What are Project Managers like in different companies / Habr
Where can you go to work if you are a Project Manager? There are many sweet names: Yandex, Tinkof, Oschad, Avito, VK. There are also Gas-Oil-Polymetal-Tech-raw materials of the company, there are simply IT divisions of non-IT companies such as Magnit or Technonikol. There are also system integrators T1, IBS, Softline, etc. Are there differences between these carousels, and what do you get from working in each, other than being able to say “I worked at /Name/?
This article focuses on how the work of a Project Manager will differ in different companies. After reading it, you will be able to understand where it is best to go to get the experience you want, and where it is best not to go.
This is another article about what is not told in RP courses: about the skills that the Project Manager will need from the first day of work. If you are interested in such stories, read my other articles on Habra and subscribe to my TG channel.Carrot in front, carrot in back“.
The article does not claim to know the truth 100% (everyone has their own experience), but it is based on the personal experience of the author, who worked in many companies, went through more than a hundred interviews himself and interviewed at least several hundred project managers from different companies.
A little background
I first became an RP at a large food company that was implementing its own products. The implementation was so complicated that the Solution delivery department was a full-fledged system integrator: deadlines were burning, work on weekends, and at night – in short, everything, like everyone else’s.
And then I got interested in internal IT. That is, in the IT department within the company. Where I encountered new features: I had to choose contractors for work, and not do it myself. And I also faced the fact that I was “too fast and sharp” for such a company. I, in turn, was very surprised why at 18:00 the team stops working and goes to play board games, when you can hang out for another hour or two (especially since no one came to work before 10 and they had lunch for at least an hour). “Well,” they told me, “we have a work-life balance, but you are too negative and don’t know how to work with people.”
When I again switched to the integrator and found myself in my native element, I realized that there are certain patterns in the functions of RP working in different companies.
I want to share these patterns.
What types of RP are there
From the point of view of GOST, all RPs are the same. But no one in real life lives according to GOST, and depending on the organization, the roles of RP can be different. I tried to summarize them in the image below:
This general classification is important. It is clear that there can be whimsical deviations of the type “RP, which should buy advertising and bring leads, then shoot a video and upload it to my TG channel” to pure release managers, but the general approach can be traced everywhere: the basic roles are exactly the same, and everything else – their mix is different.
If you try to systematize, it turns out like this.
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RP in a food company.
Major companies: Yandex, Avito, Mailru, IT of large banks.
Functions: performance of tasks from the product (products) on time. Such a RP has a backlog with tasks and a release date, its main task is to bring the task to the release. There can often be a cross-team RP that synchronizes the implementation of multiple tasks in multiple backlogs while simultaneously dealing with third-party companies with which the product integrates. In extreme manifestations, the functions are particularly different from the Release Manager.
Team: There is no project team, there are independent teams with tasks in the backlog that must be completed by the deadline
Customer: product or products.
General features: in fact – technical managers responsible for feature releases and who have the customer’s output.
Brief description: you didn’t have time to make a ticket in the sprint – it’s only your problem, the project is yours, not the team’s, which is just fiddling with the backlog -
RP of internal IT or more broadly – internal RP.
Major companies: Sbertech (and any Banks in terms of digitization of services), the entire State Tech, and in general any large company with its IT department of more than 30 people (approximately), where there is a need to conduct IT projects for the implementation of new systems, replacement of old and digitization within the company itself.
Functions (Here we will talk only about IT, we will not touch on RP, which synchronize work from streams other than IT – construction, marketing, and so on): provision of IT services for the entire company – digitalization of all company processes from accounting to production, replacement of outdated systems, introduction of new ones. The complexity of systems and processes is determined by the size of the company: the larger the company, the more complex the infrastructure, processes, and the more complex the IT systems.
Team: often works without a team according to the principle: they made an FEO – defended it at the investment committee – we play the 44FZ or 223FZ competition – we fuck the contractor – we get a result. Sometimes there is a mix, when the team and contractors perform the work at home.
Customer: all business divisions of the company. In large companies (banks, for example), it can be shielded by internal sales or accounts – in fact, shielding RP from business.
General features: sometimes you are responsible for everything, and you have almost no leverage except begging 😊 There is a lot of politics within the company, politics with contractors. In addition, you will have a hundred more internal regulations of the company, which you have no right to violate even for the sake of your project.
