Although not quite as literal a Borg as I’ve been in recent times. I am now finished with my second official week as a Microsoft vendor and I’m pleased to say that I feel like I’m pretty much ramped up an part of “the team”. It’s been very interesting to see the other side of software development and all of the planning and fore-thought that goes into deciding how software should work and accounting for the fringe cases in any process.
PM work is actually far from what I had expected. Most of my days are spent in various meetings discussing the users experience and how to accomplish business goals while staying within the timeframes assigned to the development phase of software creation. I’m also spending a lot of time working on Visio diagrams, workflows, and documenting functional specifications.
Much of the work I’m doing with the functional specifications and documentation could be considered “grunt work” for a Program Manager, but it’s great experience. Every single day so far I’ve come home from work and not merely felt like I’ve accomplished something, but also that I’ve learned something.
This is really the biggest way that my newfound career differs from my old recruiting ways. I feel like I’m making a difference, even if that difference is for Volume Licensing software rather than consumer software (which is my long term goal).
On a less work related topic I’m suffering from incredible allergies today and really am in a rather bad mood because of it. Now that I finally have a weekend to relax (Mind Camp 2.0 was wonderful, but didn’t really give me a chance to take a load off) I’m taking full advantage of it and catching up on my personal life. I’m blogging, watching movies, and spending some quality time with Skype.
Speaking of quality time with Skype I’m off to take him to the dog park. Ciao!
