Questions tagged [team-management]
This tag is for all questions related to leading and managing project teams and project team members either directly or indirectly.
518
questions
116
votes
14
answers
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How to Avoid Micro-Managing a Software Development Team? [closed]
I've managed a few projects over the last few years, and one of the biggest challenges I face is avoiding becoming a micro-manager. I worked with a team once where I worked with a group of software ...
- 9,537
81
votes
11
answers
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Why can't the ScrumMaster and the project manager be the same person?
How a ScrumMaster does compare to a traditional project manager, and can either role coincide with the role of product manager or project sponsor / project owner?
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72
votes
5
answers
8k
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Is Scrum a status report meeting or a developer meeting?
I'm a developer and we started using Agile last year (October 2011). And, it has been rough to say the least. I was always taught Scrum was to discuss the following:
What you did yesterday
What you ...
- 823
53
votes
20
answers
13k
views
Employee gave themselves very negative self-evaluation - how to handle the situation?
I have an employee who was put under my supervision this year after being a supervisor of another team for a trial period that failed.In addition he is the longest serving employee at the unit. He did ...
- 531
36
votes
11
answers
3k
views
How can I avoid team burnout?
I work for a small web company that deals with a lot of projects, a few at any given time are development heavy for us (400-1500 hours or more) and I've been noticing developers get extremely burnt ...
Shawn Dalma
34
votes
7
answers
7k
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Advice for dealing with a cowboy programmer in an agile team
We have a cowboy coder in our team i.e. he likes to take advantage developing some new features or tools that are not always requested nor useful. We use scrum/kanban for development, and it is quite ...
- 1,219
33
votes
5
answers
3k
views
How can I manage team distractions like chit-chat?
I work with a team of developers who are talented but often distract each other with chit-chat. They can waste hours of the day with these 20-30 minute, non-project related jam sessions. Since I am PM ...
- 331
32
votes
9
answers
6k
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Project is late, how should PM act?
There's a project where:
In the middle of project it is already late
Initial estimates were done by development team
It looks like estimates were too optimistic
Development team says it's client who ...
- 19.9k
32
votes
10
answers
4k
views
How do you deal with continuous work pressure?
I'm working as a QA for software product development. During the course of our meetings we typically discuss what tasks we are going to do and provide an estimate for each task. My manager has a habit ...
- 526
29
votes
10
answers
969
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How can I get my team to value self-organization and self-improvement?
I'm working as a project leader in a team of 5 developers and myself and taking the role of analyst. Within the company, we've been applying the agile principles for several years.
Some of the ...
- 391
28
votes
5
answers
2k
views
Responsibility without authority
Project Managers almost never have a direct reporting relationship with the team members assigned to their project, but remain accountable for the project outcome. What are some effective ways of ...
- 2,955
27
votes
7
answers
7k
views
Developers can't see what they're doing wrong
I am a tech project manager, and I recently moved to America after 13 years in Europe where I worked as a software engineer. I worked for important customers and developed in any sort of environment.
...
- 371
26
votes
8
answers
15k
views
Toxic culture - I'm putting in more resources to help the project move faster, but people are slowing down
Background: I work in a company that has a bad culture: everybody has been treated the same: The same salary, no rewards for high achievers, and no punishment for bad employees, including people who ...
- 269
26
votes
11
answers
4k
views
As a PM, How do you select your project team members?
I’m new to project management and it’s not a fulltime job; in other words a programmer turned project manager, still do some coding :-)
I was following this site’s proposal from the beginning, and ...
- 805
25
votes
14
answers
5k
views
Are 40 hour work-weeks (no overtime) acceptable for development teams?
No matter what our current conditions are, it seems like my team is always working 40 hour work-weeks.
Under normal work conditions this would be fine, but as we approach a deadline on a major ...
- 563
25
votes
15
answers
13k
views
Dealing with a coworker who keeps making the same mistakes over and over
I've been struggling in a peculiar situation since a while ago and would like your inputs on it. In our project (which is a maintenance project), there are some tasks that are done from time to time (...
