Everything I've seen about project management ignores one critical element...the humans who must participate in whatever project management plan is foisted upon them. If you doubt me, read the websites yourself. Look at the terminology: metrics, graphs, charts, statistics. There's no room for people, no passion, no incentive for excelling just because it's the right thing to do. How can those of us who are crushed and suffocating beneath a PM who insists on one spreadsheet after another, one project plan after another, one metric after another supposed to find our way? I need advice desperately. If I cannot somehow come to terms with a style of PM that makes me sick to my stomach, I'm going to have to leave my company, and I do NOT want to do that. Please help. Saving Changes...
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Warwick KowalczykEngineering Manager| Scentre GroupNorth Ryde, Nsw, Australia
I know what you mean - "what about the people element of projects?" Sometimes it seems that you can't get any of this material unless you have a psycology degree.
Gantthead has a good section on workforce management which might be a good starting point for you:
It sounds pretty serious if your thinking of resigning of your job because of another individual. I'm sure that you're seeking advice from other corners as well as this forum. And I'm sure you're getting both ends of the spectrum from "situations like this are character building - stick at it" to "life is to short to be miserable. You best move on - there are plenty more fish in the sea."
If I were in your position I'd try to start anticipating the kinds of things your manager needs and have them ready instantly. It sounds like they like metrics and doco so get this part of the house in order. Saving Changes...
Dave PriorTrainer/Consultant| LeadingAgileNew York, Ny, United States
I agree with you, there is not nearly enough play given to training PMs in the soft arts and managing their way through situations like the ones you describe.
When I am teaching PMs, one of the things I always recommend is Sun Tzu's The Art of War. It has a wealth of information to offer in terms of how to assess situations, create opportunities and make sure you have positioned yourself and your project for success. There are lots of translations of the material and it has been applied to just about everything, but I tend to suggest PMs steer clear of the more military-centric ones. (I've listed a few of my favorite translations below.)
The key to being able to apply it is realizing that war can be looked at as nothing more than "aggressive negotiations" (as the Jedi say). What we do as PMs every day is negotiate with the people around us and the work before us to try to make things happen that would probably not happen on their own. The rules Sun Tzu lays out can all be applied and, if practiced, can become as valuable as any other tool in your arsenal.
RL Wing - The Art of Strategy The overview at the start of each chapter provides great insight
Gary Gagliardi - Sun Tzu's The Art of War Plus Its Amazing Secrets Gagliardi goes into this stuff pretty deep and does an awesome job of breaking down things like the five measures and how they work.
Best of luck with it.
Dave
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Robert ProlProject Manager| KPMG LLPEast Sandwich, Ma, United States
The Art of War for soft-side skills?
Here are a few books to get you started:
Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman - know yourself first
It's All Politics by Kathleen Kelly Reardon - learn how politics shape an organization
Primal Leadership by... I forget the author name - know how to access peoples' emotional centers to get them to perform
I completed a Masters in Leadership from TESC.edu. The soft skills you learn in a program like this are perfect for project management. Saving Changes...
The reality is that a very large chunk of the project management is concerned about the human factor. The problem is that the project management deals with a lot of ‘unknowns’, deploy a new product, form a new team, juggle some commitments that are pretty much ‘carved in stone’ while you will never have ‘perfect’ information and so on…
I am not trying to excuse the PM you deal with but the reality is that many people try to avoid dealing with this unknown by hiding behind stats and reports.
Naturally, emotions do flare and objectivity goes down the drain… with this any opportunity to solve the issue at hand is compromised too.
There are not many ways to deal with a situation like this… in my experience, the best way is to get the issue out in the open and try to deal with it as calmly.
I would start from the facts:
- Adding too much overhead with reports, stats and so on will damage the project’s bottom line because it will take from the time that should be spent on the project’s deliverable(s).
- This also damages the team’s morale decreasing the creativity and efficiency.
I would also ask for the reasons for those reports, stats, plans, and so on. You are a member of the team and entitled to know the project’s details. Knowing the reasons will put you in a position to suggest better ways to accomplish what was intended.
Maybe some words about creativity in projects are necessary… We all need to remember that the project is a commitment to implement a product at exactly the specifications required by the customer, observing the quality and grade parameters. In this context, creativity means identifying the most efficient ways to attain the project objectives and produce the deliverables. Creativity does not mean “gold plating” or adding more features to the product, etc. However, these creative thoughts should not just be thrown away. The project needs to have a clearly agreed channel to communicate these suggestions to the customer, having the benefits clearly associated with the costs (time, money, etc.) to add them to the project scope. This change control will help everybody on the team understand what can and what cannot be included in the project and why.
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Dave PriorTrainer/Consultant| LeadingAgileNew York, Ny, United States
Primal Leadership is also a Daniel Goleman book.
The Art of War has volumes to offer in the way of soft skills - using them well just take some practice. But, in terms of learning how to develop the ability to create situations which favor your desired outcome, understanding how to make the best use of your strengths and weaknesses within a given environment and how to enable the people you interact with to be motivated in a way that supports your desired outcome, the book is an amazing source.
d
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Richard HowProgramme Management Consultant| How Associates LtdHarthill, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom
from your brief description it sounds to me like your PM is struggling. This could be either because they are feeling out of their depth and feeling like the project is running away from them. or because they are very inexperienced and they are desperately trying to prove themselves to their boss. The constant stream of requests for metrics / spreadsheets / reports indicates that they feel there is something they dont know or havent got control of. Try sitting down with them and asking for an overview of the control metrics they want to use for the project so that you can see how it all fits together. If they are difficult to approach then try brushing their ego a bit by asking if they could spend some time sharing their knowledge and experience with you by running you through te way they control the project with all the different spreadsheets and metrics. They will feel they have impressed you and you will get to hopefully see the logic behind the requests they are making. Maybe then you can move forward and carefully show them areas where you could be of more help without indicating that its because they are failing in that area.
sometimes a little ego brushing goes a long way Saving Changes...
"This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy."
