« Deliverable-based Project Schedules: Part 2
10 Steps to Becoming a PMP - Part III »

Project Mismanagers - Some Stereotypes

February 14, 2008 | Author: admin | Filed under: Project Management Musings

Project Mismanagers - Some Stereotypes
By Kailash Awati

Poor project management practices abound. Many projects are mismanaged in one or more ways ( clarification: this obviously does not apply to any of the projects I’ve managed). Rather than catalogue poor PM practices, I thought it might be more fun to illustrate some of these through a bunch of stereotypically incompetent project managers. You might recognise aspects of project managers you’ve encountered in the following caricatures:

Barry Bureaucrat: Barry has a form for everything. He won’t move until all the paperwork is completed and signed. If you want action from him, you have no choice but to play along. A warning: Barry is a master fine print - beware of sneaky small print caveats and disclaimers within each of his forms.

Clarence Clueless: Charlie is easy to identify - he’s a project manager with a vacuously vacant (repeated redundancy used for emphasis) look on his face. He looks like he doesn’t know what’s going on, and it’s not an act. He really doesn’t have a clue.

Conroy Cowboy: Con is a cool guy, with a strictly shoot-from-the-hip approach. He believes in reacting fast to events, even if that means there’s no thought preceding the action. Watch out for Con, as his aim isn’t so hot - be sure to duck before the shooting starts.

Igor Inflexible: Igor’s inflexible. Once he has an opinion, he’s congenitally incapable of changing it. If you’re charged with convincing him about something that he disagrees with - good luck, you’ll need it.

Mac Machiavelli: Mac’s a schemer. Plotting and planning come naturally to him. Unfortunately all his planning efforts are geared towards implementing nefarious plots to further his career. To him the project and team are important only to the extent that they serve his relentless pursuit of fame and glory.

Norman No-decision: Norm enjoys discussing issues and analysing them. He’s spent many enjoyable hours (days, months!) analysing, re-analysing and re-reanalysing things, ad nauseum. However, he finds it impossible to make any decisions. He’s elevated Analysis Paralysis to a fine art.

Sally Shifter: Sally has an unblemished record as a project manager. This is mainly because she’s a a master (mistress?) at shifting the blame for mess-ups on to other people (generally her team members). Remember this when you’re stuck with Sally: always document your actions (through email etc.). This will serve as insurance if (when!) she starts playing the blame game.

There are several more of these characters lurking in corporate project management offices. I’ll cover a few more of them in a future post.

Original article can be found at http://eight2late.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/project-mismanagers-some-stereotypical-caricatures/

Kailash Awati currently manages IT development at a multinational in Australia. Over the last several years, he has managed IT projects at companies ranging from startups to established firms. He has also worked as a business and technology consultant for companies in Europe and the US.

On the technical side, he is a seasoned database architect and administrator with wide experience in designing, implementing and administering databases for transactional and analytical applications.

Earlier, in what seems to him like another life, he did research in fluid dynamics and other areas of physics.

For what it’s worth, he holds doctoral degrees in physics and chemical engineering together with assorted certifications in project management and database administration. An admittedly strange mix, which he sometimes finds hard to explain.

He blogs at eight to late, where he writes about project management and other (at times distantly) related topics. Oh, and he also maintains a web presence at www.orafusion.com where he publishes longer articles on his professional interests and the occasional cryptic crossword.

Share this article:
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • YahooMyWeb
  • blogmarks

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 and is filed under Project Management Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 person has left a comment

[…] a resounding ”NO!”1. Unfortunately, this trait doesn’t endear him to the folks upstairs2, and a few such refusals soon translate into a company-wide negative perception of the entire IT […]

PM Hut » Positive Negatives wrote on May 12, 2008 - 12:36 pm | Visit Link

feel free to leave a comment

Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (a href, strong, em, code). All line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Email addresses will never be published. Keep it PG-13 people!

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

All fields marked with " * " are required.

Project Management Categories