PM Network - April 2009

WHAT TO DO

Focus on full disclosure. Discover the issue, resolve it and move forward.

“If you find a mistake in the planning, you have to be truthful as to why it was a mistake,” says Mr. Ghani. “It’s not a matter of finding a scapegoat or finding who made the mistake. You have to rectify it, and the sooner it is known, then the more time you have to make the necessary actions to rectify and assess the impact to the overall deadline.”

On one project last year, Mr. Ghani’s team forgot to include an item in the timeline. The mistake “basically derailed the project,” he says, but the team had to forge ahead.

“Delays sap people’s energy,” he says. It’s up to the project manager to rally the troops and get them working toward a common goal.

“When there’s a problem you have to tell the truth and you have to be in sync with your team so that you won’t lose their respect. If there are any changes or any problems, they’ll be behind you 100 percent because they know they can trust you,” Mr. Ghani says. “The project manager has accountability for the project, but he or she can’t do it alone.”

5

THE ISSUE: TEAM SQUABBLES GONE AWRY

Two arch rivals have declared war and they don’t really care about collateral damage. The rest of the team waits it out, ducking the crossfire.

WHAT TO DO

There’s no time to waste. Project managers should schedule a face-to-face meeting and convince the warring parties to iron out their differences for the sake of the project.

“The project manager must be willing to move aside every obstacle, including interpersonal ones, to get the project done,” says Mr. Patton. If there is a conflict, he tries to get the two team members to work together.

When there’s a problem you have
to tell the truth and you have to be
in sync with your team so that you
won’t lose their respect. If there
are any changes or any problems,
they’ll be behind you 100 percent
because they know they can trust
you. The project manager has
accountability for the project, but
he or she can’t do it alone.

—Azwin Abdul Ghani, PMP, Ericsson Global Delivery Center, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

If that doesn’t work, he says, “I would go into the room one-on-one with these two people and I would say, ‘We’ve made every attempt to get you guys to work together, I’m going to ask you one more time: Can you give up your personal differences to work for the rest of this project together?’”

If they still can’t resolve their differences, it’s time to divide and conquer.

“If one of them says, ‘no,’ then I say, ‘Okay, I want to talk to you about your continued participation in the project, and at the end of this meeting, my objective is to eliminate one of you from the team,’” Mr. Patton explains.

At the same time as this process occurs, he works to get the support of management in deciding who goes. “The one who gives the most value to the project would stay and then we would find a replacement for the other,” he says.

“Taking action to remove one person or the other is usually perceived with a sigh of relief by the other team members,” Mr. Patton says. After all the drama and wondering what’s going to be done, at least now they have an answer.