How do you handle difficult team members?

Communications Management Estimating Leadership Teams

Pamela Nelligan Owner/Chief Software Architect| Statdash LLC Williamsville, Ny, United States

I'm doing a little research before my product launches, and I'm hoping the PMI community can help me out. I have two questions:

1. How do you handle people who repeatedly fail to accurately report their status on projects and tasks?

2. How much time do you spend each week determining the status of all of your projects and tasks?

Thanks for your help - I really appreciate it!

Posted: Jul 12, 2017 1:17 PM

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Justin Kojok, PMP, CISM, CASP Bristow, Va, United States

These recommendations are great. Thank you.

Posted: Jul 23, 2017 3:40 AM

Pamela Nelligan Owner/Chief Software Architect| Statdash LLC Williamsville, Ny, United States

Jul 14, 2017 3:38 AM

Replying to Grace Windsor

...

Hi Pamela, do you have a solid communication plan in place? If team members are confused about when and how to update tasks or share any problems, they may unintentionally misreport items.

Of course, sometimes there are bigger issues at play so you may need to have a direct conversation with the individual.

You may find these articles helpful:
How to Create a Project Communication Plan, http://bit.ly/2rVngVa
How to Manage Difficult Conversations with Team Members, http://bit.ly/2q0Wdr6

Grace, thank you for those excellent links. I find that a communication plan is critical and yet many companies do not take the time to really think through how they will communicate with the team and with stakeholders. That is one of the things that our product, Statdash, is trying to address. We automate the requests for status updates and we also have a great way to share those statuses when meeting with clients or stakeholders. I really think concentrating on these things will create value for anyone who is managing a team and multiple projects.

Posted: Jul 25, 2017 2:05 PM

Brad Egeland Business Solution Designer| Bradegeland.com Las Vegas, Nv, United States

Usually inaccurate task updates are due to sloppy reporting - your team members may not be "owning" the tasks well and are therefore not concerned with the accurate reporting. Often, making sure they understand how their accurate or inaccurate task updates affect the budget, the project schedule/timeline, the budget forecast and even the resource forecast and usage that can help them be more accountable or at least help them to understand how important the accurate reporting can be and how deeply it can affect your job and the overall status reporting. If that doesn't help, then you just have problem team members on your hand and - unfortunately - you have to weigh the need for their skill set and performance against the painful time and expense (and potential customer awareness and satisfaction and confidence) it will take to remove them and onboard a replacement in project mid-stream.

Posted: Jul 25, 2017 6:00 PM

Saad Manasterli Fairfax, Va, United States

Pamela, the term difficult is very objective. The sure way to find out what the problem is, is to reach to the individuals and ask them about the perceived issues. it might be something small, and then it becomes cleared up. It might be a bigger issue, that becomes in the open and thusly can be addressed. Sometimes what we mean by difficult is actually different. Now I am not in your shoes so I am not privy to actual conditions, so please take my comment with a grain of salt. On the other hand, treat them like an adult, let them know that they are accountable for their actions and see what happens. Since we all work in an environment of differences. These differences can be cultural, language and more. I would tackle it one person at a time and work through it. If all has been expended then termination is the last resort.

Posted: Jul 27, 2017 3:49 PM

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How do you handle difficult team members?

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