I have a junior PM who was aware of underlying issues with the project, but did not communicate this to the customer. She tried to resolve the issues behind the scenes internally with the team, but ultimately failed to resolve the issue and only shared the bad news with the customer at the due date. Unsurprisingly, the customer was extremely angry and demanded to change the PM due to loss of trust in her abilities.
What would be your advice in handling this type of situation? Saving Changes...
Sam MotesManager II Business Sys, Operational Excellence| BA Systems Inc.Ellenton, Fl, United States
I agree with Andrew, Kiron and others that transparency is key exeuted through solid communication and stakeholder management. Hard lesson learned but communication and stakeholder management are core responsibility of the PM. If that would have been done along with the behind the scenes hard work the PM could be seen as a hero now rather than a problem. The bigger question is if a corporate culture of fear helped lead to this failure or just poor training or exeuction by a junior PM. Saving Changes...
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
I personally always involve the client / customer from the beginning when there are issues because they might have a different point of view of how to solve things and in many cases they might help you solve the problems because you and them are in the same boat so Integrity and Transparency are key to managing stakeholders. Saving Changes...
Kimberly McCoyProject Manager| TekSystems - ContractorZanesville, Oh, United States
Aug 21, 2019 10:10 PM
Replying to George Freeman
...
Accepting responsibility for the misstep and assuring the customer that you have taken steps to prevent this from occurring again in the future would be number one. A junior PM who is interfacing directly with a customer needs a Sr. PM guiding them until they have proven themselves responsible and mature enough to work independently.
Missteps happen and most customers are understanding when they see accountability and of course have a direct remedy to the issue of concern.
I completely agree with this.
Another thing too, is make this a learning experience. It seems obvious that this person a.) either did not know this was expected, as s/he is a junior PM, or b.) tried to hide the fact that the project was failing. Either way training may help elevate some of the headaches this has caused and prevent them from occurring in the future. Saving Changes...
To add to Tarik comment, you need to figure out the reasons the PM choose not to tell the client, inform some senior person. PM need management support, junior or not, if they don't feel confident about that, they won't communicate creating a similar problem.
There is an organization behind the PM, the client did hire the PM but the organization.
An informed client is usually cooperative and might even give a solution.
...
1 reply by Bob Thomas
Aug 23, 2019 10:03 AM
Bob Thomas
...
"An informed client is usually cooperative and might even give a solution."
An excellent point!
Saving Changes...
Wade HarshmanScrum Master| GDITIndianapolis, In, United States
Communicate early & often.
Bad news doesn't get better with age. Saving Changes...
I've seen this a few times with new PMs. It's often because they were afraid to communicate bad news. Some responsibility falls on their manager, because the manager should have made it clear that the bad news is not the fault of the PM (usually), but something that happens in projects.
Hopefully the rookie PM will learn the lesson and be better prepared for the next time this happens. Saving Changes...
To add to Tarik comment, you need to figure out the reasons the PM choose not to tell the client, inform some senior person. PM need management support, junior or not, if they don't feel confident about that, they won't communicate creating a similar problem.
There is an organization behind the PM, the client did hire the PM but the organization.
An informed client is usually cooperative and might even give a solution.
"An informed client is usually cooperative and might even give a solution."
An excellent point! Saving Changes...
Jochen ThomasProject Manager| SASSanford, Nc, United States
Work in the govt sector and have had to deliver bad news to a very senior and challenging customer base. I have found that it is always better to deliver the news early and with the right amount of supporting information.
I also strive to bring, if not a solution to the issue, as least a series of options to the customer. Saving Changes...
There's an aspect to this issue that has to be dealt with within the organization that needs to foster the importance of integrity.
The company has to ensure as part of its stakeholder management policy that it stresses the importance of accountability to an issue and that its timely communication to the sponsor for proper mitigation. More importantly, the responsibility to the customer of what the issues and concerns are with the health of the project throughout the project lifecycle. In other words, transparency and disclosure to all issues. Its difficult, but it develops an element of trust between the customer and the contractor. Saving Changes...
Kenneth AnwaraProject Manager/Compliance Officer| Parris & Sons ConstructionSpringfied MO, United States
I agree with George on the need to accept responsibility for the misstep and the importance of showing the customer that all necessary actions have been put in place to remedy the impact while making sure it does not occur again.This could involve making changes to team composition, getting all stakeholders to be on the same page, re-evaluating your implementation strategy and clearly communicating same to all.
But we should also try to know if such issue could have been avoided. This is because i feel that not all issues need to be discussed with our customers.Issues ought to be resolved at different levels depending on its nature and impact. It could be at team level, project leadership level, management level and probably involving the client.
The responsibility is now on PMs to be very conscious at which stage to raise a red flag. Saving Changes...
Community Champion
