If you’re a product owner and want to work with a team from bespoke software development company that will develop your product, imagine the following situation. You’re a sport team coach and your task is to draft a team of players that will guarantee a victory in the championship. Who you need is a star that will lead your whole team and a ball handler guy who will turn your idea for the game into a game plan. You will also need a glue guy who will pass the ball smoothly and dominating centers who will score points. A dirty job guy may also come in handy to check whether you are turning your strategy into life. “OK, but what does sport have in common with software development”? you may ask. Not much. But it was a fun way to start this blogpost. ;)

After managing software development projects for some time, you may find it surprising how design projects can differ from them. In this article, you will find five important tips on how to survive and succeed. If you have any doubts about their usefulness – it is not only the Project Manager’s point of view, the tips gathered are the essence of my conversations with designers as well.

This post tells my story about becoming a project manager in Netguru and gives you a sort of a “recipe” how to do so.

I’m Zuzia and I work as a Project Manager at Netguru. However, my journey to get to this place was full of turning points and unexpected outcomes. With passion, determination, and the right attitude, I shifted my career to seek and follow the path I really want to take. Here are a few chapters of my story on how I became a PM without a university background in this field.

Even though we all go through the recruitment process at least several times in our careers - with various results - there’s no denying it can be really stressful and overwhelming. Even more so if it’s for a position you would really like to work in. Like with all things, coming prepared can only help you, and since I can still remember my interviews with Netguru (pretty intense - but in a good way!), I’m happy to take advantage of this opportunity to give you some insight into what we ask our candidates.

From this interview, you will learn:

Every person who has ever worked in software development can agree that estimating work is one of the key pain points in IT. Often the tasks and projects are underestimated, there are a lot of (unpleasant) surprises, the deadlines are not met, the client is stressed out, and the pressure put on the team is almost tangible.

Agile project management is still going strong in 2018, and since it’s a big part of our daily work at Netguru, we try to stay up-to-date with the best tools and techniques out there. Here’s a list we’ve compiled of the best tools for PMs, some of which we use across the company, and some, we think, do a great job in certain circumstances.

You hear a lot about scrum rituals and artifacts. People write books on how to transfer their theoretical frames into reality. Yet sometimes striving for excellence in inspecting and adapting might lead us to losing sight of the very essence of agile software delivery, which is the self-organising team. A culture of openness and creativity, which results in a true understanding of agility, can only be built based on trust and independence.

Fun fact: when I first looked at the job listing for a Project Manager at Netguru, I wasn’t sure if I would cut it. It’s that intimidating. Then I read through the offer and realised that while the skills required are quite specific, they are not rocket science. This is true for project management positions at other companies, as well.