Who to Hire as a Web Project Manager
The previous post ranting about management deficiencies, particularly in the Tasmanian public sector (look at Arts Tasmania for Christ Sake) was a little negative. That’s not really a productive way to approach anything if we want improvement. So here’s a positive – who to hire as a web project manager.
All truths are self evident so some of this will be blatantly obvious. First, you need someone with the management and interpersonal skills to grease the quality of communication within your project. A people person. A networker. Someone who can talk to the suits and eat lunch in the trenches.
Which leads to the second criteria. The person you’re going to hire needs to have a big picture perspective of how the web and it’s technologies stitch together. I don’t necessarily mean they have to code Perl as a hobby, but they should be familiar with technical terms and concepts and be able to talk to designers and developers in their own language. The person needs to understand a lot of the why’s and where’s of web development – bandwidth constraints, population demographics, usability and accessibility constraints, legislative recommendations and standards, broad knowledge of relevant legal and social issues. The list goes on. They need to be a web professional.
The person needs to be able to understand graphic designers don’t necessarily know about best practice coding, and coders don’t necessarily know about best practice graphic design. The project manager needs to have a big picture understanding, in my view, of all the pieces and teams involved in the project and where to prioritise focus. What if your graphic designer insists on a 300KB image on the home page? It’s the project manager’s job to understand exactly why that’s a bad idea. Some would disagree, but in my view if you’re the decison maker you can’t be copping out with ignorance for an entire career. Hire a manager who is engaged with the web industry.
You should be looking for a decision maker. No decision is the worst decision of all, of course. But you need a decision maker who is fully engaged to make the decisions, not as the result of ad-hoc emails and a stab in the dark. The truth is management involves satisficing, making a decision with the knowledge at hand. Satisficing works a lot better if they actually have some knowledge, otherwise it can lead to a bork or two simply due to ignorance. The sharp tool cuts better, right?
Experience. This, I concede, is where you’re Gantt Chart is essential. You need someone who can push projects through and co-ordinate effort. There are only so many man hours in a bucket, only so many pennies in a pocket. Experience should be hired, nurtured and retained.
Finally, and by no means is this the end of the list, you should hire a manager who has a strong heterogenous social network locally and abroad. This means they know an expert in this field and a guru in that field which makes them a lot smarter than their ordinary selves.
In short, an articulate manager with good interpersonal communication skills. A manager who understands web technologies and has worked with them – a big picture person. A decision maker, a mover and shaker and a resource co-ordinatore. With a strong heterogenous social network. If they’re an evangelist – all the better!
Just my 2 cents after midnight. After all, AUD$30,000 for a five page wireframe of the Port Arthur Historic Site redesign? Hey, true story.
