Muse back!
May 16, 2008 / Friday
Project Management
It's not my cup of tea.
My boss is on vacation for a good portion of May, and I'm helping out with some of her projects while she's gone.* For the most part, this means project management. After spending this past week coordinating, organizing, communicating, etc., the projects seem to be moving along just fine, but I feel like I've gotten nothing done. I feel like I've just spent a week doing busywork. Blech.
I look at the past week and I think, where's the code? What new functionality can I show for it? What bugs have I fixed? I have no new code, no new features, and I haven't directly improved any part of the product. I've gathered, facilitated, reminded, delegated... and I haven't enjoyed any of it. Not one bit.
I'm looking forward to handing the coordination, facilitation, and uncooperative slacker beatdowns back to my boss when she comes back so I can go back to creating stuff.
* As much as I'd love for her to give herself a real break and not work while on vacation, she's actually still working from a full continent, ocean, and sea away. Ironically, it's making my new temporary job more difficult because we end up with repeat directives to people from different directions. That, and it makes me feel like she doesn't think I can get what needs to be done, done. Either trust me to do it, or don't tell me to do it at all. (That said, I do think it's more a matter of not being able to let go than not trusting me, but still, the two are related.)
Comments
I feel like I've just spent a week doing busywork. Blech.
Ah the joys of project management! I think you summarized it pretty well. That's why I'm glad my boss prefers not to know what we're actually doing, or what is really happening with the projects I'm handling :-)
Posted by: Mike at May 18, 2008 05:36 PM