From Capital Camp 2104, how to become a successful and happy project manager.

1. BECOMING ATECHNICAL PROJECT
MANAGER

2. ABOUT SCOTT
• Current: Director of Customer Success @Pantheon
• Support Manager, Promet Solutions, Drupal dev shop
• Service Manager, MSP in Chicago
• IT Project Manager, Consultant; Oilily, Chiasso
• Management Consulting
• Certified Scrum Master

3. RAREST ORCHIDS
Kinds of PMs in Drupal:
• PreviousTech Exp
• Owner
• PMbot
• “Assistant”

4. WHAT ITTAKES
1. PM skills
2. Technical knowledge
3. Soft skills

5. PROJECT MANAGEMENT

6. WATERFALL
it just flows!
• Discovery
• Planning
• Development
• Implementation

7. DUNDER-MIFFLIN ♥’S WATERFALL
Document Objective
SOW What client wants
Charter Attributes of Project
PRD
What you will buildTRD
Func Spec
WBS Fantasy timeline
Change Requests Reality

8. AGILE
• Encourages Stakeholder Accountability
• Sets Expectations
• Opposite of Fixed Bid
• Easy to Learn
• Nobody Really Does It

9. WHICHTOOLTO USE
• Whatever. Excel, Basecamp. Just know it inside and out.

10. COMMON LESSONS LEARNED
• Estimation by definition is ________.
• Have your clients doThe Rubber Duck.

11. TECHNICAL SKILLS

12. ALWAYS BE LEARNING
• Projects aren’t the best place for it
• Build your own plan
• Things you should focus on:

13. JUST LEARN:
Linux
Apache/NGINX
Vim
How to code
Drupal: Entities/Taxonomy/Users
Drupal: Site Building
Drupal:Theme Layer
Drupal: Panels? Domain Access? Display
Suite?
Drupal: the config & content database
knot
Drush
IDE
MySQL
Application layer IP: http, ftp, ssh, ssl/tls,
dns,
telnet, ldap
Wireframing
html
CSS
javascript
PHP
SASS/less
xml
rss
REST/api
CRUD
CI
caching
reverse proxy caching
performance testing
New Relic
MVC
ux/ui
SEO
Version control
Photoshop
provisioning
QA/selenium
behat/linting/unit testing
CLI/cURL
PCI compliance
Virtualization
Vagrant
Redis
Composer
Load Balancing

14. SCOTT’S RECOMMENDATIONS
• 1,000,000 questions
• 90 days of …
• Books:
• D7 Module development
• Front EndTheming
• Build a Megasite
• Do your own retrospective
• Immersion: Podcasts, Blogs,
Meetups, Classes
• Camps/cons

15. TRACKING PROGRESS
守: Obey 破: Detach 離: Depart
Drupal X
Linux
Apache/NGINX
MySQL X X
PHP X

16. SOFT SKILLS

17. • How to handle 11th hour stakeholder
• Working with the enemy of success
• How to handle black swan events
• How to handle the 11th hour stakeholder brought in by the project enemy during a
black swan event

18. 7 HABITS
1. Constant Self Improvement
2. Confrontation: Get Good At It
1. Practice: “No,”“Not yet,”
“That is out of scope”
3. Be Fun & Interesting
4. Ask, Listen, and Repeat
5. Relentlessly attack blockers
1. People can be blockers
6. “Success” is subjective:
1. Detach with Love
2. Champion the project
7. The last 20% is what makes you
a great PM

19. PROMISES
• Projects will succeed
• Authority andTrust will grow
• You will be surprised at what comes out of your mouth
• You will work more efficiently (so you may be busier, but less reactive!)
• You will be able to create the stuff you have in your head

20. QUESTIONS?