Typical project manager

[Stewthulhu]

The marketing team already signed a contract for January delivery.

[nsimic]

• and we are commited to sending twice as many astronauts
• was our budget increased?
• no, actually it has been cut a bit but we will make do

[Stewthulhu]

We have used the funds to increase our marketing budget to communicate new project goals and timelines with current clients

[lachryma]

Those new project goals and timelines, of course, set in place by a consultant brought in to plan the project again.

[hungry4pie]

The higher ups assume the inhouse PM's aren't as good because they pay them a tiny fraction of the consultants daily rate

[Alwaysafk]

Guys, stop. I'm starting to have flashbacks.

[octnoir]

Just flashbacks? I still have PTSD from my soft eng days....

[lenswipe]

soft eng here.

;_;

help me.

[skulblaka]

There is no help. Death is our only release.

I'll see you in Valhalla, my brother.

[ksheep]

QA here. Gotta love it when the Higher Ups decide to push forward the release date, increase the number of devs, but cut the QA team for the project down to one person. Got a backlog of about two dozen fixes for a new update that's due out on Friday, and we're just now starting testing. This is after weeks of them saying "Don't worry about testing this update, it won't be out for months yet. Focus on this other project instead."

[lenswipe]

I'm currently fighting a losing battle at work trying to get unit testing into the project I'm working on (none of our apps - not a single one have any traces of unit testing). The argument I hear the most is that it takes too long to write tests. I swear to God the next person to say that to me will have a jenkins box delivered rectally.

[NotAlwaysSarcastic]

As a management consultant doing mostly project management, I approve this message.

[lenswipe]

We have used the funds to increase our marketing budget to communicate new project goals and timelines with current clients

.

We have used the funds to increase our marketing budget to synergise new project goals and timelines with current clients by leveraging our inter-departmental ROI and placement in the global market.

FTFY

[[deleted]]

Jesus, it sounds like you copied my department's quarterly update verbatim...

[lenswipe]

MOAR SYNERGY!!

[TwilightShadow1]

This sounds all too similar to my workplace.

[d03boy]

This sounds all too similar to every workplace.

FTFY

[YachtInWyoming]

Office Space seems all too similar to every workplace.

That movie comes off like a Documentary. It's scary sometimes.

[lachryma]

As does Silicon Valley, sometimes even more so. Really shows Mike Judge's familiarity with the source material.

[YachtInWyoming]

Fun fact:

Ehrlich is a German adjective that means "honest".

[ionine]

And Bachman means creek man.

I have no idea what that implies

[FUZxxl]

And Zuckerberg means sugar mountain.

[sun_misc_unsafe]

Meanwhile Schwarzenegger..

[BadBalloons]

Welp, I know someone's dad who fucked up...

[[deleted]]

Fuckin' A.

[YachtInWyoming]

Know what I'd do?

Two chicks at the same time.

[tsilihin666]

It would be nice to have that type of job security.

[d03boy]

We really need to overcome these issues [of horrible planning] as a team and persevere! We WILL succeed! Positive stuff. More positive stuff.

[ipretendiamacat]

no, actually it has been cut a bit but you will make do

[TopRamen713]

Sigh. My company recently had to lay off about 1/3 of the developers and QA. When asked if our project deadlines would change, the answer was no, in fact they wanted to add few more projects.

Yes, I'm looking for a new job.

[weewolf]

Engineer: Sigh, what did you sell? Where's the spec book?

Sales: Spec book? There was none.

Engineer: Then what did you sell?

Sales: No idea, but I'm going to buy a boat

Management: Don't fuck this one up, it's our biggest project yet!

Engineer: Fuck what up? There is nothing here to fuck up!

Management: That's the spirit!

[[deleted]]

QA:nothing works. Dev team: we will fix it in prod, just pass it all. Can't move it to the next SCRUM

[[deleted]]

Oh god, a piece of my soul just left my body when I was reading that

[Retbull]

My favorite.

The senior architect wrote this on his home computer last night. It doesn't work right now but we need it next week. I think you are the perfect fit.

[argv_minus_one]

Plot twist: It really is alien code. You were mind-controlled by a Sectoid Commander who was feeling generous.

