Surviving Your PM

A presentation at Musala Smart Talks in in Sofia, Bulgaria by Iancho Dimitrov

Do you like your work and process being interrupted by the project manager’s request for urgently implementing a new feature? Are time-sheets your favorite thing to write? Estimations and plans? Do you like it when your PM simply cannot grasp it that you really need to spend time on refactoring and eliminating technical debt?
…I guess not :) - and you are not alone.

Very often these situations emerge because of simple reasons – like not having a common project goal, lack of understanding of the other side’s context and lack of (effective) communication. And this is actually good news - as these can be solved by implementing some simple rules and hacks.

In this talk I will go through examples of similar situations - with both positive and negative outcomes. I’ll share ideas that I’ve seen work well and I’ll event try to challenge your perception of some of these situations being a problem. I hope I will leave you with a better understanding of the root causes of these problems - and with actionable ideas you can try out for making your collaboration with PMs easier and better.