Project Management: Time

Art & Logic bills on a time and materials basis. This is a good thing, but as a project manager I often struggle with the thought that every hour I spend on PM tasks is an hour I take away from developers to get the real work done. At the same time, an hour spent on PM tasks could prevent countless hours of wasted time later on in the project due to a miscommunication/misunderstand of requirements.

It's quite a balancing act to find that right level of involvement where you have all of the details that you need, while still squeezing out as many hours as possible for the developers. I like to think I've found that balance, though I tend to be a little more hands-off due to being a developer myself. I understand the negative impacts of interruptions and what it does to flow-state. So far this method has served me well and I think that's due to the following reasons:

• I work with a great group of developers that can take a task and complete it with minimal direction.


• I'm very detail-oriented, so even though I try to limit the hours I use as a PM, I have the complete picture of the project in front of me in my GTD system.


• A more "hands-off" approach fits with the JUST-SUFFICIENCY model stated in Art & Logic's development manifesto. An example of this in my PM style is to limit the project's tasklist to the features/tasks that are in the immediate future instead of populating the tasklist with the entire set of requirements at the beginning of the project. It's a given that many of those requirements will be changed/removed before the project comes to a close.

Another factor that comes into play is the type and size of the project. A small iPhone application does not demand the type of attention that a large web application does.

I'm constantly tweaking how I do things and am hopefully improving with each project. My ultimate goal is to continue improving the efficiency of my workflow as a PM, enabling me to get more information about projects in less time.