I got hired as a project manager to oversee the 5 programmers on a massive project once. Their previous “supervisor” was the owner/ceo with NO technical background for about 14 months.
Every single feature and block of code was written in 30% the time it should have been given. The ceo had no idea the technical debt he was creating until it was too late.
The day I came aboard any new feature or change that could be completed in 100% standard time needed 200%+ the standard time to account for the shortcuts taken over the previous 14 months.
How did you approach your role as PM, aware of the tech debt but also reporting to an unaware CEO? Power through with new features at half the speed, or try to convince the CEO to allow refactoring/maintenance?
Sorry for the delayed response (no notification on mobile).
For some reason my relationship with the ceo was viewed as trusting whereas their programming team was not. I was able to get the time required (in 9 out of 10 situations) by explaining in detail why it was required.
We actually had a complete rewrite in the pipeline - an architecture written by myself - that was on the table. But they shut down before that was possible.
I don’t regret taking the position despite the frustration and difficult inherent to what I had to tackle. I got a very closeup view on technical debt that has assisted me throughout my entire career.
Every single feature and block of code was written in 30% the time it should have been given. The ceo had no idea the technical debt he was creating until it was too late.
The day I came aboard any new feature or change that could be completed in 100% standard time needed 200%+ the standard time to account for the shortcuts taken over the previous 14 months.
It was a total shit show and a half.
The company shut down 6 months later.