{"id":11355,"date":"2013-01-07T14:42:09","date_gmt":"2013-01-07T21:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=11355"},"modified":"2013-01-07T14:42:13","modified_gmt":"2013-01-07T21:42:13","slug":"pms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=11355","title":{"rendered":"“PM”s"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am repeatedly in conversations with someone who refers to “PMs”. And I have to figure out which kind of PM they’re talking about.<\/p>\n

Take this sentence from a recent email:
\n“\u2026designed for executives, managers, PMs, BAs, developers, testers – essentially anyone in the software development value stream.”<\/p>\n

Or the recent email with the subject line,\u00a0 “The Evolving PM”.<\/p>\n

Or:
\n\u25aa\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0“\u2026 white-paper about the over-laps between PM and UX.”
\n\u25aa\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0“\u2026tons of PMs let go.”
\n\u25aa\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0“\u2026there are now schools pumping out \u201ccertified\u201d PMs.”
\n\u25aa\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0“If you know of any high quality PMs\u2026”<\/p>\n

I’m betting:
\n\u25aa\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0if you’re a project manager you think those are all about project managers
\n\u25aa\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0if you’re a product manager you think those are all about product managers
\n\u25aa\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0if you’re a program manager you think those are all about program managers<\/p>\n

In fact, they’re a mix. But there’s no way to tell!<\/p>\n

While I’ve played several “PM” roles during my career, I’m not, today, a PM of any kind.\u00a0I’m not a\u00a0Project Manager, I’m not a\u00a0Product Manager, and I’m not a\u00a0Program Manager. Nor am I a Publication Manager (engagement last year: Stanford subsidiary HighWire, which hosts web sites for 1400 of the world’s most prestigious academic and scholarly journals from 150 publishers worldwide, and when I arrived, had 14 “PMs” for me to manage – who were account managers!).<\/p>\n

But I have roles and responsibilities that require project managers, product managers, program managers and other “P” managers to communicate with me. I’m an interim VP Engineering. And a consulting CTO. And an Agile trainer and coach of Agile transformations. And co-author of the recent Addison Wesley\u00a0book:
\nManaging the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

You need to know:\u00a0 “PM” doesn’t communicate. Your own group may<\/em> know which PMs you refer to. But the rest of us don’t.<\/p>\n

The abbreviation terminology I’ve been evangelizing, in my engagements:
\nPjM == Project Manager
\nPdM == Product Manager
\nPgM == Program Manager
\nEvery one of those abbreviations is self-clarifying.<\/p>\n

\"Transforming<\/a>
credit: Judy Bell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

I give talks on Transforming Chaos to Clarity.<\/p>\n

Project Managers and Product Managers and\u00a0Program Managers are, to a one, charged with clarifying software development, not adding to the chaos.<\/p>\n

“PM” adds to the chaos.<\/p>\n

I wish that were\u2026<\/p>\n

’nuff said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am repeatedly in conversations with someone who refers to “PMs”. And I have to figure out which kind of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1541,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,27,1,899],"tags":[1169,1202,1201,1200,343,1204,1203,275,1205],"class_list":["post-11355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communications","category-training-certification","category-miscellaneous","category-career-2","tag-managing-the-unmanageable","tag-pdm","tag-pgm","tag-pjm","tag-pm","tag-product-manager","tag-program-manager","tag-project-manager","tag-transforming-chaos-to-clarity"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1541"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11355"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11359,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11355\/revisions\/11359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}