Summaries of the Management Training from the Professor Huang

What is the responsibility for PM, to be a good man or do what he need to do?

To be surprised to see, there are too many PMs and PLs showing how harder they are working. They are always working overtime, especially in outsourcing IT service. What did happen in that? Looking at the Japan Team, one day, I run into a guy to talk over that. I asked him, "Do you think about why should we often work overtime?" He listed many answer like this,
o In the inner design (like the detail design in UED) phase, the tasks should finished in a minumal time for that the coders can start work quickly, then can save the costs.
o To want to make more money if we can delivery on time.
o To be PL, we should do more than the coders.
o Benefit from outsourcing is going to decrease because of the competitors
Oh, the money is the result, so we should talk it later.

But, what's the main responsibility for PM and PL. Who knows, who pass the responsibility to the end customers? They are doing all of the work, sales, designing, planning, management, coding, …. Everything.
At least, the Prof Huang impressed my original thought, the PM and PL should not cause the
ownership of the activity shift (at least partially) from the project worker to the project manager. If the PM are often said I can not finish his job on time, I think he do more tasks helping their stuff to accomplish.

To image a scenario, when members are facing a trouble, PM may come to sit next to him and say ""What can I do to help?". That's fine, PM's words make them feel comfortable. If PM really try to help them, he will be a good man.

In China, We are often say "first to be a good man, then do things", but It seems funny or strange in Japan. A good man means you are always let each people say you are kind or welcome in the office. If a guy can not do his job very well, is that he is a good man useful?

What's the management mean behind the PM and PL? All in all, they should let members on PM's way to work, let them look like the same as PM when they handle the problems, let them stand for you to pass the whole team to end user like one person. Do not let yourself involved in each detail stuff. If not, what a hell do the PM and PL face!

The main responsibility of PM and PL is to make a judge and let your stuff do at right direction.
I prefer these words "What's the problem", then "Your plan to handle it", at last "When to finish it"

If all of the team members are working overtime in a long period, the supervisor should find the real reasons in that team or in this company.

Why do not the members often finish the task on time?

The senses from both the PM and the members are often disaccord. Before assigning the tasks to each member, the PM do not ask the owner to assure the finish time, quality, and the contingency plan for the delay. On the other hand, the PM should set up a common senses in paper and let each man know this. When the worker submit the task, the PM should check them based on the checklist. At last, the PM can make this as the habit in a team. As time passes, members can make sure the quality and workload based on the list.

The other reason of delay for one person is resulted from the time contract being sign on. I am just wondering that the evaluation is from one person not from a team.

Show your value to your end user, make them involved in your team.

Benefit is the very important issue to you end user. If PM can let the end user or the end user's boss know where the benefits are and how to get them. The end user will feel comfortable and get more confidence from you to deliverables on time. At last, they will sign off the contract.

The important way to involve the customers in you team is to make many approaches to reach the customers needs without any jumps. Jumps mean that we should not give them a finished doc to let them read. Our value is to conducted them on our way to clear the scope the system, benefit they want.

Do not trust any peoples, even the technical director. Trust yourself in the project

Prof Huang said "do not trust other peoples, who you can trust is the technical director". I understand what he means. The TD can tell you how many people you will need or how much workload the system need. And, the TD can help you when you need his techs help.
But, I do not agree with Prof Huang, because the technical director also can make mistakes sometime. farther more, we have no TD now.

Show you value to your boss.

Your knowledge for ￥1,000,000.00 Annual Income. "How can I do for this target."

Show your value to your boss, how can we show the value.

a. Not only find the problems, we should provide the solutions with the issues. Do not tell you boss what should he choose to do. Let your boss make the final decision based on your solutions. It'd better fill out the money numbers in you solutions. Boss are always sensitive to the money signs.
b. Find the good ways, let the customers show your value to your boss.
c. Leave them for good to open a company, if you find your boss can not meet you needs with the two ways mentioned-above

Good PM should have the 7 Key Competencies

a. Collecting, analyzing and organizing information
b. Communicating ideas and information
c. Planning and organizing activities
d. Working with others in teams
e. Using mathematical ideas and techniques
f. Solving Problems
g. Using technologies

"Make everything under your Control" is what I want to say after the training.