I think the title says it all: if you’re a PM, you’ve got to communicate. That includes to your team, your management, your partners and your customers. As I mentioned, I’m a big fan of getting people’s raw feedback with informal chats. I also like to schedule regular 1:1s with as much of the team as I can.

For folks not on the immediate team, I like to give them updates at the ends of milestones in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. The outline often looks like this:

• Milestone Goals
• What we did
• What we learned
• What’s next (goals and activities for the next milestone)

This lets folks give feedback on several levels, i.e. did we pick the right goals, did we do the right things, how do we apply what we learned, what should we do next, etc. It also gives them lots of places to tell them how their own work and requirements fits in with ours so that we can make sure we stay in sync.

For these kinds of presentations, you know you’re not having them regularly enough if management has to ask for one or if you can’t put one together in a day or two. You want folks to see you communicate proactively, not reactively.

For folks on the team, I like to send around weekly (or near weekly) status emails:

Goals

• goal 1 (100% done)
• goal 2 (50% done)
• etc.

Summary
In the last week, we …

Plans
In the next week, we’ll …

Tasks (from the bug database)
csells 452 12/13 Post PM Skill #1: Communication
…

I also like to post each status mail internally so that folks can skip a particular status or come into the team later and still get caught up quickly (a SharePoint site is excellent for this).

Often it’s the case that team members won’t read all (or even most) of your status emails. Don’t let that stop you from sending them! At the very least, it helps you keep your head around what’s going on and what needs doing. Also, it’s comforting for team members and management to know that status is available even if they don’t read the emails, because it lets them know that someone is watching the details. Plus, when someone asks a question that’s answered in the status, I tend to reply with the status email as an attachment, letting them know that someone’s all over things.

I’ve been a Program Manager (PM) at Microsoft now for about 2.5 years. Before that, I’ve been a managing contractor, a lead author, an engineering manager and a chief architect (both for commercial and shared source projects). Over a 12 year career, I’ve not only contributed to lots of shipping projects, but have lead several.

Most recently, I’ve been applying that experience to being a PM on a real Microsoft product team, which is its own unique experience. I’ve only been doing it for a few months, during which I spent a lot of time studying internal PM training materials and asking my exemplar PM brethern how they do it. At the same time, I’ve been helping a colleage get up to speed on just what it means to be a PM, so I thought I’d use this blog for what I think it’s best at — writing down what I believe and having people tell me where I got it wrong. So, consider these posts (like all posts on this site) to start with “in my opinion.”

A PM’s job is to ship the right thing on time and on budget, while keeping your team happy. There’s a lot in this sentence, so let’s break it down:

1. “ship” – first and foremost, the job of any PM is to start with a goal, either self-imposed or assigned, and ship an implementation of that goal. If you don’t ship, the rest doesn’t matter.
2. “the right thing” – unfortunately, shipping ain’t enough, you also have to ship the “right” thing by some definition of “right.” This is the most ambiguous part of the job, because any one goal can have many, many implementations and even the goal might not be the right one. My personal definition of right includes getting buy in from your team, your management, your partners (internal and external) and your customers (internal and external). You’re allowed to do whatever makes all those folks happy (and good lucking finding the intersection : ).
3. “on time, on budget” – this is all about execution. As a PM, it’s your job to lead your team through planning, scheduling, resource management and delivery.
4. “keeping your team happy” – this one is hardest for many engineers, because it involves keeping your team happy, focused and productive. There ain’t no rule book for this one, although I find a useful technique to be something widely known as “management by walking around.” Many folks won’t tell you how they really feel in a meeting, but if you can catch ’em on a phone call or in their office, 1:1, they’ll give you their real “gut,” which is vital to making sure that folks are happy, motivated and on the right track.

I’ve got more opinions about other vital PM Skills, which I’ll post as the spirit moves me, but hopefully at the rate of about 1/day ’til I’m dumped the entire contents of my brain, making room for other things. : )

It goes without saying that MSDN Magazine doesn’t let the authors pick the titles (who can forget Don’s The Active Template Library Makes Building Compact COM Objects a Joy? : ), but what Ian and I had in mind here was 10 things that would surprise you when learning WPF and getting them in your face right up front. Enjoy.

WARNING: This is my political side bubbling over. If you only want fun stuff about my kids or technology, this post ain’t for you.

Clinton engaged in an consensual adult act in the west wing and endured the impeachment process.

Bush sics the NSA on us w/o due process, starts a war so he can look tough for his dad and continues to dismiss global warming as a myth. Why aren’t we impeaching his ass?

Mike did some last minute clean-up and checked in the files, so I’ve uploaded the code sample for the Windows Forms 2.0 book. Enjoy.

I packaged off the final chapters, figures and PDF files for submission of the WinForms 2.0 book this morning. Michael made it easy by fixing all the last minute nits I found, producing the PDFs and bundling all of the figure files together (he separated the graphics from the Word docs using a WinForms 2.0 program, of course!).

In spite of the fact that I’ve been working on long-lead prototype coding for the last month and Mike’s been moving to the US from Australia, we managed to get the book submitted a full 15.5 hours early (they meant midnight when they gave us a 12/16 deadline, didn’t they?!?).

I’m so excited to get the book in your hands, that I’ve asked Mike to check in the files he’s got checked out so that we can post the code samples ASAP. It’ll still be a while before the book is in your hands, though. We took 22 months to write it, but it’s the 3 months it takes to print it that always sticks in my craw the most for some reason. : )

Wahoo (2)!

It looks like my old friend Nenad Stefanovic is up to his old tricks with a new version of my favorite native framework, the Windows Template Library. This will go nicely with ATL Internals, 2e, which Chris Tavares is finishing up for Brent and me.

[via Shawn Wildermuth]

80% of the email I get about my Microsoft interview question site (which, 2.5 years into my MS career, nobody has yet forced me to take down) isn’t very fun, e.g. asking for the answers (which I don’t give) or fairly pedestrian stories (“I got asked some regular questions but didn’t get hired.“).

This one, though, is definitely worth posting. Enjoy!