“Emma, have you ever been to India?”
-Eh, no? I couldn’t understand how that was in any way related to the topic of not having any people in the project, a topic I’ve been trying to talk with my sponsor about for the last 5 minutes.
“Me and my wife were in Calcutta on vacation and you know the traffic just stood still sometimes. We were having coffee at our little cafe and I could watch for hours of how the cars just stood there, honking.”
-Ok (?) Still not following but waiting for him to get to the point.
“And you see, even though everything stood still. There is still some movement. Some cars in some weird way squeeze through and get forward. Not going straight but taking the space they can find as long as it’s not backward.”
-Ok?
“Don’t you see, I need you to be that car, the car that moves forward even though everything standing still.”
The impossible
That conversation happened when I for the x:th time raised the fact that we had a very nice project definition but not a single person in the project. The small group of three people assigned to the project made it very clear on our first meeting that they didn’t see themselves as the project group, just as a reference group that could give input to a project group when it needed advice. Even though I scheduled several sessions for us all together with the sponsor, the gap between perceived realities was not being bridged. The project was standing still and I couldn’t get it moving.
I still today don’t know if he didn’t understand what I was saying, if he didn’t know how to solve it or if he hold me in such high regard that he thought that I could do magic by myself. We were past the discussion about my role as a project manager, it was not that he wanted me to do solution architecture or documentation of the project. He wanted to have a proper project manager that facilitated the process forward. To get something moving in the project, I had strayed a bit from that and started documenting a bit, but was now at a point where I desperately needed a project team to work with.
The escalation
I finally met my steering group, hoping they would back the project up with some resources. But to my disappointment, it wasn’t a steering group for my project. It was more of a general organizational steering forum with very little mandate to take decisions or change directions in projects. Just a couple of weeks later, there was an invitation to a strategic project meeting with high people involved. Every project which had passed a certain gate should attend. I didn’t want to go since we didn’t have a project plan yet. Hell, I didn’t have a project team to start the planning.
But the project sponsor had pushed through the project management organization, “speeding up the process” of administration getting the project passed gates that we hadn’t passed. “We need to get this forward” was the motto. I’m all for speed and cutting administration where one can, in this case though, we were lacking the foundations of a project to start with.
“So you don’t know when you will be ready!?” The meeting director asked me.
-No. Since we don’t have a team in place yet, it’s impossible to do a breakdown analysis of this at this point.
“When will you have the team in place?”
I looked at my sponsor, waiting for him to say something since he held the cards of resources. But he looked at me with the same eyes that everyone else in the room: questioning this projects status.
-I don’t know that either, it has been raised several times now and I’m still missing an answer.
“So there’s no time plan and there’s no team, not even a plan for when these things will be in place. Why are you even at this meeting?”
This was definitely the place where my sponsor could have stepped in, explaining why he insisted on having us in the meeting. But he kept looking at me just as everybody else in the room. I felt awful. I couldn’t explain things as it was, that would’ve hanged my sponsor out to dry in front of all of his bosses, but I definitely didn’t want to take this short cutting on myself either. So I went the way of trying to use the meeting as an escalation point for resources, which they all kindly informed me was the wrong way and something I had to bring up with the sponsor for the project.
The solution
Maybe I should have burnt that bridge at that point. Working very close to project sponsors are one of my key things to success, but that also involves quite a bit of loyalty. It never occurred to me that a sponsor would hang me out to dry as he did with me in that meeting. I’ve been in loud and though project meetings but never felt as alone as in this one.
The solution came at another high-end meeting, where it was questioned again why we weren’t further ahead. Sponsors and forum owners sat at the table, and project managers around the walls to assist if needed with any questions. Just when the meeting had started, one of their senior management roles decided to attend. No seats left at the table, he sat down along the walls and just listened.
Our project was up for review, questioned and my sponsor said “Let’s ask our project manager why it’s not moving forward”. When I said out bluntly that I don’t have a project team so it’s questionable if it’s a project, my sponsor became pale and everyone went silent. Their senior management person on the other hand turned to me and asked: “What do you need?”
-For the first stage, a solution architect and a person from the business who knows the processes. I answered.
“Ok. Who has a solution architect and a business person to assign to her project?” He asked to the table.
No one answered which ended up in a big resource discussion and prioritization. Senior management was not happy at all with the non-responsive forum of middle managers – my project wasn’t the only one standing still in the company. I got my two persons and two weeks later we had come further along than we’d had the last 3 months.
The insights
This isn’t a story about big organisations, short cutting, process failures or internal politics. My point being the close collaboration that’s needed in a project brings loyalty. And it needs to go both ways.
My key insight from this happening? To (1) make sure to work with people that have my back as I have theirs. (2) when it comes down to the loyalty between sponsors and the project, your key role is to protect the project. Even if it’s against the sponsor or owner and it goes against your loyalty bounds in roles. Because if you don’t speak for your project, no one else will. And (3) by all means be pragmatic but never loose your integrity. It’s your project to manage but its outcome is not all on you. Put responsibility where it belongs.
I still haven’t been to India and seen the traffic jam. But I still believe that it’s only doable when you are not dependent on anyone else to move forward. This is rarely the case in projects, especially those that are going for the transformation of something.
