Create a Project Manager role

[choldgraf]

Background and proposal

Currently, our engineering team follows a fairly flat structure. We have a flat team with @choldgraf serving as an unofficial team lead / coordinator / manager. We also have a number of semi-automated processes to let one another know what we're up to, such as GitHub issues that transfer Support Steward status, or Slack messages that ping the team with open PRs.

However, this is not a scalable model, and we should explore ways that we can formalize team coordination and management so that it doesn't happen through informal processes. One way we can do this is by defining a "role" for team management that we can then decide how we want to fill.

Proposal

Define a "team coordinator" role for our engineering team. We should define it similar to how we'd hire for a position - define its responsibilities, the experience and qualities needed to excel in it, and metrics for success. We can then decide whether this role feels like a 100% appointment or not, and decide how we'd like to fill these responsibilities either from our current team or via a new hire.

Implementation guide and constraints

Resources about team, project, and service management

We can likely pull from a number of resources out there about managing teams and groups like ours. I'll collect links as I find them below.

Related issues

• https://github.com/2i2c-org/team-compass/issues/514 is focused around a team manager for engineering

Updates and ongoing work

• [ ] Create a draft of this role: draft link is here
• [x] #398

[choldgraf]

Update: some feedback from the Turing Way

I asked around about this in the Turing Way slack, folks shared these resources and thoughts:

• Matrix management guide
• @malvikasharan's team github repo has useful resources: https://github.com/alan-turing-institute/open-community-building/
• "Senior researcher" job description, that has similar responsibilities: https://cezanneondemand.intervieweb.it/turing/jobs/tps_senior_researcher__participatory_citizen_science_20848/en/
• General tip: consider "project management" and "line management" to be two different things. In general Project Management requires more time and dedicated skills.
• Things a project manager could do: create ways to ensure accountability (calendar management for the entire team related tasks - deadlines, reporting, admin support).

[choldgraf]

Update: beginnings of a draft

I did a little bit of research and put together the beginnings of a role like this in the link below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1voDLLolN-2szln_KzdpNBH6aaobE8ajcjWYfv4c0DNk/edit?usp=sharing

There's still a lot to flesh out, but I would love any thoughts or comments for whether this is a good starting point.

[choldgraf]

Update: meeting with Turing team project manager

@sgibson91 introduced me to @Arielle-Bennett - a Programme Manager with the Turing Institute. She graciously shared a lot of expertise with me about how project / team / program management works at Turing. Here are a few notes:

• Make it clear what tools we use. Many project managers may not use GitHub issues / projects.
• What does she do
  • A bit of everything
  • Monitoring and evaluation
  • Budget management and financial stuff
  • Scrum / Agile style stuff
  • Work with stakeholders, maybe some comms
• Difference between this and a RAM / Product Lead
  • RAMs / Product leads are in service of external stakeholders and voices.
  • Project Manager is in service of the team, more internal facing
• Shared PMs vs. full-time PMs? PMs for multiple projects at once?
  • They do a bit of everything, are very self-driven
  • Often split across projects and nature of work is pretty fluid
  • But be careful about spreading so thin you aren't effective
• How do you avoid feeling like it’s just chaotic?
  • Helps to have routine and clearly defined objectives
  • Should embrace the chaos
• Need to have the same skills as the team?
  • Confidently says the answer is “no”
  • Have to be willing to understand and learn from others
  • But don’t need to be a programmer to manage a programming team
  • But must respect their work and skills (in both directions)
• How does power and accountability work?
  • PMs are “useful” to people. You smooth the path for them, and so they appreciate what you do.
  • “I want to help the team deliver on its goals” rather than “we need to deliver on time XXX”.
  • Shouldn't be thought of as a boss telling you what to do - your job is to provide a service to the team of making it more efficient, accountable, intentional, etc.
  • It gets weird when people don’t meet deadlines.
    • But usually isn’t a problem as long as expectations are clearly understood amongst all.
• Collaboration across organizations?
  • Splitting FTE between orgs could work
• Relationship with leaders in the org
  • “Dotted line relationship”
  • Regular catchups (roughly daily) to stay in sync
  • Acts as a filter for what is really important for leadership
• What career track are PMs coming from?
  • Research and lab managers (e.g. from labs)
  • The title of “Project Manager” could potentially evoke too much power dynamics
    • “Chief of Staff” is another title but it often evokes the wrong ideas.
    • “Operations”. “Managing the process”
    • “Operational Lead”?
• Asynchronous challenges?
  • She hasn’t done this before
  • Key thing is making sure that the new person has the tools to do the relationship building
• Difference from Line Management
  • This is not an “evaluation of performance” style role
  • Line Managers should have the experience of the people they’re working with
  • Work closely with Line Managers though
• Things to look for
  • Experience is way more important than qualifications
  • Want somebody who works with the team to manage what they are doing
• References
  • https://cezanneondemand.intervieweb.it/turing/en/career#vacancies
  • https://cezanneondemand.intervieweb.it/turing/jobs/programme_manager_emerging_priorities_20696/en/

[choldgraf]

Update: have somebody serve in this role as a 50% stopgap

After discussing with a few others on the team, I think that we could benefit from having one of the team members serve in this role in the interrim, until we can find resources / capacity to dedicate a person to this.

I spoke with @damianavila and he said that he would be willing to serve in this role at a 50% capacity (and dedicate the other 50% to engineering). So let's try to get this role scoped out, and then we can pilot it with Damian.

[choldgraf]

@damianavila we are both assigned on this one, though this issue is sort of in a "steady state" right now. I think that there is nothing specifically actionable on this other than you serving in the PM role, and making iterative improvements as we learn more.

How should we handle this issue? Is there a way we can signal that it is "in the background" and maybe define a check-in date for it?

[damianavila]

I was thinking about this one, alongside the leads-related issues... both are in progress but "Waiting" (using one of the states we already use in the cycle/sprint board). In the first case (this one), it is waiting for a downstream issue (#398), in the second case (leads), it is (maybe) waiting for feedback from the counterpart. I think creating a "Waiting" state + adding a check-in point is the way to go here... Let's do that and see how it works!