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The Unsung Hero

January 2, 2010 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Musings

The Unsung Hero (#5 in the series A Cynical Perspective on Project Management)
By Barry Otterholt

What would a project be without a good Scapegoat?

The real value of a scapegoat is to accept blame. It’s a specialty, and I claim there’s a huge market for this service.

Think about it. If you had a choice to sidestep the wrath of a fire-breathing stakeholder for a mistake you made, wouldn’t you take it? Without missing a beat, and based on established role, the Scapegoat steps in and with undisguised embarrassment admits fault. You wink knowingly at the scapegoat, who is well-versed in the correct body language throughout the lashing. Head slightly lowered, only occasional eye-contact, rapidly shuffling through a few papers as if to wonder where it all went wrong. After the fire-breather is out of fuel, the Scapegoat appears to discover the cause of the problem. That puts people at ease, knowing that at least they have somebody that can trace the problem to its root cause and therefore fix it. Lucky for them! The stakeholders couldn’t have figured it out. They are too removed from the situation. They all breathe a sigh of relief. And you go back to whatever you were doing before the meeting, and make whatever adjustments you think appropriate, inspired and energized.

The role of Scapegoat has been in place for decades, just known by different names: Total Quality Manager or TQM, Business Process Reengineer or BPR, Subject Matter Expert or SME, Database Modeler, MS Project czar, or the more inclusive title of Contractor. They all mean the same thing at the end of the day: Scapegoat. It’s just that in the past they’ve had to do actual work enroute to getting blamed. But that doesn’t make sense because they’re all tired out when blame hits, and don’t respond well to it. Better to have them avoid any work so they’re fresh and ready when blame hits.

On the advice of an interested client, I think I will start a new venture and call it “Scapegoat Consulting Group” which of course will be known simply as SCG, just as with IBM, 3M, and UPS. The tag line will be:

We don’t do any work.
We just take the blame.

So, distinguish yourself! Hire your own Scapegoat early. Have them around when most of the problems originate. They will be much more credible when fault has to be assigned. And your peers will be green with envy.

If you need somebody to blame, give us a call. Our doors are open for business. Just don’t expect us to do any work.

Barry Otterholt, CMC, PMP

Barry Otterholt has been a project management specialist and coach for the past 30 years. He is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) and a Project Management Professional (PMP). He works with both public and private sector companies in the USA, Europe and Scandinavia. Mr. Otterholt was a Director with Microsoft, a senior consultant with Deloitte Consulting, and a COO with a nationwide consumer electronics enterprise. In 1988 he founded Public Knowledge, LLC to provide independent management and operational support to the public sector. More recently, he founded Stouffer & Company, LLC to provide as-needed project management services to fill an obvious skills gap in both private and public sectors.

Mr. Otterholt is an adjunct professor teaching project management at Northwest University. His essays on project management have been published in PMI newsletters. His runs a blog, Project Management Essays, where he muses about various project management topics.

Mr. Otterholt is a member of the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC) and the Project Management Institute (PMI). He has a BA in Accounting and Computer Science and an MBA in Business Administration. He lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 2nd, 2010 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

Just as: What would a project be without a good Scapegoat of an interpreter / translator?

Thank you, Sir.

Anatoly I. Tatarco wrote on January 4, 2010 - 10:11 am | Visit Link

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