His name’s Viliam Džama and he solves problems. If you have an issue, Willi just might be able to fix it. He’s one of the best startup project managers at U+, and also just happens to be one of the nicest guys around the office. One of his recent launches is the NYC apartment-finding portal, Igluu, for which he travelled to NYC on behalf of U+. The irony is that the pros and cons of being a PM are often different sides of the same coin, but with great power comes great responsibility.
Master of your domain. For starters, you can be the master of your own time and schedule. But when you’re tasked with suddenly kicking a project into the next gear, it may take a minute to get to that stage, and readjustments have to be made to accommodate your team members. Yes, maybe you can sit back and smoke a cigar, quietly observing your team, but not at first. One of the most important initial stages of being a PM is making sure everything is cleanly delegated. There will never be too little work for you, so don’t jump on the speeding treadmill and fall flat on your face. Find the right people for each part of the task. For example, don’t run around telling everyone how to do each part of the job, get the right people, suggest the general direction, and then oversee each part grow to fruition while you continue to gently guide the path to the desired result. This can be very rewarding work. However, you will have to align with many people’s schedules, so for your own benefit, find a good balance so you can still enjoy your life.
You’ve got the keys to the car, but don’t crash it. Yet another reason to pick a self-sufficient and competent team: when mistakes occur, as the PM you usually take the most blame. If you’re a good leader, you’ll have a team of people who look up to you and respect you, which is nice, but don’t let that lead to your over-involvement in the minutiae of the project. Keep the big picture in mind.
Variety is the spice of being a PM. You may get to deal with different projects over the course of a year, which keeps things interesting and gives you a great deal of experience. But having to press your mental restart button every few months and readjust to a new set of needs and concerns can be exhausting. You have to not only be the overseer, but also somewhat of a psychologist. Efficient management means anticipating and dealing with the various moods of team members, and the group often changes, so new people equals new moods.
I’m gonna need it by, like, yesterday. The fruits of your labor are often visible quite quickly, at least compared to other fields of business, so if you’re the impatient sort, this can be quite fulfilling. On the other hand, this breakneck turnout is probably because the project is basically behind schedule before it even begins. Don’t let this tempo discourage you. Stanley Kubrick once said making a big movie is like trying to write War and Peace in a bumper car. Sometimes the best ideas and solutions arise when you’re cranking out iterations while not overthinking every step.
To wrap up, there are many times when you earn the great feeling of having accomplished something which initially seemed impossible. When you get together with your team to complete a piece of good work, you not only see the results, but how everyone has grown and learned. When a client says that you did a good job, those are the moments when you know you’ve come to the right place and are doing something impactful. You might have to work quickly, but here you can have a fully-built product in three months that you can proudly present to the public. Where else do you get that?
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