The Term âProject/Program Managerâ brings us in the similar situation like âGovernanceâ: we donât like governance in its classic sense, but we canât ignore problems that governace usually targets. Because that problems are real. In other words the term âProject/Program Managerâ is ambigous: it is means both methods (we donât like) and the problem area (we need to pay attention to) . I use the term âPMâ to specify the problem area only.
I see problems in area of usual responsibility of Program- and Project Management. If you donât see any, we can discuss about it. But if you see them, please donât ignore it only because you donât like existing managment methods.
This is âProgram Managementâ in my terms. Nobody does it in public currently but it is neccessary.
Look at all the EIPs: is there any publicly known person who knows all of them, who knows what the particular EIP is for and what is the status of its implementation? The same is about infrastructure projects around ethereum.
as a PM with 20+ years of global corporate software and hardware experience, this is a debate that has been around since before Project Management was even a thing with capital letters.
Especially in software dev⌠many organizationally and prioritizationally skilled individuals can indeed manage their own work just fine and too, some can also coordinate a teams communication and progress. We used to joke that my job was to order pizza and throw celebration parties when we delivered on our goals.
Really though, the collection, aggregation, and distribution of holistic data around defining and measuring the varied goals of multiple groups toward a shared mission is a unique role that includes skillfully neutral presentation of that data, reframing discovery in multiple communication forms and channels to ensure accessibility to and comprehension of the information available by people working in different contextsâŚ
Leadership of self and of people is always a good learning path for anyone, I wonât discourage that⌠project (and program) management is a different kind of skillset⌠itâs managing communication and information and relationships without authority⌠itâs more akin, I think, to community organizing.
Admittedly I am totally new to Blockchain and Ethereum however I am well-versed in project and program management AND community organizing⌠and I am learning by seeking out all these data streams, lurking and following you all and really really appreciating what Iâm finding in these vital governance conversations and decision-making process developments.
I think that we are finding our distinction from traditional corporate practices. As a community and within each of our projects, we need to achieve the level of competency and coordination that certain for-profit orgs benefit from, while also not going against our values.
We need to achieve these so that our values can prevail.
i think ideally developers should be âknowledge workersâ that either have sufficient competence to create a pull request (PR) to a codebase, or have verifier-level competence documented in a skills matrix to review/approve a PR. the project/program management/governance associated would be an automated push service built on polkadot or similar equivalent with emphasis on push notifications to mitigate risks, and for compliance and coordination purposes
I publish programming modules to github and npm and i build apps. I do all of this alone or with very few people. But those apps are quite powerful if I think what i can build quickly in a weekend The reason is, that it only looks like i would work alone on first impression.
Oh, Iâm not really exceptional nor am I a genius but quite average âŚand there are so many people with the same ability that i have i canât even count themâŚ
So if you look deeper and think about it, it becomes quite clear, that I actually work in a team with hundreds of people, âŚactually thousands and more, but i never talk to my colleagues - or at least rarelyâŚ
I am part of many different teams actually and they all consist of many people and those people are also part of many teams. âŚand it just works
This is what moves the world forward every day. I donât believe âproject managementâ or âgovernanceâ does that unless you mean exactly the mechanisms that i think of when i write what i have just written above, but i find the term project management and governance inappropriate, because all stories that i can think of that are associated with those words have nothing to do with âmy team of thousands of peopleâ
Guys,
after some discussions, Iâve changed my mind about the whole domain of âProgram/Project Managementâ.
As I already wrote above, the term âProject/Program Managementâ has two aspects:
Management: usual authoritative management and governance methods. We donât like that and we are trying to replace them with better approaches.
Construction: put different ethereum projects together, making it working properly.
AFAIK, the ethereum management philosophy encourages people to find tasks for themselves and suporting them if they make something useful. Therefore, the managerâs role is here to find developers and make their reputation and rewards depending from their work done. It is less management but more social netwoking.
Putting different parts in some ethereum project together requires broad integral knowledge of many projects in ethereum space, their features, drawbacks and differences. This is a new job profile in ethereum space. I would call it Ethereum Architect.
Ethereum Architect âŚ
knows almost all sub projects in ethereum space (and makes his knowledge public),
⌠incl. projectâs features, performance, interoperability and future development.
proposes ethereum based solutions for external customerâs needs (it is his B2B consultant business).
creates a EIPâs in particular projects to improve their interoperability and UX, based on his experience in customerâs projects.
usually integrates existing parts together instead of creating new ones.
represents customer needs in technical ethereum discussions.
Ethereum Architect performs governance by signalling customer needs into ethereum community, project needs to each other,
Ethereum Architect is not a core Developer and not necessary focused on developing of some core project.
I would propose to create a Ring of Ethereum Architects instead of this âProject Managementâ topic.
@ethernian The model you propose here, where architects core role is to analyze and observe the community and then project a positive intention, a goal, is exactly how our biological neo-cortex works. The conscience-ness has no power to make the body do anything outright, it can only suggest that the body do something. Those suggestions are based on observations and attaching symbolic meaning to higher-order patterns.
This type of governance structure, one modeled on our own biological brain, is the ideal way to approach this community and project.
This is pretty much exactly how the Drupal ecosystem grew up. It had Core and many third party modules.
Composing those modules and knowing which were in good shape and which werenât was a skill in and of itself.
And yes, I was one of the people who had his finger on the pulse and bridged tech and business/use cases to do pretty much exactly what you describe.
HOWEVER â it also became very insular. Welcoming broad collaboration with all of the decentralized web might be one way to get past this insularity.
Finally, the word âarchitectâ is an existing word with very specific (and generally negative) connotations in tech companies / big enterprise.
The word âConsultantâ would also not be incorrect, but it also has connotations.
You might just call this Product Leads or Product Management or Product Design. I called my local meetup Blockchain Product Developers to try and have a broader tent than just the word âDevâ.
In any case, interesting, I find your list of tasks / skills very interesting!
@boris Finally, the word âarchitectâ is an existing word with very specific (and generally negative) connotations in tech companies / big enterprise.
I am wondering to hear about any negative connotation of the term âArchitectâ. I see it positive.
Moreover I tried to avoid any hierarchical terms like âManagerâ, âLeadâ or âChiefâ.
Architect can be joined with another term in order to re-cast it to better represent the role that you are trying to convey @Ethernian. Examples include âDevOpsâ, âDesign Opsâ, âUX Researcherâ.
Name of âEthereum Architectâ is already public. Therefore the change request should be publicly accepted.
Personally, I would not start to change the name before real work begins. If weâll see the name doesnât fit the real work and some poll will make it clear, then there is no problem to change it.
Good point! There were and still are doubts about the use of âCouncilâ w/ Magiciansâ gatherings. Still, it is important to learn about where people may have misunderstandings due to terminology.
we should surely revise it mid-term.
Nevertheless I have bad feeling to push a discussion about it right now because it should be a secondary topic not the only one. The work should go 1st.
Anyway, everybody can start a discussion about name change at any time.
âKnowledge Transferâ is a good approach indeed, even it is only a partial aspectâŚ
In this case we should think if there any difference to Ring Education.
This is not requirement of the leaders. Their goal is to organize productive and effective collaboration of people while product development process. They should decide which direction should developed project to move in. The only requirements are to be competent enough to see perspective and to set clear goals.
and really really appreciating what Iâm finding in these vital governance conversations and decision-making process developments.
The reason is, that it only looks like i would work alone on first impression.