In Tencent, most departments actually adopt a functional or weak matrix organizational structure. Organizational levels such as centers and teams are essentially functional lines. Functional roles such as product, development, testing, operation, and operation and maintenance are the main roles of product operations. Each department will have more or less full-time or part-time PM organizations that manage each Cross-functional activities.
Based on the differences in their respective situations and their understanding of PM positions, the positioning of PM positions is also varied. As the scale of Tencent’s company and department continues to grow, the PM group is getting bigger and bigger. How to more effectively play the value of PM should be a question worthy of discussion.
Here, I am engaged in project management for various business units and company-level projects within Tencent. There are more PM forms and the following common forms of PM are classified:
Secretary type
This type of PM generally assists the functional line leaders who lead the project in organizing project activities, as well as communicating, recording, and tracking implementation. They have less understanding of the project, weak judgment on project matters, and risk identification. Weak, unable to decompose project work, and even most coordination activities cannot be completed.
Nanny
The main feature of the nanny PM is to participate in the project in detail, and is more positioned to serve the project team. This type of PM usually has a weak judgment on the priority and importance of the matter, or its own understanding and judgment are not weak. , But because of bad rejection and other reasons, it became this type. Nanny-type PMs are often busy dealing with affairs, and lack the in-depth and focus of the project. They are more likely to become second hands. The team will also habitually hand over all the chores that they do not want to do to the PM.
Assistant
The assistant PM is similar to the secretary PM, but the assistant PM’s ability to judge affairs and organization and coordination is stronger than that of the secretary, and has a relatively strong understanding of the project, and has a certain degree of control over the local affairs of the project. However, they lack a comprehensive understanding and control of the project system. They are usually over-controlled by the boss’s opinions, rely on the boss’s arrangements, do what the boss confesses, and lack independent thinking and insights.
Flow type
The main feature of process PM is that it tends to rely on processes to solve problems, and is more confined to formulating and executing processes, and less applying systematic project management methods to manage projects.
Dominant
The leading PM has strong control over the project, is result-oriented, is responsible for the goal, has a deeper understanding of the project, can focus on project affairs, is good at exerting team strength, and can effectively control the pace of the project. Play an important leading role in the process.
It should be said that the above various types of PM cannot be simply divided into good or bad. Different types of PM usually meet the needs of different types of teams or teams at different stages. When the size of the team is relatively small, the communication, organization, and coordination of the team are relatively simple, and there is usually no centralized and clear project management. The main tasks of project management are usually shared by leaders at all levels of the functional line or strong figures such as backbones, or scattered in the team. In the medium, it mainly relies on the self-operation of the team. There may be no full-time PM in the team or various non-dominant PMs gradually appear.
As the size of the team grows, the communication, organization, and collaboration between vertical teams begin to become more and more complex, and it will become more and more difficult for people with strong functional lines to dominate everything, and they will become the bottleneck of team operations. The project leader in the functional line is usually difficult to completely overcome the standardism, which makes the contradictions of the project team difficult to reconcile. In this case, the dominant PM will independently lead the project and share the excessive project management work of the strong function line, which will help improve the overall efficiency of the team. Leading PM is result-oriented and leads cross-functional project teams to achieve project goals, which will also help promote the horizontal integration of large functional teams and fill the gaps between vertical functional teams.
So, what kind of PM does your team need?