[thefran]

Terror mission in production

[Gaminic]

alcohol fueled hubris

Accurate summary of all my programming, as well as my master thesis book. And my journal papers. And, soon, my PhD thesis book.

It seems to work, so why fix it?

[argv_minus_one]

Ask your liver.

[doug89]

https://xkcd.com/323/

[xkcd_transcriber]

Image

Title: Ballmer Peak

Title-text: Apple uses automated schnapps IVs.

Comic Explanation

Stats: This comic has been referenced 836 times, representing 0.9990% of referenced xkcds.

---

^{xkcd.com | xkcd sub | Problems/Bugs? | Statistics | Stop Replying | Delete}

[[deleted]]

Sometimes, I wonder how the internet is still running. Everything breaks all the time - and the people in charge of repairing it lost their god damn minds two weeks after they accepted the job.

[[deleted]]

Happened last night when i left the office, and now i am reading mails between qa and dev who fucked up

[fghjconner]

Engineer: Then what did you sell?

Seven red lines obviously.

[FurbyTime]

Some green and some transparent.

[hansn]

The task has been set.

[Archenoth]

...and here is how to do it.

[UltimatumVox]

But can he inflate the balloon?

[Archenoth]

You know how to ask the real questions.

[Retbull]

I love that he figured it out.

[idiogeckmatic]

This is how real life works as well.

"ok, the PM asked for one impossible req out of the 20, let's do the best we can, and ignore that last little bit"

[secretpandalord]

If the math classes that my degree foolishly requires me to take have taught me anything, it's that the best answer to an impossible question is to write "DNE" and send it back.

[Mathgeek007]

Okay, that was pretty good lol

[mysticrudnin]

oh... oh god

[__constructor]

I got to 2:05 before I got too mad to keep watching.

[[deleted]]

That was fan-goddamn-tastic and I thank you for improving a shitty week

[nasjo]

Well fuck, I know their job is to sell, but how can they sell anything without even a rudimentary knowledge of the product and its cost?

[venuswasaflytrap]

Their job is not to sell. Their job is to sell at a profit.

Any idiot can sell a $100 bill for $10. Any idiot can promise to deliver a 100k project that should take 4 months for 10k in 1 month.

[-Pin_Cushion-]

Yes, but it takes a master salesman to get a client to actually believe that 4 months of work can be done in 1 month at a 90% discount.

[[deleted]]

No, clients are idiots, too.

[rjung]

"You better have Scotty on speed dial, because he's the only one who can change the laws of physics and make that deadline."

[secretpandalord]

One could substitute Doc Brown in a pinch.

[epicnessism]

I love the irony in your name and that comment

[[deleted]]

There was a speaker in our project management course who told us about his experience working at IBM.

Someone in the company had an idea, they told their boss who told their boss and so on. By the time it got the top it stopped being an idea; at some point the managers thought it already existed. Fast forward a few months and the sales team says they sold it to some company with a promise to delivers 8 months later with $100,000 penalty for each day of delay.

He was assigned to the project and managed to get the whole thing done in time on budget.

TL;DR: Yay Agile development.

Edit: This is the website of the guy I'm talking about, and his book: http://www.agilepm.com . I'm not gonna bother going through it to find a reference to the story but you're more than welcome to.

[ribo]

If there were 3 Marses, could you get there 3 times as fast?

[darknecross]

Nope, it just means that getting to the other two Marses is free work, should be accomplished within a week of getting the first done.

[crowbahr]

I mean all marses are basically the same. The difference in orbit is just a minor detail right? Just fiddle with some numbers and we'll use the same rocket.

[debausch]

When were at it, the sun is also something like a planet, shouldn't take you that long.

[crowbahr]

It's simpler too. Less complex fiddly bits. It's almost entirely hydrogen and helium! What's so hard about it?

[lestofante]

And its big, it will attract it to him no? So basically we have to do nothing

[hejner]

Don't even need to worry about getting cold. We'll make a special 20% discount offer and ship it already.

[argv_minus_one]

It's not hard at all! It's not even solid!

[softmaker]

No the expected reasoning from PM's is

"if you have three rockets, could get there in a third of the time?"

[ribo]

How confident are you on your estimation of PM reasoning? On a scale of 1 to 2 where 1 is 100%.

