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I thought it would be worthwhile to produce an index for the (very) occasional series I have on giving tips to PMs at Microsoft.    PM Tip #10: Interview Tips for Landing a Great Program Management Job PM Tip #14: Great teams have members that defy roles PM Tip #12: Don't waist keystrokes PM Tip #21: Sanity Will Prevail PM Tip # 32: Nothing kills excitement like ambiguity PM Tip #57: Write the agenda on the board PM Tip #72 Instant feedback... PM Tip #73: The "Be More Visible" Sham Presentation tip: They Remember the Mistakes more than the Polish   Maybe one day I will do the other 91 tips ;-) Read More...

If you answered “Yes” then it might be interesting to you that there is an opportunity on our team for a person who has passion for making web development easier and exciting for everyone… This job posting is the unofficial job posting  describing a person whom I am looking to refer to my team to consider for an official job posting which exists somewhere on Microsoft.com… :-) Our team is chartered with building Web Developer Tools based on web standards and so we are looking for someone who knows HTML, CSS, JavaScript/AJAX… We would love if this person knows PHP and/or ASP.NET too… If you know someone who loves building Web Sites and is passionate about web development technologies then please pass on the word… The person will most likely...

Recently a friend of mine at Microsoft asked about tips for how to land a great Program Management job at Microsoft.    It has been a while since I did a “PM Tips” post, so I thought I’d use the opportunity to share my thoughts and get your feedback. I have done lots of PM interviews over the years and through the process I have developed a few things I look for to spot great program managers.  In fact I have often mentioned to co-workers in Dev or test and even people I meet at social events that they would be great PMs… most of the time they look at me like I am crazy… but sometimes, they turn out to be, in fact, really great PMs. Getting the Interview Know what you are looking for – Given this economy, I know many folks...

One of the reasons I love going to Mix is getting a chance to watch really world-class technical speakers.  As I watched the keynote and a few sessions this year one theme really stood out to me:  The audience seems to remember how the speaker handles their mistakes\crashes more than the content of their presentations!   Obviously it this is a pretty hard thing for a speaker to prepare for.  If you can prepaid for it, then I’d suggest avoiding it all together ;-).  So how do you prepare for the unprepareable?  It seems to me it is all about attitude.  For me, my learning on this started when I arrived a day early for Mix.  I had a chance to talk to one of my favorite speaking coach Richard Klees Read...

I just finished reading (ok... listening) to Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. The authors do a great job at expanding on some ideas on how to make ideas resonate and, well, stick with your audience... This is a key skill for any Program Manager needing to lead without authority. While many of the ideas where common sense, the detailed explanation and colorful stories help to bring light to the kernel of truth. The authors use a mix of scientific data, careful analysis of urban legends, proverbs from all over the world and advertising data to bring color to their points. A few of the ideas that stuck with me from the book are the curse of knowledge, surprise, stories, focusing on the personal rather than the corporate, burring...

I was asked recently to define the roles for PMs on my team. Specifically what they should do as compared with the dev and test teams. I flatly refused. The best teams I have worked in and with are those that defy the traditional roles and responsibilities. Putting up artificial walls between extremely closely related disciplines can only be detrimental to getting great team work. Any given set of devs, testers and PMs working on a feature have a different set of skills and experience they bring to the team. Putting in place a structured set of expectations denies this fact. If the developer is more senior and experienced in an area, then you may want them leading more of the design of the feature, not just the implementation. Likewise if the...

I am starting to work on writing some annual employee performance reviews and I was thinking about one of the first bits of advice my manager gave me when I joined Microsoft "Don't confuse activity with results". As we reflect over the year, it is easy, and natural to think about all the activities we did... the specs we wrote, presentations we gave, partners we managed, etc. But what is more important is the results we archived, a well received feature, a community excited about our product, partners that are wildly successful, etc. Of course these results are a bit harder to pin directly to our actions, but it is worth a try as this keeps us focused on the change we are contributing to rather than just s pending time and effort. As I think...

The ASP.NET team is looking to fill some senior Program Manager positions and you might be just the right person. I would love to have someone who is passionate about the web’s potential, who is an expert in common web technologies such as Php, Rails, JSP, Ajax (and of course .NET), who wants to build amazingly great products for customers, who knows how to drive, lead and inspire teammates, who knows how to listen (and talk) to customers and partners. There is a change going on here and you can be a part of it… With products such as ASP.NET AJAX , Mix , Silverlight , dynamic languages and Astoria Microsoft is in the process of changing the way we work with “the web”. Come be a part of taking that to the next level… If you have never considered...

I am a HUGE believer in building consensus , but The Wisdom of Crowds is starting to make be rethink the approach a bit. I just finished reading, ok listening to the audio version on my bike ride into work, James Surowiecki's latest book. His point is that groups of people make good decisions on matters of general knowledge when all of the following conditions are meet: 1. There is a diversity of opinion 2. People are not overtly influenced by others in the group 3. Some "fair" aggregation system is at work Surowiecki argues that these elements allow you to tap into the collect smarts of the group while canceling out their errors.. Doing things like spending tons of time consensus building often has the result of creating less diversity in opinion...

At Mix I ran into Jeff Atwood who reminded me about a my post on the "Be More Visible" Sham . He also told me I should take a look at Jon Udell's post Too busy to blog? Count your keystrokes [via Jeff's blog ] While I don't think every PM has to be a noteworthy blogger to have a successful career, I do think Jon's principle of conservation of keystrokes is an important one. By far the biggest problem I see on teams of > 1 is communication. Different people know different information, this leads to disconnects and often to product design, quality and schedule issues. Teams need better communication and PMs are primarily responsible for this. So think about the email you are getting ready to write... Should you add a tester or dev to that email...