Have you ever been part of a team run by a project manager who had no budget?  What about by someone who was cheap?  Frugal usually implies being smart or wise with your money but when was the last time you used that word to describe your PM?  Have you ever been on a project where the PM/manager/boss was willing to spend a little bit of money where it made sense?  Dual monitors/LCDs come to mind.  Which projects did you enjoy being a part of?  I bet I can guess which ones!  Read on to see what one PM (Jeffery Palermo) did to help improve his team's communications, very cool read!

Most, if not all developers are geeks at heart and they LOVE to see gadgets at play....uh.... work!  And if you have a gadget displaying something publically about the results of THEIR hard work, all the power to ya, and to them! 

Jeffery Palermo did just that!  He bought a BIG screen tv to publically dislay the results of their incremental builds.  That is AWESOME!  People involved in the project can IMMEDIATELY swing their head around and get a 10,000 foot view of the project.  Come back from lunch or coming back from coffee, immediately find out if your latest changes broke things or HELPED things!  A very cool use of money if you ask me!

I've also seen this used elsewhere.  I was lucky enough to goto Momentous/Zip.ca for a meeting recently, and they too had an LCD up on a wall, right outside the R&D boss' office displaying a 10,000' view for all to see how well (or bad) they were performing.  I'm not an employee and I can see how motivational that kind of dynamic feedback can be! 

Unfortunately bad news happens.  When it does, everyone pitches in to correct the situation!  Interesting how this one simple purchase can help motivate people.

Now you might say "oooooooo in today's economy, spending money like that is foolish!"  hhhhmmmm Spending less than $200, yes, I typed that out right, less two hundred dollars, Jeffery made a public statement about his teams committment to the ongoing success of their project!  Smart IMHO!

Take a look what Jeffery Palermo did for his team.

 

 

Resources: Jeffrey Palermo's blog link: http://jeffreypalermo.com/blog/big-visible-cruise-on-the-big-screen/