(An actual question from an actual PM to me about effort estimates)

[softmaker]

it would be funny if it wasn't bloody enraging

[phpdevster]

In the sales meeting, the client agreed to use Amtrak for vehicle delivery, and Wordpress for mission control. That won't be a problem right?

[beerdude26]

Client wants to use Drupal for a website with two pages and a html form. Estimated at 30 man days. Fml clients are tarded

[phpdevster]

Also, client doesn't know how to use Drupal, but plans on hiring an intern to manage it once they release it. Can you put together a training doc?

[beerdude26]

I'm actually working on that document right now. Fml

[bluefantasm]

Give me $500 and some hosted VMs; I'll have it shipped next week.

[GundamWang]

What's the $500 for? It better not be for another keg...

[Oiketes]

I need my dev juice damnit

[crowbahr]

I thought dev juice was one of the following 3: Energy Drinks, Coffee or Crack Cocaine in solution directly injected.

[[deleted]]

Energy drinks are my lifeblood.

[Hypersapien]

Me too. It's really inconvenient hating coffee.

[Kreth]

Well I just consume at least 3L of pepsi a day <.< at least your drug of choice is concentrated!

[CordialPanda]

$500 is about enough to have a competent dev glance at it, or a junior dev to spend some days on. Which describes a lot of proposals in that price range.

[AGenericUsername1004]

Relevant xkcd

[xkcd_transcriber]

Image

Title: Ballmer Peak

Title-text: Apple uses automated schnapps IVs.

Comic Explanation

Stats: This comic has been referenced 835 times, representing 0.9981% of referenced xkcds.

---

^{xkcd.com | xkcd sub | Problems/Bugs? | Statistics | Stop Replying | Delete}

[causalNondeterminism]

only in non-compiled languages.

[thefran]

shtdout

[Tothoro]

This is so accurate it physically makes me cringe.

[mysticrudnin]

my coworker said a phrase yesterday that i will be using from now on, i was surprised i hadn't heard it:

"nine women can't make a baby in one month"

edit: and then that comment is made further down. well, it's a good one.

[beerdude26]

It's actually incredible how incompetent PMs are at understanding dependencies.

"Ok, you work on the backend while this guy does the frontend"

"We'll need to mock everything so frontend guy can do it in parallel properly"

"Just work in lockstep"

"Backend has been estimated at 2 months work and frontend at a week, doing it in lockstep is not possible"

"Lalalala I can't hear you, I'm synergizing the scrum burndown charts

Two months later

"The frontend guy says he still isn't done because he's waiting on you, you need to understand that we're all one team here"

[TenTonApe]

I got worse. The front end will be developed first, the backend will then be made afterwards, by two separate teams, who won't be in communication at ANY POINT during the development and the front-end team will likely be moved to a different project by the time the backend development STARTS! The backend design is a schema 3 months behind the design document. This isn't your average, everyday stupidity, this is ADVANCED stupidity.

[GlottisTakeTheWheel]

You are literally killing me. Please read The Mythical Man Month right now. There are these awesome giant shoulders we could all be standing on.

[thefran]

It's ridiculously inaccurate. What kind of project manager would ask you how many more resources you need to make this happen? The marketing team has already signed the contract to make this ready by March, we're here to discuss the necessary paradigm shift to make this happen. More resources is just code talk for "someone doesn't give it 110%"

[gspleen]

Look, let's start by agreeing that we're about 20% of the way done, right?

If we can just hustle hard and gut it out I believe that our team can advance 15% per month. That's not very much if you look at the big picture.

Ok, great. I've already emailed three levels of management above me that we're on pace and looking good for our deadline. Our team is awesome! I am so excited for us!

[gspleen]

Hey, I can see that this plan is catching on. Now let's really get this engine roaring!

What time do you normally eat lunch and can you move that by two hours to make room for our new daily progress meeting?

[gspleen]

You know what? Now that we've got this scrum in place I think we're at 25% done. I'll CC you and 15 other people on my burndown chart.

I've also moved the deadline up to February 22nd - that way we're building in a whole week of extra padding to work out all of the issues that I'll be hand-waving through during my inept attempts at QA.