- 8,549
25
votes
6
answers
7k
views
Should I ask my boss not to come to retrospectives?
I am a Scrum Master for a small team (8 devs). I have been having trouble getting engagement from many of the team members, especially the junior team members. My boss missed two retrospectives ...
- 361
25
votes
10
answers
2k
views
How to avoid being interrupted?
As a project manager, I think it's important to be heard. I find that many times, even when just meeting people, I am getting interrupted mid sentence. Can anyone out there provide tips on how to ...
- 353
24
votes
6
answers
4k
views
Which is better: large feature branches or merging frequently? Which is better small work items vs large work items?
My team has problems pushing work items through all the stages in the Kanban board to done.
The work items hit code review and pile up and stay there for a long time. The following stage (the QA stage)...
- 341
24
votes
8
answers
2k
views
What is the best way to manage a person who shows very little interest in work?
I am supposed to manage a person who tries to give many excuses to avoid work. I talked to her several times that she needs to change her behavior and tried to give her a task to improve her ...
- 415
23
votes
10
answers
4k
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What are the best 3 pieces of advice you would give to a new project manager? [closed]
I ask this question because I have noticed that in our community, we have some new project managers. We have also very experienced project managers. I would like our more experienced collegues to ...
- 688
20
votes
4
answers
11k
views
Difference in responsibilities between lead developer and project manager for support workload
Full disclosure: I am working as a lead developer for a team of around 6 developers, not as a project manager. But this seemed like a good place to ask.
Background: Recently the team is covering more ...
- 527
19
votes
10
answers
4k
views
How to manage employees leaving the company?
Some time ago, the company had to downsize due to difficulties, now things are going better, but employees are still leaving the company.
There is no budget to increase the salary or benefits right ...
- 2,141
19
votes
11
answers
8k
views
Does project management mean managing people?
Does project management mean managing people? So far, from my understanding, managing people is somehow part of project management. But I don't have any formal training in this direction and I can't ...
- 435
19
votes
6
answers
1k
views
How to Create Better Communicators on Your Team?
I work with a team who is distributed. Most of our staff works remotely. As a result, communication is much more important.
The team consists of managers, supervisors, marketing personnel, web ...
- 9,537
19
votes
7
answers
3k
views
How to better balance resources in a cross-functional agile team?
I am the project manager for a team composed of employees who were hired specifically as QA or development prior to agile/scrum being adopted by the organization. Just for background, I came into the ...
- 833
19
votes
9
answers
125k
views
What are the differences between project leader and project manager
Is there any difference between a project leader and a project manager? Is their involvement different in any aspect?
What are the tasks performed by project managers? What are the tasks performed ...
- 623
19
votes
8
answers
2k
views
How to manage a Web Project
I'm a web developer, working in a small web development firm. usually we have small set of projects, using PHP & MySQL, and a small team with less than 4. But some times its hard to recollect ...
- 293
19
votes
8
answers
1k
views
Implementing new software development process
Question:
Apologies for the long post, but I'm not sure how to handle this.
Background:
We have a development team of 3 situated in another city. The lead developer has been around for 6 years and ...
- 191
18
votes
6
answers
27k
views
Which KPI should I use to measure performance of software developer?
I would like to measure performance of my developers using KPI (Key Performance Indicators). Which KPI would best help me distinguish between good and "needs improvement" programmers?
- 1,085
18
votes
8
answers
1k
views
How can I track the work done by a remote team of coders?
I just started a project with a team of coders working remotely. I trust that they will get the job done, but I want a way to track their progress day to day. I know they are using a Git repository to ...
- 283
18
votes
3
answers
950
views
Motivating younger (Generation Y) members
I realize many articles have been written about generational differences in the workforce, but I'd like to know specific things you've done to help motivate younger team members.
I belong to "...
- 1,013
18
votes
6
answers
41k
views
What's the difference between a Team Lead and a Team Manager?
Full disclosure: I am not a project manager. However, no other group on stack exchange seemed more likely to be able to comment constructively.
In the company where I am about to begin work, each ...
