How do I avoid runaway, deadend projects?
August 12, 2016 10:04 PM Subscribe
Yay - I'm starting a new job! Boo, I don't want it to turn out like my previous ones! I'm happy about the new position, but there's a definite pattern in my career that I want to avoid this time. Basically, I have a tendency to get stuck with under-resourced projects that sprawl badly out of control until they consume my life and I have to quit to get away from them.
Obviously you are not me and can at best guess what might be happening, but has anyone else experienced this pattern? What were the root causes? How did you improve things?
The way things usually go astray:
1. I get charged with some new and important project, often exciting and cutting edge. This is going to revolutionize things!
2. The project gets slowly out of hand: features are added on, the scope creeps, I find myself answering to multiple bosses / clients with contradictory needs, vital internal cooperation doesn't occur.
3. I try to take charge of the growing complexity, asking for priorities / more resources / clarity. This doesn't work.
4. Deadlines and milestones are missed. Nothing gets properly finished before I get whiplashed into a new direction, which just adds to later technical debt.
5. Frustrated, I'll hand in a substantially cut-down deliverable and move on to another position.
I'd lay a lot of this at the feet of the work culture I'm in and my personality. Some unordered observations:
* The lack of proper project planning and management is rife in my field. An example would be progress meetings attended by everyone even tangentially connected to the project, with no agenda, where no minutes are taken, and no action points are resolved upon. There's never any plan, just a nebulous cloud of undifferentiated needs and desires. Vague half-mentioned ideas have a habit of transmuting into essential features without anyone checking with me.
* Where this work was un-managed, I've attempted to manage it myself, but with mixed results. When people don't get what they want, they just go over my head to my boss (and once to my bosses boss). And my line-management has tended to be weak and tell me to just give people what they want, which sets up a bad precedence.
* The "multiple bosses" issue is pervasive. Often, dozens to even a hundred different people are able to direct contact me and dump their needs / wishes / demands upon me, expecting them to leap to the top of queue.
* The work I do is somewhat obscure and misunderstood, which makes it difficult to argue for time estimates and changes. I hear the phrase "I'm sure it can't be that complex" a lot.
* I've tried to working in a more "agile" way, delivering smaller chunks. This made me happier day-to-day but it was difficult to get others invested, e.g. "Can't you just finish it and we'll tell you if it's right?"
* I feel a basic problem may be to do with my lack of assertiveness, which is practically conveyed as me being labelled "easy going". I had a very cordial relationship with a colleague in my current job until they suddenly tried to dump a multi-week project onto me at short notice. Intense workplace warfare ensured along outrage that I wouldn't just take it on.
* I wonder if I'm just not suited to work that supports / bridges other projects. If I was more thick-skinned or cared less about my work, I might be able to shrug off the constant criticism and pressure.
* When I've moved on, there's almost always been sheepish apologies from higher-ups that I was placed in an impossible situation or wishes that things could have been better. Often, I'll later hear that the project has been essentially abandoned.
* I feel I've made some improvements across the years: I'm still getting stuck with these projects but I'm better at detecting them and faster at ejecting. But it would be great to actually complete something or avoid this mess.
The way things usually go astray:
1. I get charged with some new and important project, often exciting and cutting edge. This is going to revolutionize things!
2. The project gets slowly out of hand: features are added on, the scope creeps, I find myself answering to multiple bosses / clients with contradictory needs, vital internal cooperation doesn't occur.
3. I try to take charge of the growing complexity, asking for priorities / more resources / clarity. This doesn't work.
4. Deadlines and milestones are missed. Nothing gets properly finished before I get whiplashed into a new direction, which just adds to later technical debt.
5. Frustrated, I'll hand in a substantially cut-down deliverable and move on to another position.
I'd lay a lot of this at the feet of the work culture I'm in and my personality. Some unordered observations:
* The lack of proper project planning and management is rife in my field. An example would be progress meetings attended by everyone even tangentially connected to the project, with no agenda, where no minutes are taken, and no action points are resolved upon. There's never any plan, just a nebulous cloud of undifferentiated needs and desires. Vague half-mentioned ideas have a habit of transmuting into essential features without anyone checking with me.
* Where this work was un-managed, I've attempted to manage it myself, but with mixed results. When people don't get what they want, they just go over my head to my boss (and once to my bosses boss). And my line-management has tended to be weak and tell me to just give people what they want, which sets up a bad precedence.
* The "multiple bosses" issue is pervasive. Often, dozens to even a hundred different people are able to direct contact me and dump their needs / wishes / demands upon me, expecting them to leap to the top of queue.
* The work I do is somewhat obscure and misunderstood, which makes it difficult to argue for time estimates and changes. I hear the phrase "I'm sure it can't be that complex" a lot.