Brief description: “the contractor screwed up, and they fucked you” -
RP system integrator/consultant.
The main players: T1, Softline, I-Teco, Jet Infosystems, IBS and a huge number of others. A system integrator is a non-product company that provides IT services to companies in Section 2 above.
Functions: earn a fortune for your company by completing projects for clients on time and with a predictable margin
Team: not linearly subordinated, but, as a rule, this is where the RP and the command are most strongly connected. If an integrator’s RP wants good speed and quality, he must communicate a lot with the team and effectively structure their work. This leads to the fact that the functional management is much stronger than the linear one (the line manager in the integrators, as a rule, only agrees on leave and agrees on the issue of time off).
Customer: enterprises from point 2 above.
General features: “They don’t let you in the door – you climbed through the window” You either make money for the company, or you are ineffective.
His pain: Everyone wants fast, high-quality and inexpensive, but it doesn’t happen that way
Different requirements for RP functions in different companies lead to the fact that RPs from different companies leave with different skills.
What are the differences between these RPs from each other in terms of knowledge (I repeat, these are my observations “in general” about the sample. Your situation may be different due to the required functions in the company).
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Product RP
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Knows:
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How to collect requirements, how to set tasks;
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Backlog formation and prioritization rules;
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How to work with several development teams that you are nobody;
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He excels in technology at the level of an analyst.
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Does not know:
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Project documentation from project initiation to completion – internal product companies have their own methodologies and approaches to documentation. I am generally silent about GOST34.
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Does not know how to be flexible. “How to do it quickly without moving the deadlines to the left” knows worse than others, because usually it is easier for him to move the deadlines, because there is no caplet over him (as a product manager from Yandex once said: “our best practice is not to say the terms of readiness at all» 😊 😊 😊).
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Does not know the word “project margin” and, as a rule, does not pay much attention to time overruns in the tickets of his projects.
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Internal RP
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Knows:
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A project manager from initiation to completion can even know what is CAPEX and what is OPEX when implementing a system.
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FZ-223 or FZ-44 or proprietary rules for the selection of suppliers-contractors.
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The bureaucrat himself is calm about bureaucracy (a given of any large company).
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Able to supervise contractor or contractors.
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Strong communicator: when multiple business units and multiple contractors need to be connected, others do not survive.
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As a rule, he does not delve into technical details at the level of an analyst – he often does not have time for this: the contractor did it, the customer accepted it – the act is signed.
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Does not know:
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How to interact with the development team. I even heard the phrase “we are officials, we set tasks to the executor, and control the execution without doing anything with our hands.”
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Often does not delve into technical details, acting like an administrator (and suffers from this)
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RP integrator
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Knows:
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The project life cycle from idea to handover to support.
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How contracting is done.
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Flexible in relations with the customer (you don’t understand – you won’t earn).
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With high technical expertise in his projects (otherwise the team can do without him, he only gets in the way).
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Able to work with the development team, motivating it (others don’t live long).
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He knows how to earn a fortune.
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Understands what margin is and knows how to increase it.
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Does not know:
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What is serious bureaucracy and document flow.
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Often able to achieve results at the cost of breaking the rules. If this is sometimes possible in an integrator (we still make money), then in a process company this is not forgiven.
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Well, on the sweetest, in my opinion, important: Internal RP spends the company’s money, and the integrator’s RP earns it The person who makes money for the company will almost always be more important to management than the person who spends it.
In system integration, the Project Manager is a business. He brings money to the company and for that he can be forgiven a lot.
In internal IT, the Project Manager spends money. Therefore, his activity should be regulated and controlled as much as possible so that he does not spend too much. As they say – feel the difference.
Together
Do you want to learn speed, finding the fastest solutions in the mode of limited resources – you are in system integration.
If you want to learn real bureaucracy and diplomacy, go to internal IT (and your complex sales relationship in the system integrator will seem like toys to you).
If you want to play board games, sit in a nice office, feel part of something big and be responsible for small releases, often in a technical role – the product is for you.
Well, you have to remember – the world is non-binary and what is written above is sometimes very interestingly interwoven in real life: there are RPs who are both products, and analysts, and even marketers. This is exactly what I recommend to find out from the employer at the interview, so that you understand in advance what awaits you, and that your work and your experience meet your expectations.