- 181
17
votes
4
answers
567
views
What should you do if the project manager is so 'bad' that you end up managing the project yourself?
I have a situation where a project is in progress, and the project manager does not seem to be doing his job. This is a high profile project within the company, and has a very definite finish date. ...
- 378
17
votes
9
answers
5k
views
Different ways of running Retrospectives
I'm about to facilitate another Retrospective with my team. I'd love to hear what different types of Retrospectives you do, to prevent falling into a routine. How do you improve such meetings to keep ...
- 1,766
16
votes
11
answers
7k
views
How should I handle an argumentative team member?
I have a developer on my team who is otherwise very productive but is getting more and more argumentative and disrespectful to the team and to the project managers. For some reason (possibly ...
- 161
16
votes
7
answers
4k
views
Handling unskilled / unmotivated team members
I am a project manager, for a major project at school. One of my team members had joined the team as a developer, without knowledge of particular languages. The member has spent almost half the ...
- 263
16
votes
12
answers
1k
views
Badges for project team members for motivation
Stack Exchange is using nice way to motivate contribution through Badges. I was thinking of implementing this same idea for my project team members. Badges will be awarded to project team members in ...
- 751
16
votes
8
answers
1k
views
How to choose, motivate & develop a newbie programmer?
Imagine that you need to hire new programmer, however you are 100% sure that there are not experienced (what you need) developers on the local market and you need to work with newbies. A couple of ...
- 630
16
votes
5
answers
546
views
Training methods in small team
I'm working for a startup company where there are only a few employees (5 programmers).
I'm senior in terms of my time with the company and experience even though I'm only 23 years old. I have no ...
- 263
16
votes
7
answers
4k
views
How to suggest project improvements in a rigid / narrow-minded environment?
Briefing:
I'm a new employee at a small company that has a lot of talent but seems to have gotten by with ad-hoc processes simply because they've had mostly small projects and repeat customers who ...
- 365
16
votes
6
answers
1k
views
How to make better software developers out of less-than-average ones?
I've asked this before in other places, and I'm now turning to you guys to see what sort of advice you can offer.
Some background: I'm a project manager at an offshore company. I’m in no way the best ...
- 263
15
votes
9
answers
1k
views
Should I collect all the phones before a meeting?
It's no surprise that when a meeting is in place there are a select few that cannot seem to take their eyes off of their phone. I find that this distracts not only that one person, but it also ...
- 253
15
votes
5
answers
5k
views
What Should a Project Manager Do If Development is Not Completed On Time?
I am a project manager of a development team. Oftentimes, the deadline for the development project is not met.
About my team:
I have 4 people in my team, and they are older than me.
Sometimes I ...
- 321
15
votes
10
answers
1k
views
How do you manage a team of developers when their preferred working hours vary?
I recently read a question on here about - How to balance Teamwork and Babble? - and David Espina's answer pointed out that despite developers being contracted as 100% FTE (full-time equivalents), in ...
- 408
15
votes
4
answers
4k
views
How to motivate offshore teams and trust them to deliver?
I joined a company where the development is outsourced in an offshore location. I have heard that the people offshore won’t deliver unless they are chased to do so.
In other words, when they are left ...
- 1,358
15
votes
12
answers
4k
views
How to deal with difficult people?
One of my colleagues constantly faces the following problem:
We have a team consisting of programmers that are always working on one project or the other. Now there are times when we have to work ...
- 315
15
votes
6
answers
2k
views
How to deal with project managers who like to overload you with work?
I have a project manager who always thinks we are able to handle more workload.
How to handle this kind of project manager?
He also always ask us what are we doing and despite we telling him the ...
- 151
15
votes
5
answers
1k
views
How to Create a Solid Team (Software Developer)
I'm a young software developer that wants to create a solid team with my friends, does anyone know about how to create a solid team according to your experience?
- 1,123
15
votes
6
answers
706
views
Strictly as PMs, how do you restore a broken relationship?
Going back to our day to day work, sometimes, we have to be direct. During those times, and during times of high stress (due to deadlines or other family reasons), people become more sensitive.
What ...
- 3,923