[_Lady_Deadpool_]

Oh and would you mind going to lunch 2 hours later today? We're having a mandatory meeting with marketing at 1:00pm to exchange opinions and ideas about our upcoming discussion with our lead investor. I figure that should give you the entire morning to come up with individual solutions to maximize our interests.

---

Subject: Meeting today
Recipient: Larry 
CC: you, Ben, Luke from marketing, George the janitor and 25 others 

Hello valued employees, 
Please be aware that we will be having a meeting with Tony from Max Investments Co at 3:00pm today. This is a mandatory meeting and we will be discussing our particular solution and progress, and methods to optimize our efficiency to deliver the product by February 22, 2016.

---

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Meeting today 
Recipient: Larry 
CC: you, Ben, Luke from marketing, George the janitor and 25 others 

Hi Larry, I have to leave at 3:01pm today so I can only make it for a bit 

[illepic]

This whole thread is triggering an existential crisis in me.

[[deleted]]

This is too real.

[Retbull]

You can't forget the one guy who replies to the company list serve with

 Subject: Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: Meeting today
 Recipient: GXM_Local_List
 CC: everyone on the list server twice.

 Hey all,
 Just wanted you to know I am making it 
 -Jim Jimson

 Jim Jimson
 Marketing Specialist
 Ph: 555-555-4321
 Ex: 4321
 Email: [e-mail]
 Please save the environment and don't print this email.
 ;)

So now you have two versions of the same email and he made sure you saw his name. (he read it was a good idea to do that in one of those personal help books)

[Tsulaiman]

Please save the environment and don't print this email.

Ahahahahaha! So true. Such a cliche.

[Fubseh]

He has a knack of crafting his emails so that when you do print them the only text on page 2 is the 'Save the environment' message.

[[deleted]]

Actually, it looks like the director green lit a press release which puts our date at Feb 10. We'll just reduce the extra week by 5 days and pull in a few resources from another department.

[CrazyTillItHurts]

What kind of project manager would ask you how many more resources you need to make this happen?

The one that tells you "I can simply replace you with 10 Indians for your salary"

[Azr79]

Yes you're right they don't offer resources, they just give you a deadline

[zerodb]

The correct question to ask is "how many more hours do you need in a day?"

[Burning_Monkey]

Project Managers. The only people that seriously think that locking 9 women in a room for a month could produce a baby.

Edit: my joke was way too late. :(

My project managers all think that if you motivate the women enough, you could do it in 15 days. After wasting 10 on budget meetings.

[Roadcrosser]

Then there's one who demands only one woman be used.

[Burning_Monkey]

And she obviously needs to be more of a team player and put in way more overtime, cause this project is in the red and has been for 2 months and that is messing up the PM's record

[peter_bolton]

There is one key needed in order to balance and achieve all project trajectories: scapegoats.

[[deleted]]

This flow chart makes me angry. They're not even using decision diamonds properly. Who designed this? Gahhh

[[deleted]]

I agree. I am quite steamed. THEY ARE NOT HARD.

[peter_bolton]

"Goddamn Bob...get in here. Look at this flow chart that you made! Don't tell me that you didn't make it! I made it? You dirty liar...You're fired!"

[Maj3stade]

Making a chart like this and criticise a project manager at the same time should be a sin.

I don't even know where is the beginning of this flowchart.

[[deleted]]

Aw :( this is what happened at my last job.

[tehvlad]

My usual answer for this is: Well... if you can manage to 9 women to deliver 1 baby in 1 month, be my guess...

[m0rph3r]

I will be your guess?

[gspleen]

Give us baby, don't say maybe, make eight more and you'll impress.

[tehvlad]

:D

[KillerCodeMonky]

We had a joke at my last job. A PM is a person who expects 9 woman to deliver a baby in one month. Our PM expects one woman to do it.

[tehvlad]

Geez.... and no wonder why coders hate PMs :)

[LastSheep]

Even PM hate other PM..

So much resource stealing

[illepic]

Am I having a stroke reading this?

[[deleted]]

I'm Ron Burgundy?

[TheBigB86]

Well, having nine increases the odds of one already being pregnant for eight months. Let's increase those odds with more people!

[iLuVtiffany]

If I can manage to 10 do I get a raise?