* I've tried to working in a more "agile" way, delivering smaller chunks. This made me happier day-to-day but it was difficult to get others invested, e.g. "Can't you just finish it and we'll tell you if it's right?"
* I feel a basic problem may be to do with my lack of assertiveness, which is practically conveyed as me being labelled "easy going". I had a very cordial relationship with a colleague in my current job until they suddenly tried to dump a multi-week project onto me at short notice. Intense workplace warfare ensured along outrage that I wouldn't just take it on.
* I wonder if I'm just not suited to work that supports / bridges other projects. If I was more thick-skinned or cared less about my work, I might be able to shrug off the constant criticism and pressure.
* When I've moved on, there's almost always been sheepish apologies from higher-ups that I was placed in an impossible situation or wishes that things could have been better. Often, I'll later hear that the project has been essentially abandoned.
* I feel I've made some improvements across the years: I'm still getting stuck with these projects but I'm better at detecting them and faster at ejecting. But it would be great to actually complete something or avoid this mess.
It sounds like you work in an industry without much formal management training inherent in the discipline, and lots of fuzziness in goal setting. Resembles nonprofits and/or development. Lots of intention, very little idea of how to get from A to B.
You have a choice here - if you note a pattern in your tasks, are you also noting whether its happening in one particular industry or type of organization (i.e. startup, non profit, large corporate)? If so, you may wish to consider other types of organizational structures for your next job.
posted by infini at 4:11 AM on August 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
You have a choice here - if you note a pattern in your tasks, are you also noting whether its happening in one particular industry or type of organization (i.e. startup, non profit, large corporate)? If so, you may wish to consider other types of organizational structures for your next job.
posted by infini at 4:11 AM on August 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Johanna Rothman's book Manage It has helped me many times.
posted by CMcG at 4:13 AM on August 13, 2016
posted by CMcG at 4:13 AM on August 13, 2016
Are you the project manager? Or is someone else? Because that's what's needed-someone to do a stakeholder analysis, to make management lock down the scope, etc.
posted by cabingirl at 5:36 AM on August 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by cabingirl at 5:36 AM on August 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
Could you update, via a mod, what your position is? I would say one lot of advice if you are a project manager, another if you are a product manager... something else for dev. Is this non-profit?
posted by kellyblah at 5:56 AM on August 13, 2016
posted by kellyblah at 5:56 AM on August 13, 2016
Who sells your employers' products? I get the impression you are working in companies who typically develop projects for immediate delivery via contract or grant. What it sounds like is that you and others enjoy the attention projects get but don't employ a mechanism of either negotiation or delegation. This seems self-serving of your employers but also self-serving of you. The challenge of project management is to organise the human and asset resources toward achieving project maturity in years three and four so it can be expanded either by contract or franchise.
Your experience seems to suggest you are good at the synthesis of a project, developing what it will look like. Then, you struggle to actually resolve all of the requests within the constraints of the product cost. That suggests that most clients have not paid yet or will ever because your employer does not have the infrastructure to actually make them pay. Before I do any project, I review if my employer is actually in the position to take on a project. The most important thing to look at is the human resource and asset allocation costs of simply delivering the project to one client and them the replication costs in a geographic area.
If an employer can't see the value in such an exercise under interview, then I would question if they really understand what they want to a project to do. I have encountered dozens of companies in software and non-profits in health and human services who frequently fail to consider whether they are financially and technically able to deliver the contracts they want. Considering the alternative, which could be paying another company or organisation for a module or service to sell; working under contract to deliver a less-formed project with payment based on results and earnings typically 20% of stated value.
Also learn minute taking. It's not hard to learn.
posted by parmanparman at 7:36 AM on August 13, 2016
Your experience seems to suggest you are good at the synthesis of a project, developing what it will look like. Then, you struggle to actually resolve all of the requests within the constraints of the product cost. That suggests that most clients have not paid yet or will ever because your employer does not have the infrastructure to actually make them pay. Before I do any project, I review if my employer is actually in the position to take on a project. The most important thing to look at is the human resource and asset allocation costs of simply delivering the project to one client and them the replication costs in a geographic area.
If an employer can't see the value in such an exercise under interview, then I would question if they really understand what they want to a project to do. I have encountered dozens of companies in software and non-profits in health and human services who frequently fail to consider whether they are financially and technically able to deliver the contracts they want. Considering the alternative, which could be paying another company or organisation for a module or service to sell; working under contract to deliver a less-formed project with payment based on results and earnings typically 20% of stated value.
Also learn minute taking. It's not hard to learn.
posted by parmanparman at 7:36 AM on August 13, 2016
Speaking from an IT background, but not a large-scale, tech company it background, you need a formal development methodology. You need to have formal requirements, sign-offs, formal change requests, etc. You need the ability to say, "Not gonna happen in version 1, put it on the list for version 2."
