How to Deal with Difficult People on Software Projects
Product Managers
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The Dictator A Product Manager that rejects any idea that did not come from them. Read More...
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The Sales Liaison A Product Manager who is only concerned with meeting the demands of the sales team, giving no thought to a holistic product vision. Read More...
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The Executive Assistant A Product Manager who only documents what the stakeholders have asked for, but denies access to the stakeholders, such that requirements cannot be negotiated. Read More...
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The Napkin Sketcher A Product Manager whose requirements are so vague that the development team must fill in the gaps, only to be told their decisions were incorrect. Read More...
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The Scope Wiggler A Product Manager who bypasses change control and impact analysis by presenting a big requirements change as a series of small changes distributed over time. Read More...
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The Patent Author A Product Manager who produces such a high volume of requirements documentation that it creates a barrier to adapting to change, as the documentation must be kept up to date. Read More...
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The Scope Creeper A Product Manager who increases the scope of a project while keeping the delivery date the same. Read More...
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The People Pleaser A Product Manager who believes their core job responsibility is to seek concessions and compromises between the development teams and stakeholders. Read More...
Designers
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The Note Taker A Designer who is relegated to doing nothing more than documenting the ideas of others. Read More...
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The Disenfranchised A Designer who feels they are powerless to influence the design of the project, and therefore are not providing design direction. Read More...
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The Professor A Designer so committed to the science and theory of user interface design, that they ignore the UI requirements coming from the stakeholders. Read More...
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The Artist A Designer who is more concerned with how the product looks and feels than if it does anything useful for the end user. Read More...
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The Distrusted A Designer who has lost all credibility with the project team, leading to their UI requirements being ignored as they are deemed to be not in the products’ best interest. Read More...
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The Blueprinter A Designer who specifies every detail of the UI to such a fine level of specification that there is no leeway for developers to choose alternative implementations that can reduce development time. Read More...
Project Managers
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The Meeting Scheduler A Project Manager who believes all project problems are caused through a lack of communication and coordination, and that copious amounts of meetings are the solution. Read More...
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The Statistician A Project Manager who is only concerned with establishing lists and checking items off, regardless of what those items are. Read More...
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The Delusional A Project Manager so out of touch with the realities of the project, that they are representing falsehoods to the stakeholders. Read More...
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The Pessimist A Project Manager that has concluded that the project will fail, cannot be convinced otherwise, and is vocal about their belief. Read More...
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The Optimist A Project Manager that has convinced themselves of project success regardless of evidence to the contrary. Read More...
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The Cheerleader A Project Manager who focuses on making sure everyone on the project is happy, rather than if the project will be successful. Read More...
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The Tyrant A Project Manager that treats project members with contempt in the name of motivating them to work harder. Read More...
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The Process Obsessed A Project Manager so obsessed with process, they forget their job is to help the project be successful. Read More...
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The Hoverer A Project Manager who believes that constantly asking for status keeps people focused on completing their tasks. Read More...
Development Managers
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The Formerly Technical A Development Manager who was a software Developer as some point in their past, leading them to believe their technical opinion in still relevant with today’s technology. Read More...
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The Non-Technical A Development Manager with no technical knowledge, and are therefore out of their depth when managing developers. Read More...
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The Ladder Climber A Development Manager with ambitions to advance their career, and sees their development team only as a means to do so. Read More...
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The Peacemaker A Development Manager who believes arguments are counterproductive, and therefore works to suppress debate of any kind. Read More...
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The Wants-to-be-Technical A Development Manager who wishes to return to the life of coding, after discovering that the life of a Development Manager is not for them. Read More...
Developers
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The Rockstar A Developer so talented, so productive, so essential that if they were to leave, the entire project would collapse. Read More...
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The Aspiring Manager A Developer who has decided that to escape the difficulties having to code, their career path should be one of management. Read More...
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The Bull in the China Shop A Developer so focused on getting the work done, that they completely forgo any notion of quality. Read More...
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The Diva A Developer so convinced of their irreplaceability that they adopt an attitude of arrogance that makes them impossible to manage. Read More...
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The Extreme Overestimator A Developer who has become so afraid of missing their deadlines that they ask for as much additional time as they can get away with. Read More...
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The Extreme Underestimator A Developer who consistently massively underestimates the amount of time needed to complete a task. Read More...
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The Hostage Taker A Developer who has written a piece of mission-critical software, and refuses to let any other Developer work on it so that they may remain indispensable. Read More...
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The Idealist A Developer is so obsessed with achieving architectural elegance and code perfection that they forget their job is to add business value. Read More...
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The Incompetent A Developer who lacks the intelligence or skill to do the job of writing software. Read More...
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The Soldier A Developer who does exactly what they are told without questions, regardless if it is the right thing to do. Read More...
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The Technology Enamored A Developer that is so excited to try new technologies that they will introduce them into the project regardless of if they are appropriate. Read More...
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The Legacy Maintainer A Developer whose only capability is the maintenance of legacy software, and therefore is incapable of taking on new work. Read More...
Quality Assurance
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The Firehose A QA who floods the developers with so many bug reports that they overwhelm the development team with a backlog of bugs they will never close. Read More...
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The Blamer A QA who accuses the developers of not testing their work whenever they find a bug. Read More...
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The Alarmist A QA who has declared that the entire product is of an unacceptable level of quality based only on their first impressions. Read More...
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The Scientist A QA who spends the majority of time documenting bugs, rather than finding new bugs. Read More...
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The Misleader A QA who often reports bugs inaccurately, leading the Developer down the wrong path as they attempt to reproduce and fix the problem. Read More...
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The Downtrodden A QA who has been beaten down by developers to the point that they hardly report any bugs for fear of Developer bullying. Read More...
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The Random Clicker A QA who looks for bugs by simply clicking on whatever they feel like. Read More...
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The Flippant A QA whose bug reports are so passive aggressive that developers interpret them as being rude. Read More...