I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.
Chapter
11
Projects Are Hard
“Argh! What do we do?”
OK, so today isn’t going so well.
The marketing launch for your feature is tomorrow. You’ve known that for a long time. The team has known for months. In fact, it was them that set the deadline. The team has done everything right. They’ve nailed every sprint, they’ve had stakeholders using it from the start, and they’ve shipped almost daily to production. There was 99.9% confidence that everything was going to be absolutely fine on launch day.
But it isn’t fine. Far from it.
It all came out of the woodwork at the last minute. Services somehow unable to talk to each other intermittently over the network. Spurious and confusing errors in the logs. Yesterday, data corruption. The team deserves so much better. Why now, one day before launch? Why them? Why you?
You feel the heat. You feel the accountability. The responsibility. What do you do?
You decide to send a message to product marketing.
| | You: Hey, are you there? |
| | Alex: Yep, what's up? |
| | You: I think we need to delay, there's some major bugs |
| | Alex: What?! We can't do that now |
| | Alex: The press release is out, the video done... |
| | Alex: Can't the team just work harder and get it over the line? |
You get that familiar feeling of a tight jaw when you read something that really triggers you. Work harder? If only they understood… But has the team actually worked hard enough? You question your own performance. You doubt yourself. No, no, that can’t be true.
You send a message to your product owner.
| | You: Hey, have you got a sec? |
| | Jo: Yeah - all good for tomorrow? |
| | You: Not really |
| | Jo: What's going on? |
| | You: Loads of bugs. Struggling. Might need to delay. |
| | Jo: We can't!! |
| | Jo: How did this happen? Surely this was an easy feature? |
| | You: Huh? |
| | Jo: This sorta stuff should have been easy to build. |
Your jaw gets even tighter. You clench your teeth. Another non-developer with a strong opinion about development. Do they realize they have no idea what they’re talking about? You notice that your right hand is curled into a fist on the table. You breathe deeply. You count to ten.
“Right folks, let’s look at the logs again.”
As a manager, you’re going to deal with some stressful times. It’s part of the job. No person is perfect. No team is perfect. No project is perfect. However, no matter how high your tolerance or your inner calm, you’re going to go through periods that really push you to your breaking point.
This chapter is all about those stressful times and how to deal with them. Being a manager means being accountable during the good times and the bad times. But especially the bad times. Your ability to deal with bad situations is your true test as a manager. And there will be plenty of bad situations. There will be late projects, unexpected scope changes, and pressure, pressure, pressure. But try not to worry. Help is at hand.
Here’s what we’re going to look at in this chapter:
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The Eye of Sauron: When the deadlines are looming, it feels like the entire company is looking at you and your team. We will see what you should do when the Eye of Sauron casts its gaze upon you, and what to do after it’s gone.
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Victims of your own success: As companies succeed and get bigger, it gets more challenging to get work done at the same pace. We’ll look at why and what you can do about it.
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Scope, resources, and time: When you feel the pinch, these are the three levers that you can pull. We’ll find out how.
Don’t let this chapter put you off from being a manager. It’s going to make you a better one. You can get mentally prepared during peacetime so that you make better decisions during wartime. Remember—when it does get bad, this chapter is going to always be here to help you.
Let’s get going.