Project Management

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PM with no Team, resources belong to other management

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John Scott Project Manager| World Synergy Warren, Oh, United States
Good Day everyone,

I am having some struggles with Managing projects that I do not have direct access with the resources completing the task. and Lack of communication for things being done and not being done

Ideas to overcome are welcome.
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John Scott Project Manager| World Synergy Warren, Oh, United States
Thank you all for your Insight. I appreciate it. There has been plenty of good feedback.
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John Scott Project Manager| World Synergy Warren, Oh, United States
Jan 23, 2020 6:44 PM
Replying to Deepesh Rammoorthy
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PM Is not a scapegoat and a catch all . They are human beings that live and breathe like anyone else .
They have a voice . They need to speak up and ruffle the feathers or cut their losses and move on .
I would suggest speaking up in this instance, getting stakeholders together or Speaking to your sponsor like Thomas suggested . You have impediments and you have to deliver the work that you are hired to do. So rattle the cages as much as you can.
If all attempts fail , update your resume because Project Management is too valuable a skill to waste in a Weak matrix.
I ensure you that my Resume is always kept to date. Never know when the next great opportunity arises.
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Luis Branco CEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, Ldª Carcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Dear John
Interesting your question
Thanks for sharing

I only see one possible solution
Sell the project to managers (who decides) and, as a result, obtain the people and resources necessary for its completion

Try to do this work through personal contacts, firstly separately and then with decision makers together

Request sponsor support
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Mushtaq Abdulrahimzai SWIS| Surrey Schools District 36 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
great feedback provided, I will just add that more coordination and more communication need to be done.
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Adrian Carlogea Australia
Jan 23, 2020 5:35 PM
Replying to Rami Kaibni
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John

Our colleagues here provided great feedback so here are my comments, nothing much for me to add:

Thomas: Spot on feedback and solid recommendations, totally agree.

Adrian:I hear you but I think it has to do more with the organizational structure more than the size.

RK
Hi Rami,

I think the size of the project does play a role. I have seen functional departments in which a large share if not most of the work was performed as projects. These projects were relatively small taking a few months to complete and not requiring a lot of people or huge budgets. The members of the functional departments were working simultaneously on two or more projects.

In the above scenario I think it is very inefficient to have dedicated project teams for each project and each team member to be dedicated to a single project. You would need much more staff for this to happen and also a lot of team members would be doing nothing for days and days.Sharing the resources between projects would be very hard.

In my opinion the best way to execute these projects is by using the functional organization. I have seen some organizations creating functional projects teams inside the functional department. For example one company has divided its Windows team in two teams: Windows Operations and Windows Projects. A functional projects team deals with many projects at a time and is under the control of the functional manager.

Dedicated projects teams are efficient only in major projects in which you need team members for long periods of time and you can fill their work time.

So I think the size of the projects does play a role in choosing the type of organization. In practice a hybrid is being used according to the type of work. But even in large projects with dedicated teams usually the team members, if they are permanent employees, belong to other management and don't report to the PM.

So as the PM you must be able to handle projects when the team members don't directly report to you. This is probably the most frequent case.
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1 reply by Rami Kaibni
Jan 26, 2020 5:34 PM
Rami Kaibni
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Adrian, I hear your point and do not disagree. What you said also mostly revolves around the organizational structure. I think we are on the same page.
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Rami Kaibni
Community Champion
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten Associates New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Jan 25, 2020 8:47 AM
Replying to Adrian Carlogea
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Hi Rami,

I think the size of the project does play a role. I have seen functional departments in which a large share if not most of the work was performed as projects. These projects were relatively small taking a few months to complete and not requiring a lot of people or huge budgets. The members of the functional departments were working simultaneously on two or more projects.

In the above scenario I think it is very inefficient to have dedicated project teams for each project and each team member to be dedicated to a single project. You would need much more staff for this to happen and also a lot of team members would be doing nothing for days and days.Sharing the resources between projects would be very hard.

In my opinion the best way to execute these projects is by using the functional organization. I have seen some organizations creating functional projects teams inside the functional department. For example one company has divided its Windows team in two teams: Windows Operations and Windows Projects. A functional projects team deals with many projects at a time and is under the control of the functional manager.

Dedicated projects teams are efficient only in major projects in which you need team members for long periods of time and you can fill their work time.

So I think the size of the projects does play a role in choosing the type of organization. In practice a hybrid is being used according to the type of work. But even in large projects with dedicated teams usually the team members, if they are permanent employees, belong to other management and don't report to the PM.

So as the PM you must be able to handle projects when the team members don't directly report to you. This is probably the most frequent case.
Adrian, I hear your point and do not disagree. What you said also mostly revolves around the organizational structure. I think we are on the same page.
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Daire Guiney Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Dear John,

Is this your project or did you inherit it from another project manager? Sometimes badly handled hand over meetings can lead to the scenario you just described. Again this comes back to defined roles and responsibilities with everybody knowing their job and their place on the team and going about performing their function. For project managers it is important to have everything in writing so that there is no disputing the facts whether its between team members or externally between suppliers and external resources. Seek clarification from your superiors what exactly is your role and responsibilities and seek how about your going about preforming your job. Nobody whats to be a zombie project manager with all the titles but not the ability to do your job. Also check with your HR department what exactly is your recorded role and associated responsibilities, who your line manager is and what is the mechanism for escalating up. The more senior people becoming in an organisation the less likely they will use their HR department for solving internal issues as they see it as a loss of power and status if they have to use them. I would say that this is the HR's function and as project managers our job is to make the best use of all available resources at hand to do our job. I hope this helps.

Daire
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