Preparation of technical specifications for your web project. Test task for the vacancy of a content manager Selection of an object and ideas

I continue to post my impressions of interviews in IT offices in Moscow to the position of project manager. For those who did not read mine, I remind you that I was looking for a job as a project manager in IT. In this post, I plan to finish writing about my impressions, including writing about the companies that the visit to which caused me negative emotions.

Large grocery company. At first, she did not respond to my responses for a long time, which was explained by the beginning of the financial year, I wrote about such features in finding a job in. After the budget was approved, company K showed unprecedented speed, not typical of such monsters. It looks like I'm not the only one. My friend recently went to her for an interview, he also received an answer within a couple of days. (For the sake of fairness, it should be said that there are also reverse examples.) In principle, the interview at company K did not remember anything remarkable for me, they correctly talked about my experience, talked about their projects. The only interesting point is that I was asked about my education and asked in detail about my long-abandoned scientific activity. In addition, like everywhere else, there is also no cream for corporate coffee here, but hr treated me from personal stocks 🙂 The office of the company is freshly renovated, all floors are made similar to each other and have not yet had time to acquire individual features, so get lost in it like nothing to do. There is one more base. When you arrive for an interview, you are given a free guest parking pass, and during the conversation it is said that the office has a parking lot. However, office parking costs 6000 rubles per month, which is quite decent. A good illustration of the joke "do not confuse tourism with immigration." One of the interesting advantages is that the company has its own small fitness center on the territory of the office, which is free for employees.

Company S.

An expanding startup that was extremely interesting for me to communicate with. First, the place where he sits. In the center of Moscow, on the territory of the former Krasny Oktyabr chocolate factory, the Moscow government provides start-ups with a free coworking space. It looks like a huge gym, around the perimeter of which there are conference rooms. The entire hall is filled with tables, with workers sitting at them. As it should be for people in the fashion profession (start-ups), almost everyone sits behind poppies. Offhand, I would estimate the share of the apple company at 90% of the total number of personal computers in this institution. It's funny that startups are limited in funds, but show-offs in the form of apple company products are more expensive. The second interesting point is the advancement of the founders in terms of using cloud technologies. No Exchange and other monsters, only Google Calendar. The only place where I received an invitation to a rally from the calendar. Third moment. There are many who want to work in the office. The published vacancy has collected more than 100 responses in a few days. In order to cut off part of the people, they immediately give out a test task. According to the assurances of the person who interviewed me, about half immediately refuse to do it with the wording “such a task is a paid consultation that you want to get for free” or simply “no time”, another quarter starts doing and quits, and only the remaining 25% send a fully completed test . Of these, they choose who to invite and who not. Fourth moment. At the interview stage, you have to dive deep into the future work, since the test task and the first interview are followed by the second task, as a result of which they are invited to the next round, where only a few people from the initial 100+ responses pass. As a result, by the time the money is discussed, you already know whether the proposed job will be interesting to you or not. Fifth moment. The organizers of such enterprises are interesting people, it is simply interesting to talk with them. For example, the basic principle of issuing options is the business criticality of a person, and not his position. A good programmer might get an option, but a CFO might not because it's easier to replace him. It seems obvious, but I hadn't thought about it before.

Company X

I don't even know what letter to call it correctly. The office is part of a large holding. The company writes on behalf of one name, sits in the office of another, calls itself in a conversation by a third name and plans to rebrand into a fourth one. In a word, "Russian search engine", as they are also called. I got to the interview by accident, because when I was invited by phone, they forgot to announce the position name, and I came to the Product Manager interview, instead of the Project Manager. After answering the question "What do you want to do?" you could say goodbye. The impression is twofold. On the one hand, a girl from the personnel department, who is well versed in the product and the subject of conversation, and on the other hand, the head of development, who cannot clearly say in which direction and how they plan to develop. In short, they have been developing technology for a long time, and now they are thinking how to take off with all this goodness. And so as not to resemble a Yandex clone.

Company Z.

Well-known developer of toys for tablets and smartphones. The office is remembered for the fact that it seems to work with all the recruitment agencies in Moscow. I got calls from 6 different places about their vacancy, asking the same questions and trying to hide the original employer. Apparently, they invite all candidates who fall under the request of the Project Manager with English. In my opinion, this behavior is slightly strange, but who will understand igrodelov. Interestingly, do recruitment agencies like this behavior of a partner? In principle, I don’t work out with the gamedev industry. In my entire life, I have been interviewed twice in similar firms that develop toys, and both times I was refused further communication at the first stage, after communicating with hr. So it happened this time. In fact, I was supposed to be interviewed by a personnel officer together with one of the founders, but the founder was suddenly (!) busy planning the next sprint and did not come. The girl from HR was a representative of the type of interviewer who expects an absolutely accurate answer to her question, which she knows in advance. Any deviation from the ideal that seems to her is perceived as a wrong option. After a few formal questions, I was given a life case with a large number of parameters that took place in this office some time ago. I did not guess the exact set of actions that were actually done, which I was informed about, and rather impolitely. The funny thing is that as a result of their “correct decision”, the released toy turned out to be far from being as successful as they wanted 🙂 Then we talked a little about the weather and said goodbye. From the funny - this negotiation was without the usual chairs, there were only ottomans in it. Creative people, what can I say.

