Project managers are dying alone and for nothing: raise the flag!
In my work, I constantly meet special people who are united by a character trait, hidden until you have no common tasks. Some are intelligent, pragmatic and pedantic. The latter never lose heart and will always help with advice. Thirdly, there is charisma and charm of such strength that you can hang a photo of them above the quote “be afraid of charismatic people who bring systems”.
The fourth have an original sense of humor and the ability to see things from a different angle. Fifths can filter out to any event and take friends with them. And the sixths sitting in the office constantly grumble and do not love anyone. One thing unites all these people - they don’t raise the flag.
Consider the usual situation. The manager put an employee to a project that needs to be completed in a certain time, spending some (limited) part of the resources. What should the employee do next?
An experienced employee assesses the scope of tasks, available resources and reports the resulting assessment to the manager, who, in turn, depending on the assessment, either starts the project and the employee starts to work, or refuses, for example, because the assessment is higher than the usefulness of the result.
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But let's say that a decision has been made to continue and the employee starts work. He defines a plan for himself, where he paints a list of stages for project implementation:
An experienced employee passes the steps clearly according to plan, correcting it according to the results of the steps taken. Before the last step, the employee once again looks at the plan, painstakingly collects all the little things that he either did not take into account in the previous steps, or missed when planning and proceeded to the last stage.
And here is the completion of the task - the fourth step is completed.
The employee notifies the manager about the completion, reports on the project progress for further analysis and they synchronously waving their hands and smiling radiantly slowly dissolve into the air, because in real life they have no place - there are problems everywhere and always.
An inexperienced employee always seeks to show that he is no worse than an experienced or even more capable. He accepts the project and scrupulously assesses it. Of course, he forgets to take into account that soon the New Year holidays and no one will work. It forgets that the necessary resources are simultaneously occupied on other projects. Forgets that he has another project goes into the next stage.
Fortunately, he got a good manager. He increased funding and connected additional resources. Recalculated time, taking into account the working calendar and reduced the complexity. Frozen previous project. And also did a number of things that allowed to equalize the forces with an experienced employee. The result was a completely identical plan - the same as that of an experienced employee.
An inexperienced employee zealously set to work. He passed the first stage not without difficulties, but with a twinkle in his eyes. The praise of an experienced colleague was especially enjoyable. The end of the project zameteshilo in the doorway of the office.
The second stage, which had previously seemed simple, was somewhat surprised by intractability — it was hardly possible to complete it in eight units of time instead of six. A little sick of coffee, but I wanted to sleep like never before.
Starting the third stage, in his soul the disgusting giggle of a premonition of something vague, bad, but distant. The stage turned out to be long and difficult as a foot crossing over the Sahara with wide skis and abutting camels. An inexperienced employee somehow casually wanted to go on vacation or at least a little cheer.
The morning of the start of the last stage was marked by a general planning session. An inexperienced employee, feeling the spine of an ants crawl, tries to focus and formulate the reasons that dragged the project. The disgustingly sonorous laughter of the inner voice is removed in the head and the ringing silence reigns.
Omit the justification scene and try to understand the reasons for the failure. Both projects started with the same initial parameters - the employees didn’t have a shortage of anything, but an experienced employee completed the project, but the inexperienced did not have time and who knows how much he would have dragged along his desert until the glider pulled it out under a cold shower.
It would seem that the problem is that an experienced employee analyzed the stages and made the appropriate conclusions. That's right, only this is not important. The main thing is that he didn’t pick up the flag in time - he didn’t inform the manager that the project was out of plan.
If he had told about this at the end of the second stage, and even better - at the moment when he felt that the clearly limited stage was stretching like a bicycle chamber, then the manager would still have enough time to get the project back on track.
But I wanted to say a little about something else. People do not raise flags for various reasons, the most frequent of which are:
The fourth have an original sense of humor and the ability to see things from a different angle. Fifths can filter out to any event and take friends with them. And the sixths sitting in the office constantly grumble and do not love anyone. One thing unites all these people - they don’t raise the flag.
Consider the usual situation. The manager put an employee to a project that needs to be completed in a certain time, spending some (limited) part of the resources. What should the employee do next?