As I see it, the skill you are lacking which is what I call "boss management", which involves keeping the boss in informed, especially about the impact of an changes, and trying to make your boss do his job part of which is to shield you from demands outside the change of command. If you have problems with competing or conflicting requests, it's the boss's job to sort them out. You have to be able to go to your boss and say "this is not viable. that is going to push the release day into next year."
I think part of what kellblah's question is getting to is the question of whose vision of the project needs to be realized. You can't please everybody, so it's important to know who you do need to please.
posted by SemiSalt at 8:50 AM on August 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
As I see it, the skill you are lacking which is what I call "boss management", which involves keeping the boss in informed, especially about the impact of an changes, and trying to make your boss do his job part of which is to shield you from demands outside the change of command. If you have problems with competing or conflicting requests, it's the boss's job to sort them out. You have to be able to go to your boss and say "this is not viable. that is going to push the release day into next year."
I think part of what kellblah's question is getting to is the question of whose vision of the project needs to be realized. You can't please everybody, so it's important to know who you do need to please.
posted by SemiSalt at 8:50 AM on August 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
Hello me! I'm guessing you work in an agency type environment. I too worked in this type of environment and a lot of advice in this thread, while not wrong, does not understand the problems we face.
Here's the best advice I'd give, and it sounds defeatist but I'll give it anyway: What does upper management do? Do they pay lip service but try to distance themselves from the project? Do the same. Think you want to help those below and at least make their lives easier? Don't. If you do this you risk making yourself too involved in the project, helping them makes it look like the project fuck up is on you.
In the end you're not making a product, you're maneuvering a political minefield. Money often doesn't matter, they're willing to take a loss on high value projects. Whether it is awards or prestige. Your work as a tech person doesn't matter. Agile planning doesn't matter. If the client comes back in the middle of a sprint and wants a big feature everyone will drop what they are doing and do it. No one will tell them no. This is just the nature of how these things work, deadlines will be missed.
In the end if you don't like it you should find a new type of industry, it sounds like you're a developer so you should not have a hard time finding a job in-house somewhere. This has its own problems but I find people are usually more reasonable dealing with their own people.
posted by geoff. at 9:45 AM on August 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Here's the best advice I'd give, and it sounds defeatist but I'll give it anyway: What does upper management do? Do they pay lip service but try to distance themselves from the project? Do the same. Think you want to help those below and at least make their lives easier? Don't. If you do this you risk making yourself too involved in the project, helping them makes it look like the project fuck up is on you.
In the end you're not making a product, you're maneuvering a political minefield. Money often doesn't matter, they're willing to take a loss on high value projects. Whether it is awards or prestige. Your work as a tech person doesn't matter. Agile planning doesn't matter. If the client comes back in the middle of a sprint and wants a big feature everyone will drop what they are doing and do it. No one will tell them no. This is just the nature of how these things work, deadlines will be missed.
In the end if you don't like it you should find a new type of industry, it sounds like you're a developer so you should not have a hard time finding a job in-house somewhere. This has its own problems but I find people are usually more reasonable dealing with their own people.
posted by geoff. at 9:45 AM on August 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Hmm. Here's one possible answer, but this question is SO dependent on context and how power works in your organization that it might not be useful at all. (Building relationships with higher ups as I've described might get you fired in some organizations.) But for your consideration...
0. Build a reputation as someone who Gets Things Done. Frame yourself that way in interviews.
0.5 You build yourself a base of internal political power. Find people higher up; understand what they're trying to do; get them to see you as someone trying to do those same things.
1. I get charged with some new and important project, often exciting and cutting edge. This is going to revolutionize things!
1.5 Build widespread buy-in for the project's completion by X date. Identify a compelling reason that this project absolutely must be finished. "We can't let the Blah Blah debacle happen again" or whatever. Find an external deadline to peg it to.
1.75 Have a round of conversations with your high-level supporters about why this project is really going to help them. Ask for their help making sure it gets done. Continue to check in with them occasionally so that they get this impression of you as someone successfully hitting milestones on this project they've come to care about. (How to check in with them without being a pest may be something as simple as having your spiel ready for when you bump into them at the coffee maker.)
2. People try to make the project get slowly out of hand: features are added on, the scope creeps, I find myself answering to multiple bosses / clients with contradictory needs, vital internal cooperation doesn't occur.
2.01 Get angry, not unprofessional, but frustrated and energized. Start actively defending the project and pushing for it to stay simple enough to get done. Remind people of the project's raison d'etre and why it has the deadline it does. "We have to prevent the Blah problem from happening again, and it will, if we don't finish by $Date."