V company.

Outstaffing recruitment agency. In reality, I was supposed to work in a bank, and I would have been officially registered in the V agency with a further promise to be re-registered in a bank. In terms of design, the option is so-so. There are fewer social benefits, vacation days are lost when moving to a new place, the bank itself does not owe you anything, and in which case it is easy to fire you. I had time and, despite the listed disadvantages, I came to talk. The agency feels like a streaming system, no individual approach. Interviews are taking place in a large room, divided by low walls into small meeting rooms. The walls are low so you can hear what's going on around you. In addition, everyone is given to fill out a questionnaire, with a bunch of questions that are relatively related to the work of a project manager. For example, “What category of license do you have?”, “How much driving experience do you have?”, “Are you ready to use your car for work?” etc. All this looks like an office focused on the employment of students and not very skilled temporary workers, and not as a place to hire IT specialists. After talking without any special mood with the personnel officer, after a while I received an answer that the bank had already compiled a pool of candidates for interviews and would choose from them, and that my candidacy did not have time to get into this pool. All things considered, this answer didn't upset me at all. This concludes my description of my impressions of the interviews. In the next post I will talk about the questions that I was asked in the interview.

Technical task(TOR) is a description of the requirements for the system and the system itself, a document according to which the Customer evaluates the finished system. According to GOST 34.602-89, the TOR is the main document that defines the requirements and procedure for creating (development or modernization) of an information system, in accordance with which its development and acceptance are carried out when put into operation.

TK - a set of documents that the "Customer" presents to the "Contractor" to perform work on the creation of an Internet resource. The success of the implementation of a course or diploma project directly depends on how correctly, specifically and in detail the drafted TOR, how students will follow the TOR when working on a project. Actually, this is the TK itself, the calendar plan and cost estimates. We create TOR as close as possible to a real project, the calendar plan mobilizes students for implementation. As for the cost estimate, in our case it depends on the teacher. The terms of reference will actually determine the entire course of the implementation of the diploma or course project. A more detailed plan for the implementation of the project will be determined by the project manager, in MS Project. More details on working with MS Project are described in "laboratory work 1".

1. Who prepares the TK.

In a real project, the TOR is prepared by the "Customer" together with the "Contractor". In our case, the role of the "Customer" is a teacher or a structural unit of the university - a department, laboratory or faculty. An outside "Customer" - an enterprise or firm, it is desirable to have a team for the completion of a graduation project.

2. The choice of the topic of the course or graduation project.

General principles for the formation of the theme of the project.

2.1 Goals, tasks.

When choosing a topic, you should be guided by the following principles:

A) Take the topics of projects from the reality around you, then it will be much easier for you to develop TK;

B) Carefully work out the main functions of the project;

C) Remember there are more automation objects around than you imagine;

E) Measure the capabilities of your team, with the volume and timing of the project;

E) The project should fit on a typical web architecture.

2.2 Choice of object and idea.

For instance:

Registration and accounting of software products supplied as part of the MSDN AA library.

MSDN Academic Alliance

The MSDN AA program is aimed at technical departments and allows you to get legal versions of Microsoft software products for a nominal fee. (An annual subscription costs 14,000 rubles.) You get almost the entire range of Microsoft software products for the department, with one exception, Microsoft Office is not included in the delivery. Also, you may not use these products for commercial purposes.

The essence of the problem is that software products come on CD / DVD discs without any systematization, in a variety of languages. Department staff, except for the person authorized to run the MSDN AA program, have no idea what has come. The task is further complicated by the fact that many discs contain 3-4 software products. Employees of your department are dispersed in two or three buildings.

2.3 Statement of the problem.

Create a database of MSDN AA software products.

1. Name, code and basis for execution

"System of registration and accounting of software products supplied as part of the MSDN AA library" (System)

Code: 134/U

Basis for development: Ordinance for the department of OSU "Themes of course projects in programming, 3rd year students, specialty "Information systems in economics"

2. Purpose of execution

Formation and maintenance of an up-to-date database of the MSDN AA library, to ensure the educational process and conduct research work / UIRS;
Development of technology for filling the database in online mode (manual) and batch using a barcode scanner;
Development of a web interface for access to user database;
Development of a database search system, no more than three sections - for example, search for DBMS, OS and software development tools for 2008;
Development of the database structure and approval of the database structure is formalized by a separate protocol by all members of the development team;
Development of a web interface for entering software products into the database and removing them from the database;
Development of the main page menu and website design.

3. Technical requirements

Develop a system "Registration and accounting of software products supplied as part of the MSDN AA library" in the VSTS -2008 environment, using all its components;
C# development language, MS SQL-2005 database management system;
Provide remote access to the database of teachers and staff of the department, use the Internet as a data transmission medium;
Provide protection against unauthorized access.