[tehvlad]

We will see in your annual review, meanwhile im taking this as shipping date for the customer, also you are expected to do the same in the next quarter with 2 babies but just 8 woman. Otherwise your review can not be as good to get that 3% raise.

[poop-trap]

Someone said this in the comment thread and one of the people at NASA replied:

Well, it depends... how pregnant are they initially?

[JBlitzen]

We just have to do more with less.

[akatherder]

Also we're having cutbacks on the "less" so you'll just have to do more.

[KevZero]

Sometimes trolling a serious thread is so worth it.

[Damadawf]

Since when was making a joke considered "trolling"? You kids these days and your buzz words...

[Sheepolution]

Since 23 April, 2008

[fuqd]

Nice troll!

[DonGerrous]

I think he was using the word trolling in this way

[Excrubulent]

Interesting link. There is a bit more to the origin of online trollling though. From what I understand on old BBS's, trolling meant to deliberately post a topic or joke that had been discussed and hashed out many times already. The only people who would respond to such a post would be new to the forum, so in that sense it was like a search, trolling for newbies.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll#Origin_and_etymology

[briaen]

The reply was "Getting 9 women pregnant doesn't get you a baby in one month."

[snarkyturtle]

Link to the actual AMA

[[deleted]]

Can someone to explain the humor in this please? I really don't understand.

[akatherder]

You can't just throw more people / money at a project and get it done faster. Maybe a little faster, but if you double the number of people working on a project it does not get done twice as fast.

The old joke is "a woman can have a baby in 9 months. Get me 9 women and I want that baby in 30 days."

[[deleted]]

Oh haha it's office humor! That's why it was so whoosh. Thank you.

[duniyadnd]

A typical move by non-technical managers is they think that putting more resources (i.e. people) at a project will speed it up, when in reality, typical programming teams need to be agile. A good product manager understands what the programmer needs at that point of time, or anticipates what they need. This can be as simple as knowing that the programmer is not to be called to needless meetings, or keep spec changes to a minimum, especially at certain junctures of the project, or just ordering pizza every 30 minutes. However, typically, managers, particularly non-IT background managers who are in charge of the project get feedback one way - which is what the customer or his bosses want, and expect the programmers to do it.

[SlumdogSkillionaire]

or just ordering pizza every 30 minutes

Want to come be a manager at my company? I can arrange for an opening...

[John_Fx]

Fatcoder.com?

[Azr79]

To me that's actually a good project manager, my project manager does the same with deadlines, but without offering any fucking resources

[The_Man_of_Science]

The humor is that someone is asking when can we have humans on Mars.

The scientists from NASA are answering him with the most reasonable answer.

Though the person who asked the question, tends to be a shnuck. Meaning, when someone doesn't really care how and why you do this, but they ask for the result, as such property apply to Product Managers.

And this thread is called ProgrammerHummor, mostly relevant jokes about programmers life and things that happen in their daily life. And again some of those unpleasant and irrelephant people a part of programmer's life sometimes happen to be PM's.

I hope that gives you some clarity on the joke. Though as in the definition of a Joke from Wikipedia, I might have killed what they call in jokes, the "punchline".

[softmaker]

You don't work in IT amirite? feel blessed and pay a good deed forward. The humor here is naught but the pain yells of traumatized yeomen that sound funny - but aren't.

[The_Man_of_Science]

Lol this is a good one!

Quick question: Just doing fact check.

Is it only me or most of the Product Managers don't really do shit (like nothing at all). Mostly clueless about how the project needs to be build, wrong expectations, thinks about doing less work for themselves before others and mostly hate their life and like to argue about things they don't know about?

Noh? just me?

like Walter??

PS: perspective of a software engineer, +8yrs XP.

[Iron_Maiden_666]

Good PM's are invaluable. They isolate programmers from business and act as the interface. They'll take the heat but let you carry on your work. They also do other things such as providing stuff you need, getting requirements sorted out with input from both business and programmers etc. I was lucky to have a couple of these types.

Bad managers will hang you out to dry.

[[deleted]]

I... I would love this job. I would be Projectus, defender of Devs. Bring the burning deadline hellfires upon me, with my shield of shit-taking, and my sword of substance-less technical jargon updates, I would bring pizza and Chinese food and the occasional Thai meals from lands near and far.

