Hey everybody! It’s been a long time since I posted anything… Some of you already started poking me about that 
I’ve been overloaded with stuff at work for a long time but finally I managed things up a little bit. The biggest challenge for me was to learn how to distribute my attention between different projects (and different teams) so that no work gets blocked «because you haven’t responded to my questions» or «I didn’t realize that this delivery was due on Friday».
It always takes some time to find points of contact with the team you haven’t worked before. I noticed that it usually takes about a month to dig in (for a small group of 4-5 people) and get used to each other before the ball gets rolling at full speed. So, my advice to beginners in project management field — if you’re starting the new project with the new team, your initial plan should be as pessimistic as possible. Try to consider all risks. When working on project plan, multiply your estimates by at least 3. This approach will save your butt one day. After all, it’s much better to exceed expectations («we finished 3 days earlier and added this shiny feature as an option») than to talk to stakeholders about the missed milestone.
One thing that’s tough about being a PM is — you are the only one responsible for the project’s failure. Let me explain why I don’t mention success here. If the project is successful, that’s usually taken for granted. Because it’s your job to lead it to successful completion. And it’s only your fault if project fails. You can’t say that «it’s because John didn’t do his job well we’re all screwed». Nobody cares — it’s your responsibility to reveal a problem and take care of it, eliminating risks. Credit for success on the other hand is shared between all team members.
In the next posts I want to write about methods and tools that help me in my work.
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