this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
460 points (96.0% liked)
Technology
59569 readers
4136 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The worst project management I've ever seen was done by salespeople, probably because they're laughably unrealistic about what is actually possible and how fast and how well it can be done, so overpromise all the time thus condemning a project to fail for the start (want to see a guaranteed deathmarch project: go look for any were a salesperson got put in charge), tend to expect that problems get solved with fast talk and change the requirements everytime they speak with customers/stakeholders as if it one could just, say swap the foundations of building half-way done add some more floors on top.
That genuine optimist that comes from not examining something so close and in depth that you start seeing enough detail to spot the potential problems and start grasping the true scope of the task, which is maybe the best quality for selling stuff, is pretty much the worst quality for actually making stuff or lead those who make stuff (in this latter case because of being shit at setting and managing expectations).
Theirs is the last kind of personality you want managing the creating of anything in any way complex.
Yeah absolutely.
The best sales will actually understand their product in depth and will be able to educate their customer on it, though. They also won't waste their time with unrealistic expectations.
In the area I'm in (software engineering) were there is no product to sell and it's all tailor made to fit or heavilly adapted solutions, the closest to what you describe are called "consultants" who have a technical background.
My experience with pure sales people trying to manage a project was always pretty bad, maybe because custom software is just too open ended and unique, so lacks the kind of references and past usage history that a good salesperson can use as guidance.