How do you NOT take ownership of something that is NOT your problem?
Going to delve into the darker side of project management for a bit here…
Here’s the scenario: Client project manager misses a date or deliverable on their side. It is 100% their fault. They try and shift the blame to you and your team in order to save face with their company. They do this through status reports that aren’t entirely accurate to management (both theirs and yours), halfway truths, and details that are left out.
How do you, in a professional manner, make sure this problem is not unfairly shifted to you and your team?
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John MeyersBusiness Owner| MexicoAndUSPotsdam, Ny, United States
Document everything. I use emails to confirm dates and meeting times that were verbally agreed to on the phone, etc.
It's when this kind of thing happens that everyone wishes there was a paper trail. Saving Changes...
Hans RobbersSenior Director| SalesforceVlissingen, Netherlands
Jennifer
Very good question and interesting thing to consider. I do agree John document everything however I would extend it a bit.
We agree a project plan and in the plan we define the deliverables from either side. Not the customer activities are in the plan but the deliverables as a start or end dependency to one of your project team activity.
Plan to be agreed by both parties. From that day onwards you start managing against teh plan and document in progress reports the dependency delivery.
My normal style is to inform a week ahead of the expected delivery what is upcoming. Kind reminder by mail. If there are clear signals the delivery will be delayed I will provide upfront the possible scenarios together with the impact, e.g. do nothing thus idle time to be written, reduce the staff or extend the scope and take over some of the activities. Last one is a cr
So the assumption here is that the client and supplier are working at arm's length rather than collaboratively ?
There is a saying "what happened before what happened happened". By the time you get to the "misleading" reports, you are already a fair way down a particular road.
Ideally you'd have managed this risk early on by agreeing how you will contribute to reporting, how you will be represented on the board, how and when you will be given a chance to participate in root cause analysis (e.g. for delays), or respond to any comments you feel are "misleading".
If you haven't had a chance to do that, then consider getting round a table asap to have that conversation, as well as talking openly and honestly about the issues raised in the contentious report. It may be that the client believes what has been stated in the report and the conversation is required to explore that.
If the relationship is already beyond mending, take a careful look at whatever contract you have so you know exactly where you stand. Saving Changes...
Adil AbdallaAdvisor| centroidpm.comDubai, United Arab Emirates, United Arab Emirates
In a Professional manner, I didn't find a professional PM to advice, nor to support.. Yes, what happened had happened, an dramatic or srtructural correction in reporting and communications will threaten the overall progress and delivery.. If a PM had chosen a faulty reporting style, S/He should never complain.. Sometimes, better to keep things afloat, subject to where standing on grand timeline Saving Changes...
Wayne MackRetired| RetiredSouth Riding, Va, United States
The first task needs to be mitigating the affect of the late delivery. Alarm bells are going off in my head because the focus, instead, seems to be on assigning blame.
Despite what the scenario states, I have never seen an outcome that was 100% one side's fault. Also, unless one is willing to sever all relationships with the other party, it is in everyone's best interest to get past the late delivery with a minimal amount of fuss.
Focus the effort on recovering from the mis-step. If the conversation starts to drift to who caused the problem, redirect it back to who do we solve the problem. If the problem results in severe financial damage, let the contracts folk work through any sort of penalties and stay focus on the technical recovery aspects of the problem. Do not get pulled into finger pointing. Trust that in the end, everyone will recognize who was there actively pulling the project back out of the fire. Saving Changes...
Tricky question. 4 things come to mind:
1. Given you are in the contractor role, this could have contractual implications so tread carefully! This could become politically messy very quickly and contractors are often on the "not-so-pleasant" receiving end.
2. This is a clear indication that their are some fundamental issues of trust and respect between organization and contractor. Some difficult but necessary conversations need to be had with people in the organization, not to assign blame, but to understand what the situation is and what the different perspectives are to determine what your role is.
3. Find out if there is an opportunity to provide support. Maybe your team is able to provide the support needed to get the deliverable done.
4. From an integrity standpoint - this is a last resort - but know your limit and when you will fire your customer. If it starts to become messy and your integrity is called into question, know how long you will stay. While it is nice to think that things will turn out, I have been part of one situation where things turned messy and the contracting company's integrity was called into question and their reputatoin was drug through the mud. It was mostly internal politics, but the contractor was made to take the fall.
It would be a good practice to send a daily or weekly status report clearly indicating the progress against the plan. Wherever there are delays or issues, such things need to be highlighted with suitable recovery plan and communicated to all the stakeholders. If you minute the discussions and actions arising out of weekly project meetings with specific action dates, it will come handy as a quality record to defend ourselves in this type of situations. As PMs, we need to be transparent and forthright and use the necessary escalation mechanisms whenever needed to bring the project on track. Saving Changes...
