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Comment by stratigos | Hacker News Reader

No, it will not solve the problem of employee disengagement. Project Management is on the border of being a b.s. job to begin with. I suspect most PMs will be replaced with AI in the next 5 years. Given the low level of skill required to be a PM, and that no one in the universe is passionate about such a "trade," there is no tool that exists that will "save" an organisation. Figuring out the issue of employee disengagement in roles such as this will be of benefit, a tool is just a tool.

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> Given the low level of skill required to be a PM...

There's a low level of skill required to be a bad PM. To do it well is rare. It probably requires quite a bit of skill (if it didn't, it would be more common to see it done well).

I agree that PM software tools can create problems and unnecessary complexity, and tend to be used badly. I believe this is related to a parallel phenomenon in software development: when a 'time and materials' mentality pervades the organization this causes a cascading bunch of adverse effects of overly bureaucratic processes that attempt to estimate and measure everything in far too much detail. The PM software tends to enable and encourage this bureaucratic complexity. The PMs and engineers end up spending large amounts of time navigating the processes and working the PM software tools. Scrum standup meetings can become forums for 'working the system' rather than solving engineering delivery issues. This situation describes a disconnect between agile software delivery and 'time and materials' business. I suggest that organizations should work closely with their PMs to understand this disconnect, use estimation practices that are fit for purpose and not harmful to productivity, and design PM control systems that harness simplicity and truly agile workflows.

It's amazing how contemptuous so many people are about jobs that are different from theirs that they typically know little about.

Yup. A good project manager makes everything feel smoother and less chaotic, is absolutely worthwhile.

Bad project managers just enable micromanagement and amplify the weaknesses of management.

I see many people in "product" management roles that are actually project management roles. Often people in these roles lack both domain and technical knowledge, but like to organize stuff, often in ways that are nonsensical to those doing the work. The result is usually... not good.

Good PMs (either type) are worth their weight in gold, but are super rare, just like good developers.

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