Apr/092
‘Knights Vs. Orcs’ – Second Public Alpha Released
Finally next version of my small RTS is ready! 
Screenshot:
Feel free to give any feedback!
Apr/092
Specialist Driven Project Management
One of the most interesting thing, at least in Finland is, that most of the people at organizations project management has once been doing real implementation work (e.g. programming, etc.). They were promoted to a management because they were specialist who had earned their co-workers respect. But, is that a good enough reason to promote somebody in to project management?
Defininetly not. Project management is a whole different profession. It requires leadership and in many cases the new project manager who was earlier the specialist doesn’t have this, or he/she don’t understand what project management is really about. These kind of project managers tend to end up doing the specialist work by themselves or aren’t able to concentrate in to right places, which will eventually kill the project management.
But, this isn’t fault of the project manager – he/she just doesn’t know what to do or how to do it. This is the fault of senior management, they should be supporting the new project manager all the time to help him/her to understand this new profession. It is very important to describe what the project management means in your organization, because it varys between different organizations a lot. This will help the new project manager’s to understand what is required of them.
It must be remembered that these days the project management responsibilities are getting harder all the time. For example impossible tasks received by the project managers are a very sad thing: upper management is giving impossible tasks to project manager, which she or he doesn’t have time or competence to complete. And in most of the cases the project manager will not say ‘no’, even though he or she should. Declining from doing impossible tasks is one of the very first things to be taught to new project manager as it is a requirement of his/her profession.
There are loads of things to be considered when promoting a new project manager. The decision should not be solely based on whet ever he or she is a specialist. Lately I have seen excellent project managers who do not have any implementation experience from the product line and are still able to do their job.