Sometimes You have to Mow Your Own Lawn

Several years ago I paid a landscaping company to mow my lawn every week. It allowed me more free time on Saturday and only cost $20 per week. I don't have a small yard but it isn't that large either. For me the cost seemed pretty small and not only did they mow the grass but they took care of edging it as well. Then one day the landscaper knocked on my door and said I might want to increase the amount of water I was using as I had a few brown spots that needed attention. After he left, I went out and inspected my yard. I didn't have a few brown spots, I had large sections of dead grass that looked horrible. I discovered that one of the side benefits of mowing my own lawn is that I could continually monitor the state of the grass. I could see when I needed to increase the water as well as see where extra care needed to be taken with regards to weeds. Soon after I cut back on my landscaping service and used them just to do monthly fertilizer treatments. I still use them today and have the greenest grass in the neighborhood.

So what does mowing your own lawn have to do with computers? Well it is an analogy. Several months ago I started a new project at work. We use project managers or PMs to help keep track of all of the little details. I relied heavily on my PM to help me stay on top of all the technical details. Then she decided to take a job at another company and I had to take over all of the PM duties until we could find a replacement. Unfortunately I found out that I had been relying on her too much and the project was in a much worse state than I realized. It kind of felt like I started mowing my own lawn again and I didn't have a single green blade in the proverbial grass. I really had to step up and fix quite a few issues.

Several weeks after our PM left, we hired on a replacement and I had to figure out how to shift some of my new responsibilities to the new hire. I started with the simple things that would help her understand the scope of the project and how I could use her help to take care of the important but seemingly small details. I felt that I didn't want to turn too much over to her as I still had a lot of issues to fix. I'm glad I didn't rely too much on the new PM as she decided the job wasn't for her and left 3 weeks after she started.

Now the project is coming to a close and I have learned a lot. A good technical manager will delegate things to project managers but also follow-up on the details. I didn't need to micromanage but I should have been a lot more proactive about making sure stuff was getting done. It wasn't and I paid dearly for it. Some of the things I did to solve problems include daily status meetings. These don't need to be very long and ideally should be done standing up, which is why we call them stand-ups. I also talk more with the team members and ask about specific details for proposed solutions. I don't challenge the details but make sure I understand what is being proposed so that I can explain it to my management. Recently my boss told me that the changes I instituted have greatly improved the project and helped turn it from a failure to a success. All I could reply is, "Sometimes you have to mow your own lawn."