Life as a PM
Oh, sorry, that title is probably a shade misleading: PM refers, of course, to Project Manager, rather than Prime Minister. We all know what a Prime Minister does anyway, right? Not much…unlike a Project Manager.
My ears are often pricked when someone talks of their day-to-day toils, be that out of nosiness, out of insecurity - their job’s not better than mine, is it? - or simply out of narcissistic wanton to confirm that my job is the only job worth doing. (Which of course, boss, it is.) And so I find myself detailing a day in my life, for any one of you who is curious as to what I do between replying to your emails.
The day begins at nine, and with a heavy inbox.
Emails range from ‘[insert excuse], I need an extension on my already over generous translation deadline,’ to unsolicited approaches from freelancers, via emails sent a minute after the close of play at 5.31pm asking for 1, 500 words into nine moribund languages…by yesterday.
Responding to all those and carefully deleting the invitations to purchase cheap, but nonetheless good quality, watches, often takes over an hour, and in turn generates more work as a result.
It’s then a case of looking through one’s projects in progress, and prioritising tasks from there. Do I need to find a proofreader for an impending translation arrival? Must I forewarn a typesetter that he simply has to be available to sort an urgent DTP job, just as soon as I have all the necessary files?
All this whilst one’s inbox is being gratuitously peppered with more emails, some of which need attention immediatley, some of which can wait, but it’s not quite that simple.
Imagine a scale of one to a hundred, with each integer being further divided in tenths. The complex algorithm a PM has to run assigns each job, email, phone call and tea request a number, then ranks them in order of importance and, furthermore, each time a new request comes in, said algorithm has to be re-run and the resulting ‘to do’ scale amended accordingly…
At 10.34 am this is how things stand:
Urgent job needs assigning | 93.72
Need a brew | 67.08
Have to help sales team prepare a quote | 46.34
Must invoice a client | 37.03
Then a new email comes in ‘I have lost the file you sent me last week, could you kindly unearth it and resend?’ and the scale is useless and has to be updated in the context of this new request…you get the picture.
Other jobs include searching for new translators, answering project queries (what does this mean? have you any context? should this be translated?), raising invoices and purchase orders and so on.
Lunch time comes at whatever time a lull occurs.
Afternoons are usually less frought and are often given over to keeping up with longer running projects…doing some SEO, writing a press release or blog entry, doing a bit of copy and pasting which is, of course, brain numbing.
The wild range of tasks and projects worked on keeps a PM on their toes, and bullies boredom into submission. On the whole, the job is as dynamic as Gordon Brown isn’t, plus we have a lovely sandwich lady, Mary, come to see us at around 10am every day. Does he?
October 2nd, 2008 at 5:44 pm
That sounds easy. I think we need to give you a second job in sales
As a developer my priority list is usually based on tasks which give birth to further tasks as complexity reveals itself. The ranking order is usually based on whether I’m still able to give a task optimal concentration (each task is usually pretty mentally fatiguing). When my concentration noticably drifts off, I move down the chain to one of the child tasks and head back up once I’ve finished it or got some attention back. A change is as good as a rest. If something is going to be fun to do I use it for incentive to get the more dull things done.
My head is a library of experience, facts and trivia about technology and code, and the common applications of technology and code (such as accounting, graphic design, marketing, typography, and a great deal more), which I get to apply, generally in different combinations, to solve a problem in the best way I can. I read volumes of information and news on a daily basis to keep my skills up to date and my recommendations current, generally from the Internet as more useful information has appeared on it for free and I’ve got better at separating the wheat.net from the chaff.com.
The current contents of my head look like this:
Document Web service
Monitor SOAP communication for manual integration example
Draw a simple UML diagram of integration classes
Finish Web service
Finish last few lines of CMS integration
Build a client
Test back
Develop an example of the callback service in isolation to the rest of the project.
Generate a client from the dummy service and implant into C4T
Add indication that the project was received via a web service
Add a means of escalating to this final stage and calling the web service to return the completed project
Pages More……..
So please don’t ask me to fix it if the printer gets a paper jam
October 13th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Are there lulls really?!
Just thought I would share some of my experiences of what is to be on the Project Manager’s side. You then decide if that has something to see with what Prime Ministers do.
PMs have to possess a core skill set to execute and deliver consistently, however to be successful, they need to build and employ a solid, yet flexible strategy for acquiring soft skills, keeping an eye not only on translation industry, but to technology developments and trends.
Today’s PMs are really busy. To add on the difficulty, every day brings new unforeseen situations – time pressures, translators’ availability constraints, complexity of project related tasks, disparate project data, and even lack of sufficient information or time to source it. In contemporary fast pacing and competitive business environments, PMs need to react fast, to efficiently reply to all kinds of requests, coordinate and deliver even in situations when resources are insufficient or experience is limited. It is, no doubt, a challenging role, but yet a very rewarding one when things go right.
Considering the most important PM key words, not in their order of appearance in a single project: efficient, effective, lead, coordinate, research, assign, ensure, smooth, feedback, to the point, expected standards, keep up, communicate, maintain.
You have to be familiar with the translation industry and all developing trends shaping it, as well as with all different players within: customers, competitors, consultants, academic and training organizations, tools providers, quality control tools and processes.
You have to successfully coordinate and manage a lot of information from a variety of sources every day and, at the same time, ensure you are always focused on clients’ needs, drive data and communication with clients and translators with utmost integrity, ensure quality of all processes involved and, last but not least, meet deadlines and learn from the feedback you receive.
There is no single tool or software application that can sort it all out for you. There is no roadmap to guide you through every situation or project, and I consider successful project management to be very close to a fine art which, on top, everyone has to appreciate at the end, and yet every day.
And if that is not a challenge in itself…