2.5 If that doesn't settle people down, let your high level supporters know what's going on. Let them bring up if it feels appropriate for them to intervene to keep things on track. More likely it won't, but at least communicate with them about what's happening. If that doesn't work...
3. I try to take charge of the growing complexity, asking for priorities / more resources / clarity. This doesn't work.
3.5 Make everyone go through a re-scoping process where it's clear (a) why the project is getting delayed and whose fault that is, (b) that there is now a new timeline and set of deliverables.
4. Deadlines and milestonesare missed don't get missed, because you made everyone clearly agree that you were now on a new timeline to accommodate Mr. Smith's feature. Nothing gets properly finished before I get whiplashed into a new direction, which just adds to later technical debt.
5. Frustrated, I'll hand in a substantially cut-down deliverable and move on to another position.
5.5 Your strategic and politically savvy efforts to actually create results means that you'll get picked up by a higher-up who similarly wants something to HAPPEN and will themselves effectively defend your project.
Maybe??
posted by salvia at 12:33 PM on August 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
0. Build a reputation as someone who Gets Things Done. Frame yourself that way in interviews.
0.5 You build yourself a base of internal political power. Find people higher up; understand what they're trying to do; get them to see you as someone trying to do those same things.
1. I get charged with some new and important project, often exciting and cutting edge. This is going to revolutionize things!
1.5 Build widespread buy-in for the project's completion by X date. Identify a compelling reason that this project absolutely must be finished. "We can't let the Blah Blah debacle happen again" or whatever. Find an external deadline to peg it to.
1.75 Have a round of conversations with your high-level supporters about why this project is really going to help them. Ask for their help making sure it gets done. Continue to check in with them occasionally so that they get this impression of you as someone successfully hitting milestones on this project they've come to care about. (How to check in with them without being a pest may be something as simple as having your spiel ready for when you bump into them at the coffee maker.)
2. People try to make the project get slowly out of hand: features are added on, the scope creeps, I find myself answering to multiple bosses / clients with contradictory needs, vital internal cooperation doesn't occur.
2.01 Get angry, not unprofessional, but frustrated and energized. Start actively defending the project and pushing for it to stay simple enough to get done. Remind people of the project's raison d'etre and why it has the deadline it does. "We have to prevent the Blah problem from happening again, and it will, if we don't finish by $Date."
2.5 If that doesn't settle people down, let your high level supporters know what's going on. Let them bring up if it feels appropriate for them to intervene to keep things on track. More likely it won't, but at least communicate with them about what's happening. If that doesn't work...
3. I try to take charge of the growing complexity, asking for priorities / more resources / clarity. This doesn't work.
3.5 Make everyone go through a re-scoping process where it's clear (a) why the project is getting delayed and whose fault that is, (b) that there is now a new timeline and set of deliverables.
4. Deadlines and milestones
5. Frustrated, I'll hand in a substantially cut-down deliverable and move on to another position.
5.5 Your strategic and politically savvy efforts to actually create results means that you'll get picked up by a higher-up who similarly wants something to HAPPEN and will themselves effectively defend your project.
Maybe??
posted by salvia at 12:33 PM on August 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
If other people with the same position where you work manage to not have this happen to them, how do they do it?
If no one can escape who has your position in your industry then it's not under your control. You have to accept it or change your role and /or industry.
posted by emjaybee at 7:38 AM on August 14, 2016
If no one can escape who has your position in your industry then it's not under your control. You have to accept it or change your role and /or industry.
posted by emjaybee at 7:38 AM on August 14, 2016
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You can also work on being more assertive, though. I have a friend who has difficulties in setting work boundaries because she wants everyone to like her always, and that's an unrealistic and frankly inappropriate goal for the workplace. Work on setting firm boundaries, being the expert they hired you to be, saying "no" to unreasonable requests, asking for what you need to keep the project on task, and helping your manager to manage if they won't do it on their own by asserting what you're going to do and/or what the only feasible options are. Speak with authority. Don't be afraid of pissing people off occasionally; don't yell or degrade or insult anyone, obviously, but feel free to shut down the "it's not that complex" people. I do freelance graphic design, and I regularly have to politely but firmly school people in what I can and cannot do with the Adobe Creative Suite.*
Alternatively, if your boss will fire you if you try to assert what you're going to do and/or what the only feasible options are, then I think your only other option aside from continuing the cycle is to do what your boss is asking even if it's going to derail everything and just not let your job consume your life. Just show up, do your 9 to 5, and leave. No investment - you know it's a train wreck and you've accepted it. This is not a path I'd be super pleased about choosing, but it is an option.
*One wanted me to Photoshop out the giant chunk of hair that had blown across her whole face in a photo to reveal her face with the exact expression she was making underneath. That's... not possible.
posted by vegartanipla at 11:36 PM on August 12, 2016