As far as overstepping the mark… well it all depends on how you went about it up until that point in my opinion. Generally if I have issues with any colleagues I’ll try and talk to them about it before anybody else.

However, on the odd occasion you encounter a character who you just know would not enter an honest and blunt conversation with you, or would not even attempt to adjust and improve, but instead try and hang you out to dry, then as unfortunate as it is, I would do what you did and speak to others.

Could your approach make you look bad? Maybe, but I tend to work on a dignity and conscious-based personal rule-set i.e. if I didn’t act in the way I did, would I honestly be able to look myself in the mirror and feel OK about the fact I didn’t have the courage to do what I thought was right… that answer is always no and so I’ve often taken leaps of faith that could see me painting a target on my own back, but the theory is, even if it backfires and this happens, that’s better than being a coward and keeping my head down along with the other sheep.

While I may have ruffled a few feathers along the way, I’ve had pretty positive overall responses to this approach – and it sounds like you had a positive reaction too.

So, a bit of a deep answer, but asking if it makes you look bad I would suggest is perhaps the wrong question?

However, it’s also nice for production staff to realise that this PM snub is not always malicious in nature. Often we’re just so busy on multiple things it’s hard to remember all the best practices when it comes to people management, plus, there are many production people who detest PMs, think them of low value and will rarely be as empathetic to a PM as a PM would be to them…

It always works best when it’s a two-way understanding :)

@Iceburg, yup, good analogy. I think there are many parallels between managing people and bringing up children like that. Thanks for your comments, hope you enjoy some other posts too!

The hope is that by taking one for them, they return the favour out of respect. But you’re right, it does have to be a two-way relationship in the end!

Just as a Web Project Manager should shield his team from unnecessary pressure and negative client input, the developers also have to protect my six by delivering quality work.

Unfortunately in the last few projects I had a lot of unnecessary stress because of bugs, from functional issues (data submitted by forms that wasn’t properly stored in the database) to cosmetic issues such as typos in error messages.

Therefore I think its essential that both managers and developers look after each other. If this is not the case, I have no problem with throwing the development team before the bus by putting tight deadlines for bug resolution in place or having them work overtime.

Just as you should shield the developers from your customers, you should shield the customer from your developers.

@Zanitta, ahhh that’s good to hear (and welcome to the world of web project management :) I think coming from a design AND development background you’re going to be in a great position to understand how to manage people the way YOU would’ve liked :)

Plus, realise that a few times you’ve been cross with Web Project Managers… perhaps you shouldn’t have been ;)

Just starting out in web project management. I am in my first year in fact, after working previously as a designer and developer.

You’ve hit the nail precisely on the head with the exact sort of approach I was trying to follow but was struggling to word.