The problem of the project manager’s work style or what to do with responsible irresponsibility?
A few years ago I was absolutely not interested in such a moment in project management as the style of work of a manager. Probably, like many managers, first of all it was necessary to pay more attention to the terms, budget, quality and satisfaction / happiness of the customer, and only secondarily to the comfort of the team. Fortunately, there were projects on scrum and did not skip retrospectives. And, of course, getting a negative feedback on some process, it was already impossible not to attempt to eliminate it. Anyway, in small and medium teams there were friendly relations, there was an interest in the work, and if something went wrong, then all the other nuances were decided in the warm atmosphere of the nearest bar.
However, everything changed when, in addition to direct project management, we also had to switch to the selection, motivation and control of the project managers themselves. And if with numbers and statistics on projects it is more or less clear and transparent, the comfort of the teams' work remained a secret with seven seals. There are several reasons for this:
1. Despite the fact that no one canceled retrospectives and the teams had the opportunity to express all the points that hinder their work, there was no opportunity to influence the lack of response to these wishes.
2. Expressing negative points to our superiors is simply not accepted. “Sixties” is not honored, and therefore, if negative feedback came, it was already too late (the person was tired of working in constant tension / without understanding what they want from him and so on and have already found another company).
All this led to the emergence of a special group of managers with a sort of liberal management style, who in fact do not take responsibility for making decisions and leave themselves as if into the background. While everything is calm on the project - everything is fine: the team works on its own, there are no problems, the people are motivated by the freedom to make a decision, they feel high responsibility, “the manager does not interfere with it”. The manager is very comfortable, because he has little work, and the successful results will somehow be prescribed to him. In case of failure, the culprit is always in misconduct (the tester didn’t test enough, the programmer couldn’t find a common language with the customer / programmer, the task was not clear enough, etc.).
')
It should be noted that initially such a leader is very difficult to identify (especially if the team itself is cohesive and works successfully). First of all, such managers can provide timely reports, externally be very organized, very interested in work, and they can discuss all possible problems and ways to solve them with you. Secondly, as mentioned above, negative feedback often comes too late and already when it really is a problem. Anyway, in our company, from a certain moment, such managers began to be considered an unnecessary element of the team, and sometimes even malicious, and therefore began to look for a solution to the problem (although there is a great temptation to just let such a project manager go free). For example, when receiving a report on a project with the described problems, we look at what the manager did to level the problem / avoid it in the future and so on (here comes the phrase from the movie “Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears”: “I don’t care why not, I’m interested in what you did to be yes ”), to conduct a team survey and so on. Now it is difficult to say how successful all the measures will be and that is why the experience of other companies is so interesting. So, it would be very interesting to know whether you are paying attention to the management style of project managers? Which project managers are you choosing? Are there any objective / subjective assessment of the work of the head? Are you interested in how the team relates to this manager?
However, everything changed when, in addition to direct project management, we also had to switch to the selection, motivation and control of the project managers themselves. And if with numbers and statistics on projects it is more or less clear and transparent, the comfort of the teams' work remained a secret with seven seals. There are several reasons for this:
1. Despite the fact that no one canceled retrospectives and the teams had the opportunity to express all the points that hinder their work, there was no opportunity to influence the lack of response to these wishes.
2. Expressing negative points to our superiors is simply not accepted. “Sixties” is not honored, and therefore, if negative feedback came, it was already too late (the person was tired of working in constant tension / without understanding what they want from him and so on and have already found another company).
All this led to the emergence of a special group of managers with a sort of liberal management style, who in fact do not take responsibility for making decisions and leave themselves as if into the background. While everything is calm on the project - everything is fine: the team works on its own, there are no problems, the people are motivated by the freedom to make a decision, they feel high responsibility, “the manager does not interfere with it”. The manager is very comfortable, because he has little work, and the successful results will somehow be prescribed to him. In case of failure, the culprit is always in misconduct (the tester didn’t test enough, the programmer couldn’t find a common language with the customer / programmer, the task was not clear enough, etc.).
')
It should be noted that initially such a leader is very difficult to identify (especially if the team itself is cohesive and works successfully). First of all, such managers can provide timely reports, externally be very organized, very interested in work, and they can discuss all possible problems and ways to solve them with you. Secondly, as mentioned above, negative feedback often comes too late and already when it really is a problem. Anyway, in our company, from a certain moment, such managers began to be considered an unnecessary element of the team, and sometimes even malicious, and therefore began to look for a solution to the problem (although there is a great temptation to just let such a project manager go free). For example, when receiving a report on a project with the described problems, we look at what the manager did to level the problem / avoid it in the future and so on (here comes the phrase from the movie “Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears”: “I don’t care why not, I’m interested in what you did to be yes ”), to conduct a team survey and so on. Now it is difficult to say how successful all the measures will be and that is why the experience of other companies is so interesting. So, it would be very interesting to know whether you are paying attention to the management style of project managers? Which project managers are you choosing? Are there any objective / subjective assessment of the work of the head? Are you interested in how the team relates to this manager?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/212379/
All Articles