PM reply - can’t refute arguments so resorts to ad-hominem attacks. I work in IT as an actual technologist so I’m acutely aware of just how worthless a PM is at AT&T. When Legg got the can of Raid to fumigate PMs they scrambled to relabel themselves under Agile but sadly won’t work.
" Hilarious watching all these bogus PMs posting about how important their job is - if they all vanished tomorrow projects would move faster. They know it and best of all Stankey and Legg know it. PM Winter is coming"
This is your typical "angry guy" that constantly spews vitriol, and badmouths ALL management, and brings nothing to the table himself.
It's a sad lot.
Hilarious watching all these bogus PMs posting about how important their job is - if they all vanished tomorrow projects would move faster. They know it and best of all Stankey and Legg know it. PM Winter is coming
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You did a good job illustrating roles and responsibilities within a Development environment, within an Agile framework. Most people here will have no idea what you're talking about.
T has a "lot" of "traditional" PM's outside of Development as well. This is the area I think most are referring to / complaining about. This is where all of the various orgs stuck many folks into a PM role that they otherwise did not know what to do with over the years. The ACE team in Mobility is a good example. They have their own "PM's", people that have been around forever, that basically host some calls, and use common trackers that everyone uses to report on progress against milestones up the chain. They are not truly Project Managers and there is so much redundancy with so many reporting on the same things.
If the company would come to the realization of what they have done over the last decade or more and thin those types of herds more---send PM work to actual PM orgs and PM's that DO exist here....that would help. But there is still a lot of croney-ism in those types of market based orgs.
I miss when they were called secretaries. It was more accurate and their pay was appropriate.
I love being underworked and overpaid. T upscales my title every few years to raise the ceiling for more pay and benefits. The good ones have left or become quiet quitters. I’ll be a millionaire and retired by the time they figure out I don’t add value.
There really are not many PM's left. Applications have some internal PM's and Scrum Masters. There are Release Train Engineers and they need to keep the project moving end to end and manage deliverables across applications and there are Technical Solution Managers which are referred to as Product Development Engineers and they write the Business Features and work with the Business/Product on the Business Requirements. They also have to address all project technical issues and stick with the project until delivery when Architects have moved off and on to other things. They address technical issues and manage the financials for the project to ensure funding is made available and work with Portfolio Managment to manage the financials across applications and the Project. create the EPIC, PID etc. Most do not know the depth of what these folks do and refer to them sometimes as Project PM's but they are not. The old PM role is not in existence really as there are not many Project PM's left and these two roles have a lot of responsibility. I am an Architect and work with them. The TSM/PDE has to be more techncical and RTE has more administrative skills and projects can not get delivered without them.
project managers should be paired with a technical analyst. seems like they are on their own and no one cares that much about, really anything.
Legg has so many PMs and vendors continue to add theirs..
Wow sounds like you guys are a mess.
Simple answer: we don’t.
Thank you.
It is not necessary PMs. It is multiple layers of incompetence put in place between the field and leadership. They provide little value but are there to make the VPs that they work for seem relevant and have the required SPOC. Those VPs have the ears of the SVPs. This company will never be truly agile or right sized as long as the current structure is in place.
P1$$ on PMs! The VP’s layers are infinitely more costly. Start by eliminating 2-3 levels of superfluous “VP’s”.
“week 5, 60 people dial in, no one knows what is going on”
Always fun to work on a project in which a lot of the people on it are there only to protect their interests. You could work on a project to eliminate cancer and pharmaceutical companies would show up to make sure their profits margins aren’t impacted.
“Here is the problem (still) with the Project Manager title here at T. For the last couple decades, whenever they didn't know what to do with someone, they were eventually placed into some sort of PM title.”
You nailed a lot of the issues……
Then we probably need seven levels of VP’s to project manage them. Problem solved.
@Agile PM Office--
Not. You have to throw a layoff and reorg in there though.
Document the loss of "Joe". Joe was the only one that could write the MOP. And he's just got surplussed.
AT&T Project Management 101:
- week 1, host kickoff call with leadership
- week 2, meet with 7 intelligent people, start business requirements doc
- week 3, delegates replace intelligent people, business requirements get confusing
- week 4, no one shows up, new delegates chosen, 3 per work team
- week 5, 60 people dial in, no one knows what is going on
- week 6 thru 25, see week 5
- week 26, funding pulled, project shelved until next year
- week 27 thru week 52, 30 of the attendees still keep joining call
- week 53, the 30 participants get key contributor awards for project shelved in week 26.
- rinse, repeat, give SVP a $1M bonus.
Here is the problem (still) with the Project Manager title here at T. For the last couple decades, whenever they didn't know what to do with someone, they were eventually placed into some sort of PM title. Now, many from that herd have bene thinned over the last decade. But many of those folks are also still around.
Project Managment is a profession, that to be done properly requires specialized training and skills. Planning, Budgeting, Risk Managment, etc. etc.; it goes on and on. It also requires excellent communication skills, and the ability to bring people with different priorities together toward a common goal.
Most of the people placed into PM titles at T have no specialized training in the field. The percentage of PM's holding industry certification (a PMP for instance) is probably around 10%. This is largely because even though (in some orgs at least), T will pay for the annual PMI membership and recertification fees, there is no real incentive for anyone here to obtain the certification. This is because you are not recognized any differently than someone in the same title that does not hold certification. Also, because obtaining the certification isn't easy, there is lots of documentation of actual project work that needs to be submitted and verified, and a rigorous examination that many fail at least once or twice.
I hold and maintain the PMP credential because of its value externally. It has done me no good at all here. But if T keeps paying for it while I am still here, it of course is a no brainer.
At one point in the past, they got rid of all the ones in my area. Of course they got rid of the good ones. Then they discovered projects got all messed up with technical people trying to run them, and not being able to focus on their real technical job. And so they rehired new PMs, all of which had no clue!
Have worked with some very good project managers in the past. They have some knowledge of the project, keep things focused and help eliminate roadblocks. However have had some who don’t have a clue about anything they are “project managing”. Basically just note taking clerks. You also have some participants on projects who expect the managers to be SME’s on everything about their line of expertise or come into a project with their own agenda (or what their boss told them should be the agenda). Can be a tough job if done correctly.
This is an excellent question, one that I have been asking myself for many years. It clearly shows that paper pushers are valued higher than those with actual skills.