4. Functional requirements.

The system should provide the following functions for creating and maintaining a database:

Present to the user the library catalog by product class, it is desirable to use the Microsoft structure; (Operating systems, DBMS, development tools, etc.)
Database web interfaces should have popup product directories:
1. Cataloging dates should be entered automatically;
2. Filling in the database, applications for issuing a software disk, must be identified with the user registration system;
Operating modes:
1. View
2. Search (by class, company, name, license, year of manufacture
3. Adding new software. (by company, class, name, etc. - only administrator) A template is displayed for entering.
4. Create a new class or type of software product (administrator only).
5. Editing (administrator only)

Recently, we have been posting a lot of vacancies about finding developers (just in case, you can familiarize yourself with them) and it may seem that we do not need project managers at all.
This is not true. Needed. And very.
And it is not at all necessary that we need a manager who has ten years of experience in managing projects with a distributed team of 100 developers, who knows all project management methodologies by heart and who can communicate with customers with the power of thought.

We are happy to hire a trainee who wants to learn all this in the future.

So let's start with the requirements:
- understanding the specifics of project management;
- be able to take responsibility and be responsible for the result;
- the ability to work in a team or at least find a common language with other people;
- the ability to quickly respond to changes and find the right solutions;
- have their own point of view and be able to defend it;
- ability to work with large volumes of information;
- Knowledge of English will be a good advantage.

And let's move on to the pros and prospects:
- work in a company of people focused on results;
- the opportunity to gain experience working on various projects: web, mobile, Smart-TV;
- the opportunity to gain experience working with customers from top companies in Udmurtia and Russia. The list of clients can be seen on our website, and these are only those that we can talk about :);
- the possibility of career growth and change of occupation (try yourself as an analyst, account and even a developer).

Working conditions:
- official employment, social package;
- cozy office in the city center;
- unique TsVTshnaya atmosphere ^_^;
- a decent salary, which is discussed individually based on the results of the interview and depends on the knowledge and experience of the candidate.

A few words about the interview itself.
Interviews are not as scary as many might think. You will only need to be able to maintain a conversation with us: answer questions and, in turn, ask them to us.

It is a mistake to compare an interview with an exam at a university, when you can not prepare and “talk about a good grade”. It will be great if you are prepared. In this case, we will have something to talk about. If you remain silent and we will pull answers to questions from you with ticks, then most likely we are not on our way.

Just reading about project management before an interview is not enough. You need to complete a test task. We will consider it a kind of “entrance ticket”, which will show both your interest in the vacancy and give us a little idea about you.
We recommend that you take the test task seriously. From how you do it, we will decide whether we should spend time with each other.

Test:
1) A small but very interesting project came to the company from a customer with whom we have been successfully working for a long time. The project is very important for the customer and he is ready to pay good money for it. There are no free developers, everyone is busy with other projects, but I don’t want to lose a good client and an interesting project. How will you act in such a situation?

2) It is necessary to imagine such a situation.
You recently completed a very challenging project:
- the project was started before you by another manager;
- the terms of reference contained many ambiguous provisions;
- the project hardly fit into the budget;
- Difficult relationship with the customer at the stage of project delivery.

But the customer comes in 2 months later with a request to do another project together, and he expressed a desire to work with you as a project manager.
Outline your initial actions before and during the start of the project.

3) Imagine the situation:
You are a project manager where:
- the customer delays payment within the last three months;
- the most experienced and, accordingly, highly paid specialists are employed on the project;
- your manager plans to suspend the development of the project in the company if the debt is not liquidated within two weeks.
At the same time, you have developed a fairly trusting relationship with the customer, and on the recommendation of this customer, new customers come to the company.

What should be done in this situation? And write the text of the letter to the customer, as you see it.

You are working on a website promotion project. Two weeks after the start of work, you showed the client new optimized texts for his site. But the client did not like them. I didn't like the second edition either. Says it's not well written. After that, the client said that he would write texts for himself on the site. You agreed. A week later, no texts. You check with the client the deadline for writing. He promises within a week. But he didn't write again. So you have a project without texts in work for 1.5 months. You cannot delay the deadlines and postpone the placement of texts. Otherwise, you risk that you will not achieve the promised result within the approved time frame.

Describe the solution to the problem in detail.

Task number 2

The customer is late in paying the planned advance invoice for the promotion. According to the contract, payment must be made every month by the 15th day. You billed in advance, even on the 7th.

During the first three reminders on the phone, the client said that he did not receive the bill and asked him to send it again. The last time he simply promised to pay within a day or two. Today is the 29th. There is no payment.

How will you do it?

Task with an asterisk

You are an account manager in a website promotion project. 5 months after the start of work, due to the update of search engine algorithms, the project did not reach the planned positions. The client asks to return the money for 5 months of work.

The contract does not provide for a refund. On the contrary, it explicitly states that funds already spent on work will not be returned. And the client agreed to these terms.

But now he needed money and he insists on the return of all payments. This is motivated by the fact that since the planned result is not achieved, then you should not have received payment for the work performed. Threats that he will send a letter to all customers of the company, which will present your company in a negative light. Says "I'll write that you threw."

Refunds are not possible. How do you explain to an excited customer that he should not do this?