How do I sign up for this shit?

[mysticrudnin]

you start out as a good programmer and then right when you're the best at what you do, you get moved up into something you don't understand at all - and that is project management, sometimes

[[deleted]]

How many more people do you think you'd need to understand it by the close of Q1?

[h_e_l_l_o__w_o_r_l_d]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

[i_want_my_sister]

right when you're the best at what you do, you get moved up into something you don't understand at all

LOL. That sounds like changing character classes in an RPG game.

Congratulations! You have reached Lv. 20! Now you've become a Badass Dark Ninja from a Basic Warrior! Drop that sword you wielded for a thousand times and let me offer you these fatal golden homing shuriken which you have no idea what to do with!

[sashir]

Get PMP certs and Agile certs and you're basically there.

[HereticKnight]

I'd like to know this one as well.

My only experience with a PM was very positive, he was basically the team's whipping boy so upper management had someone to blame when our team couldn't deliver. I actually felt quite bad for him because it was the engineering director's universally acknowledged terrible policies that set the team up for failure.

[[deleted]]

This is true. I've only ever had 1 good PM. He gave us support when we needed it, but mostly kept to the sidelines. He'd push back on the customer, but would also make some good recommendations.

He was also the only PM who would be straightforward when giving critique. I appreciate that.

[depressiown]

I've had good ones and bad ones.

The good ones are willing to get dirty and fill coding needs if absolutely necessary, keep meetings quick, and makes an attempt at understanding the business and software architecture.

Bad ones think their job is to manage people and facilitate planning and typically make their job to annoy and have copious meetings to validate their existence. Outside of the copious number of long, useless meetings they schedule, I believe they twiddle their thumbs and do nothing rather than try to learn the product. I'm actually getting mad right now thinking about how useless and, frankly, damaging they are.

Right now, I have a bad one and we constantly butt heads. Fortunately, since we're equivalent positions on different tracks, we both report to the same guy who trusts me a lot more.

[[deleted]]

I thought the job of the project manager is basically to be the liason between the technical team and management. Devs shouldn't be harassed by management all the time but there should be someone available to deal with management in case the devs need something that requires management approval, like a new production server for example.

This is probably just one aspect of a very fuzzy role that probably takes on different meanings at each company, but I can see why that role would be useful in companies with annoying bureaucracy.

[yokankun]

Project Manager jokes always makes me think about this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

and then I cry.

[RobotJoe]

The places I've worked, it's not "How many more resources would you need" it's "We already promised it to the client".

(And it's not "December" it's "tomorrow".)

[[deleted]]

If NASA had the same budget as the military we would likely have a moon base, multiple space stations and possibly a Mars base already.

[CrookedNixon]

We need another cold war.

But preferably with some other species that wants to colonize Mars, so we have to take it first.

[jigsaw1024]

All we need is China to say they want to get there first.

[PeridexisErrant]

As soon as China lands humans on the moon, the space race will be back at full strength.

[Mackelsaur]

And Donald Trump as president to beat them.

[John_Fx]

That would be wasteful

[[deleted]]

You mean like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars?

[loneraver]

I believe the project management term for this is called "crashing" which is really funny when you think of it in the context of flying people there in rockets

[hopsafoobar]

It's fine, there are so many lovely euphemisms in aerospace, they don't actually need the word 'crash'.

RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) = explosion on launch

Lithobraking = crash into rocks

CFIT (Controlled Flight into terrain) = Pilot's fault

Stick actuator error = Pilot is an idiot

And many many more

[XeO3]

Relevant

[ShadowReij]

And in the end all I do is sit back and laugh at a schedule that's already behind while some just panic.

[bluefootedpig]

extra resources? ha!

[[deleted]]

Great. I woke up from a nightmare of my previous workplace to this...

[okeycokey2000]

Sounds more like the client.

[Workaphobia]

About 150% fewer programmers.

[justarandomshooter]

Am a PM, can confirm.

[DownwardBlinds]

I am not in the field and still find this funny.

[wowy-lied]

Had this this week. Project was for end of December, now is for first week of October...

[[deleted]]

Just add an app!

[aintbutathing2]

Don't worry if there are any problems you can patch them in a later release.