For Your Own Good

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Communications Management   Talent Management  

I’m not sure that I should be writing this article. Part of me feels that I am exposing the dark underbelly of project management--politics is seen as a dirty word in PM circles, and there’s a little voice inside of me that says that readers won’t have the same respect for my articles if I admit to using politics to my own advantage in managing projects.

Then there is the other voice inside of me that says that I shouldn’t be writing this article because I am giving away all of my secrets. That voice is concerned that I won’t be able to be as effective in the future if I reveal the political tricks that I use to help me become successful.

But I’m going to ignore all of those voices (and maybe I should be more concerned about telling you that I have voices in my head!) and press on anyway…

The fundamentals
When I first started my career, someone described project management to me as “management without authority”. That still rings very true for me today--many of the resources are assigned to projects on a temporary basis and continue to report to other line managers. Sponsors and stakeholders often hold senior positions within the organization and the PM has no positional authority over them.

And yet sometimes those stakeholders are determined to try to turn the project to their own advantage--to satisfy…

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