I’m a manager…now what

(This post written by “Manager Mike”)

I was promoted to a managerial position, and was very happy to be there. However one of my first assignments was to get rid of our 4 person IT department over the next 6 months, yet work pleasantly and productively with them until we were prepared to live without each of them. It was trial by fire to say the least.

I was sent to a one-day management seminar “Managing Multiple Projects” which seemed like a good idea. The primary goal of the conference, it seemed, was selling you books and encouraging you to attend more conferences. Must be a good business model for them, but it did me little good. Well I certainly had multiple projects to manage.

I tried MS Project, but you can spend all day just managing the MS Project files for all the projects.

I tried an administrative assistant, but I had to spend a lot of time managing her, and managing the people who refused to work nicely with her (this group of nonconformists were gradually getting picked off by my axe), so she eventually had to go.

So finally we have a system that works well. Every Monday I make a to do list using a magic marker, and I tape the list to my desk.

We have a person who keeps track of the schedule, but everyone is responsible for their own tasks, and pretty much only speaks up if there is a problem.

So we get a lot done, granted everyone is very busy, but things are done close to on schedule, personnel conflicts are kept to a minimum and retention is high.

Well that’s my rant. The take away: keep things as simple as you can.