Impact of changing priorities on projects

The situation you describe sounds much like my former workplace. Sponsors changed priorities constantly, and directly tasked my resources without telling me, yet conveniently ‘forgot’ they made decisions and performed actions that later caused problems within the project.

It sounds as if you’re in a low-authority position where you’re essentially a scapegoat – the sponsors do whatever they want, then blame the Project Manager for the project’s inevitable troubles. You have few options, but one thing you can do to protect yourself is to document everything in writing. When a sponsor does something that threatens the project, send that person an email describing the impact of their actions on the project, and cc: every relevant stakeholder. Often sponsors act irresponsibly because they think no one of consequence will be aware of their actions, but detailing them for their peers and possibly superiors to see might give the sponsors pause. At the very least you’ll have documented proof the sponsors acted against your advice if they later try to lay the blame on you.

Soha -

A project manager is a leader not a reporter. You need to escalate this concern using your influence and persuasion to try to get predictable allocation of staff to your projects.

If that cannot be accomplished, then you can't be held accountable to delivery dates.

Kiron

Soha,

yes, it is a common situation if the organization is not mature enough for running projects.

I have seen it when sponsors have different targets and there is no commitment to a joint strategy. Then they will compete and change their priorities frequently. Pet projects, politics and multitasking are often seen in this context, all signs of a dysfunctional decision process.

Shifting resources often results in their dissatisfaction and attrition of staff and a lack of respect into management.

The individual sponsor might even not be able or willing to change this.

I saw following risk mitigations:
- contract external resources 100% to your project, so you have some leverage
- beyond that: move the project out of the office
- empower the sponsor by making his/her commitment public (put a copy of the charter / project canvas with a picture on the office wall) and report a metric on it
- subdivide your project in chunks, shorter durations, try to make it a series of sprints, not a marathon
- engage with sponsor community, maybe you can find 2-3 more sponsors for your one project
- identify the few bottleneck resources for your project and make sure you fight for them, get their commitment and protect them - you cannot do that for all resources probably

Good luck, and beware of becoming a scapegoat
Thomas

Soha,
this is typical portfolio management task.
Scheduling project portfolio we take into account project priorities and existing resource constraints. If moving resources from one project to another is required and is profitable the decision is taken on the portfolio level. As the result the planned dates of individual projects are also moved.
If the results of the portfolio scheduling will be authorized you will get new project baseline that includes new target dates and resource plans.

Hi Eric,

Thanks for your input.