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5 Reasons not to listen to a PM (for Teams)

I remember that once a team member asked me to go home, sit in the balcony and have a cold drink till they finish the deployment and then call me! I was really offended by this thought and attitude because I really care for both my teams and my projects. Other teams I dealt with refused to listen to me even before knowing me, just because they hate PMs!PMNotAllowed

As previously explained and recommended to managers, there are reasons for which they shouldn’t listen to their PMs. These same reasons constitute a solid base for teams not to listen to their PMs too… “A PM cares about his projects and is keen to develop them as per the planned budget, time and scope.”

Well… here’s why teams should not listen to their PMs in more details:

1. PMs are Time Wasters

PMs use the help of their teams to study projects, their feasibility and estimates to produce plans. All these activities are time wasting from some team members’ perspective… Many teams think they can start coding right away to produce output… “Why should we waste time planning and estimating?”!

Also, many team members think that status meetings are a big waste of time and that they aren’t really necessary… “Why is he asking about the status? We’re working, and we’ll tell him when we’re done”!

2. PMs are Idiots

Some team members think that PMs are the imposed idiots they have to deal with and that it’s their destiny to work with such people. “PMs don’t know everything in the world”… “We are self-managed… Why do we need a PM as long as we can develop projects by ourselves?”

3. PMs care for their Projects

All PMs care about is the success of their projects regardless of the benefit of their teams! I am not sure what exactly should be the concern of a PM based on these theories!

4. PMs don’t love us

As long as PMs care for their project’s success, some team members jump to these conclusions “They don’t love us… They shouldn’t be part of our team”. “We are a team and we don’t welcome intruders”.

5. PMs are Evil

Teams don’t care whether the PM is a good one or bad one, they just resist being managed by someone else because they think that all managers are evil and that they exist for the sake of making them suffer!

The common trend is “They are PMs, why should we listen to them?”

The PM is like an orchestra maestro… he cannot produce output all alone by himself, he needs the help of his team as well as his team needs him to produce a successful piece of music/project. Teams and PMs coexist for a reason… they should produce output TOGETHER.

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