ZOMG I’m leading a project?

Description

Leading your first project can feel a little bit like the world has turned upside down. One week you’re happily resolving Jira tickets and the next you’re responsible for making sure a whole feature gets delivered. Suddenly your product manager is asking for estimates, your engineering manager is asking for a set of milestones, and other engineers are looking to you for help on what to do. At times like this, it’s easy to ask yourself, “ZOMG, how am I supposed to do this?”

Jonathan Maltz answers that question by exploring what changes you need to make as you move from owning tasks to owning projects. He starts at a high level by thinking about what responsibilities change and how you need to reorient your time to adapt to those changing priorities. Then he talks tactics. He discusses how to use your project management tools to stay on top of the team’s work without micromanaging, how to break down tasks to the appropriate level of complexity for your team, and how to stay in touch with project members who may or may not go through the same reporting chain. By the time Jonathan finishes, you’ll have a set of strategies you can use to turn your “ZOMG” confusion into “I got this” confidence.