You just joined a company as a Project Manager and you get your first project. As an experienced PM you get straight to business by working on the project plan. This involves contributions from various stakeholders, mainly the project team. Whilst busy with the plan, you are summoned to the MD's office. On entering the office, you are immediately asked about your progress on the project. You explain your planning progress but to the MD this is not progress. He is most interested in the implementation part. He cautiouly warns you, "This environment does not need planning, we just work. Go and start actual work." What should you do to survive? Saving Changes...
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Hans RobbersSenior Director| SalesforceVlissingen, Netherlands
Samson
If you have a team at hand as you suggest, do what you always do the team will give you input and in the meanwhile starts working on the requirements gathering.
If you don't have a team bring in the business analyst to start gathering the requirements.
Your reporting should focus on what you have achieved and mention what you are working in the coming week.
In your back poccket you complete the plan and keep track on it. Make sure you keep your promises and slowly expand the plannign horizon to a month.
At a certain moment the MD will see that predicatability is comforting.
Samson,
The MD says that there is no need for planning and I wonder why he says that. Either it must be because the project team already is assigned to work tasks or that some kind of understanding of what to do is already in place (and if that is the case, what is your role?) or it must be because the MD does not have the understanding for project work and project management.
Clearly the MD does not understand the planning part, or he might have bad experience from former PMs. Make him understand the importance of the different activities that your are performing and you will probably see a different attitude. In addition, you will have to find out the expectations that you have on your role.
To survive in a profession, I think it is important that you are able to work as you believe is right and most efficient. If I were you, I would inform the MD why I need to do the planning, about how I will make sure that the project goals are reached and when he can expect to get a progress report. Saving Changes...
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Hi Samson,
I have always advocated that project managers that can manage projects well are worth their weight in silver and that project managers that can manage projects well and help an organization and the leadership team appreciate the value of project management and improve upon their project management capabilities are worth their weight in gold. I agree with the posts and approaches offered by Maria and Hans. I would only offer that for many low level of project management maturity organizations headed by executives that for years have done what they know (and not necessarily know what they are doing in a project management context), it can be very difficult to suggest a change to business as usual. There is a great deal written on situational leadership regarding readiness in terms of willingness and ability. And situational leadership is bi-directional. Though most people think of it as a manager to employee technique, situational leadership is an extremely useful tool to use in working with your peers, your boss, and the executive team. In over 30 years, I have been in your situation numerous times (too many to count) and I have found that two approaches have worked well for me and that all other approaches that I have tried don't work and become very frustrating for all parties. The two approaches are planned aggressiveness and opportunistic passiveness. Let me give you an example of each.
In the planned aggressiveness approach, you confront your boss. You schedule time on his calendar to meet. You tell him that his lack of understanding in your area of expertise is a problem and that is jeopardizing your ability to perform your duties and achieve the successful outcome needed by the company. When I use this approach, I always do this after normal business hours, preferably over dinner which I have made it clear will be on me. If not dinner, then over drinks at a nice establishment (I would recommend an upscale coffee/tea house to a bar and I would suggest non-alcoholic drinks). Be as professional as you can and take the high road in your discussions and language. There is no need to get emotional. Remind yourself that you are talking to a child. And, don't beat around the bush. Let your boss know that you are the expert and that rather than having your boss pull you down to his level of project management, you would rather pull him up to yours - for the benefit of not just your project, but your boss and the company. This approach works quite well, especially with executives that are accustomed to bullying their people and not having their position of authority questioned. The trick to being able to pull this off is to be totally prepared for the likelihood that you may get fired by your boss or that you may quit (fire your boss) if your boss refuses to consider some amount of change. Just as a boss puts an employee on notice for not performing up to their standard, you can put your boss on notice for not performing up to your standard. And, unless you see improvement from your boss (or company), you will be forced to let them go. That is, you take your talent elsewhere, to someone or an organization that can use it.
The other approach is opportunistic passiveness. In this approach, you don't try to proactively get your boss to change their business as usual approaches. That would be like teaching a pig to sing. Never do this - it wastes your time and annoys the pig. Take direction from your boss. If he wants you to jump right into project execution without ample planning, etc, go ahead and do it. Try to also plan as you go and make full use of your project management skills. When you experience execution difficulties which you no doubt will, review those difficulties with your boss. Be sure to explain, both, how you plan to over come the difficulty and to present a well articulated improvement suggestion. Don't speak in terms of lessons learned. That's old school and will be perceived by your boss as an "I told you so." Craft a well though out improvement suggestion that your boss can easily understand, agree with, and implement. Don't worry if he doesn't - you've done your job. And the next time you have another project difficulty which you will, do the same thing for that difficulty. Also, keep a log of your execution difficulties and your proposed improvement suggestions. At the appropriate time, perhaps after six months or a year, schedule a meeting with your boss to share with him your experiences to date and in the context of your initial discussions and differences at time of hire about project management. With time, your boss may be able to see the light. And should you get a new boss (whether your existing boss is promoted, moved, or fired), your experiences and improvement recommendations would be very good to share with the new managing director. This second approach works well when you are seeking to survive, would truly like to improve things, don't like the way things are, but don't have another place to go.
Samson, I hope this helps. I felt compelled to offer a few words as all of us have been in your situation and it is really frustrating and disappointing to have a "bad" manager. This is just my point of view. I hope we hear and learn from others. Saving Changes...
Elyse NielsenSenior Project Manager| Ascension Health Information ServicesHaines City, Fl, United States
Hi Samson,
It sounds like your issues are with the sponsor not your boss. Mark's recommendations are excellent for a supervisor relationship, however if this is a sponsor, I would like to recommend another approach.
It sounds like the sponsor is not understanding his or her role in the project, and just wants the work to be done. The key here is collaboration, by starting a discussion on reviewing the project plan, then moving over to the role of the sponsor and the role of the project manager. Having a sponsor exert energy to remove barriers and champion the project will have a positive benefit. It may be an excellent place to move that negative energy too.