Experienced employee
An experienced employee assesses the scope of tasks, available resources and reports the resulting assessment to the manager, who, in turn, depending on the assessment, either starts the project and the employee starts to work, or refuses, for example, because the assessment is higher than the usefulness of the result.
')
But let's say that a decision has been made to continue and the employee starts work. He defines a plan for himself, where he paints a list of stages for project implementation:
- Stage # 1: five units of resource and three units of time are required;
- Stage 2: two units of resources and six units of time are required;
- Stage 3: one unit of resources and two units of time are required;
- Stage 4: seven resource units and seven time units are required;
- Profit!
An experienced employee passes the steps clearly according to plan, correcting it according to the results of the steps taken. Before the last step, the employee once again looks at the plan, painstakingly collects all the little things that he either did not take into account in the previous steps, or missed when planning and proceeded to the last stage.
And here is the completion of the task - the fourth step is completed.
The employee notifies the manager about the completion, reports on the project progress for further analysis and they synchronously waving their hands and smiling radiantly slowly dissolve into the air, because in real life they have no place - there are problems everywhere and always.
Inexperienced employee
An inexperienced employee always seeks to show that he is no worse than an experienced or even more capable. He accepts the project and scrupulously assesses it. Of course, he forgets to take into account that soon the New Year holidays and no one will work. It forgets that the necessary resources are simultaneously occupied on other projects. Forgets that he has another project goes into the next stage.
Fortunately, he got a good manager. He increased funding and connected additional resources. Recalculated time, taking into account the working calendar and reduced the complexity. Frozen previous project. And also did a number of things that allowed to equalize the forces with an experienced employee. The result was a completely identical plan - the same as that of an experienced employee.
An inexperienced employee zealously set to work. He passed the first stage not without difficulties, but with a twinkle in his eyes. The praise of an experienced colleague was especially enjoyable. The end of the project zameteshilo in the doorway of the office.
The second stage, which had previously seemed simple, was somewhat surprised by intractability — it was hardly possible to complete it in eight units of time instead of six. A little sick of coffee, but I wanted to sleep like never before.
Starting the third stage, in his soul the disgusting giggle of a premonition of something vague, bad, but distant. The stage turned out to be long and difficult as a foot crossing over the Sahara with wide skis and abutting camels. An inexperienced employee somehow casually wanted to go on vacation or at least a little cheer.
The morning of the start of the last stage was marked by a general planning session. An inexperienced employee, feeling the spine of an ants crawl, tries to focus and formulate the reasons that dragged the project. The disgustingly sonorous laughter of the inner voice is removed in the head and the ringing silence reigns.
***
Omit the justification scene and try to understand the reasons for the failure. Both projects started with the same initial parameters - the employees didn’t have a shortage of anything, but an experienced employee completed the project, but the inexperienced did not have time and who knows how much he would have dragged along his desert until the glider pulled it out under a cold shower.
It would seem that the problem is that an experienced employee analyzed the stages and made the appropriate conclusions. That's right, only this is not important. The main thing is that he didn’t pick up the flag in time - he didn’t inform the manager that the project was out of plan.
If he had told about this at the end of the second stage, and even better - at the moment when he felt that the clearly limited stage was stretching like a bicycle chamber, then the manager would still have enough time to get the project back on track.
***
But I wanted to say a little about something else. People do not raise flags for various reasons, the most frequent of which are:
- Fear of being accused of incompetence: “I’m an excellent project manager and I can’t ruin everything”;
- The lack of understanding that any project is always teamwork and that other people suffer from your inaction;
- Misinterpretation of the situation. It seems that a little more and everything will go as it should. This is quite common. The employee has plunged into the project so much that reality shifts a little, small details are given great importance or vice versa;
- Explain that incompetence is when a zoo technician is taken to lead the aircraft. And this is the inexperience that will pass with time. To tell that there are very few geniuses and at once nobody succeeds, and then n. 2;
- It is necessary, in case of any difficulty, to turn to more experienced colleagues — this is not a shame, it is a shame not to turn and fill up everything;
- As soon as the project “moves off the rails” and the assessment of the current situation differs from the “yesterday’s” situation, it is necessary to stop and ask ourselves: is everything going as planned? At the slightest suspicion, consult plans.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/108842/
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