For the first dozen years at work (and eight years at various other companies before then), I was just the developer: staying in my corner of the corporate world, building the solutions that the team needed. It meant analyzing the business and technical situations, figuring out the way to design it, writing the code, writing the test code, documenting the procedures to implement it, etc--all that stuff that programmers do.
However, starting at the beginning of 2006, I worked with junior programmers who wrote the code and I started working the project management aspects. This meant more communication outside our local team; coordinating our efforts with those of various other teams; working plans not just locally, but in coordination with other groups whose internal project schedules might differ from ours (sometimes wildly), influencing those teams so that coordinated efforts could pull off a successful implementation.
Recently, it seems that aspect of my work has exploded in size and scope. I'm now coordinating the work in our team (okay, just two of us), but doing it for 12 concurrently running projects. We're running five kinds of projects, and each of those kinds of projects is happening for at least two (sometimes all three) of the applications we support.
Each kind of project has a different group in the larger Information Technology (IT) department (and it seems they all want their stuff first!). I've successfully managed those other teams' expectations (and schedules) so that our part of the larger projects happen in the right order, and with the right scope (amount of work that we do, and amount we specifically *don't* do).
It's all been very personally rewarding! I'm making a real difference. I'm making *many* things happen. I'm honing a variety of my skills, including personal interaction, influencing, agility, and others. I've even developed an agile practice so well that I'm considering both teaching it in the company and writing a book about it.
And in a way it's a bit bizarre. The project manager, who many years ago was the one coordinating the efforts in our team and for whom I was turning out results, is now taking direction from me and cranking out results based on *my* requests! When I interviewed here, I was told that strange changes like that happen in this kind of dynamic environment; I would have never guessed it would happen to me!
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About Me
- Martin C. Nagel
- Martin works as an Application Developer and Technical Lead at a large manufacturing company in the Phoenix valley. In that role, he writes and maintains a quality application that checks the quality of the materials used in the manufacturing process. He has a variety of programming skills in various web, batch processing, and database languages. He has been developing computer applications professionally at five companies since graduating with his Bachelor's in Computer Information Systems from DeVry in 1985. He has additional professional interests. He participates in a variety of safety teams as an office ergonomics assessor, emergency response team leader, and safety communications. He also teaches classes about agile thinking and database unit testing. Outside of work, he occasionally teaches and performs as a middle eastern drummer, lift weights, and spends time with his wife and two daughters. He's an avid supporter of the U.S. Bill of Rights 2nd Amendment, a National Rifle Association (NRA) life member, certified NRA instructor for five NRA classes, shooting range life member, Arizona Citizens Defense League (AzCDL) member and volunteer, and runs 2nd Amendment Shop, L.L.C.
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