Why are people not supportive of their Project Manager/Project Management team?

[Anonymous]

I’m now in the field and I notice so much push back. Why are people not accepting of the efforts the project manager and the project management team put into helping meet deadlines and lessen the issues for not delivering on time.

[Anonymous]

I really like our team's project manager. I hear that she's stressed out and frustrated and wish her well. Our team gets along, we have much trust in each other and flexibility, worked together for years.

So why am I not delivering as the PM asks? Because mine is mommy-track job. I work from home juggling work obligations and little kids with insufficient childcare. My priority is to meet all the competing responsibilities well enough - at a "good enough" level. When there's situation at work that needs my attention, I set everything aside to come through for the team at an A level. But because of competing priorities juggling work/family, I am not able to do A-level work as the standard. I know that B is good enough and that's what I aim for. And to get me to do A work most of the time, I'd need a big raise to outsource some of my other responsibilities.

[Anonymous]

Competing priorities, unrealistic timelines.

I actually really value a PM, theyre great. But when you ask me in January to commit to a deadline in June for QA on something that isn't written yet, you have to accept that the timeline is fantasy.

[Anonymous]

I love PM’s! The really good ones have a great sense of balance, priorities, and an excellence ability to ask probing questions regarding interconnected deliverables. I always give my PM the time she needs. I also have a high sense of responsibility and if I say I’m going to do something, I get it done. Similarly if a timeline is out of whack, I’ll pushback and ask for a discussion on it, I won’t commit and not deliver. I have seen some units outright reject a PM when they feel like they can handle the project themselves, or don’t want the added scrutiny of timelines and report outs. It is the same unit that cannot seem to launch a system enhancement - the business has been waiting 2 years for it - but somehow they fly under the radar, keep missing deadlines, and get away with being mediocre.

[Anonymous]

Because I have never encountered a project manager who had any clue about what was involved in actually completing the project that he was supposedly managing.

Also, because they mostly scheduled status meetings, which a) I hate, because I hate meetings and b) become an impediment to actually making progress in completing the project in question.

And I apologies if OP is actually good at the job, but I have been scarred by past experience with worse-than-useless project managers.

I can certainly see a place in an organization for good project managers, but they need to have some experience with the types of projects that they manage, rather than spending entire careers as project managers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because I have never encountered a project manager who had any clue about what was involved in actually completing the project that he was supposedly managing.

Also, because they mostly scheduled status meetings, which a) I hate, because I hate meetings and b) become an impediment to actually making progress in completing the project in question.

And I apologies if OP is actually good at the job, but I have been scarred by past experience with worse-than-useless project managers.

I can certainly see a place in an organization for good project managers, but they need to have some experience with the types of projects that they manage, rather than spending entire careers as project managers.

All the above. When they are good, they are very good. The bad ones impede projects.
If you become familiar with the original tenets of agile, which all PMs should as I'm sure you are "agile", PMs were out. As were processes and tools. The PMs that get a hard on for everyone following a process are missing the whole point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because I have never encountered a project manager who had any clue about what was involved in actually completing the project that he was supposedly managing.

It is your job to tell the PM what work needs to be done, money you need and the date it will be done.

Also, because they mostly scheduled status meetings, which a) I hate, because I hate meetings and b) become an impediment to actually making progress in completing the project in question.

In my experience, PM's have to schedule meetings because engineers/workers refuse to talk to each other if a meeting is not scheduled.

And I apologies if OP is actually good at the job, but I have been scarred by past experience with worse-than-useless project managers.

I can certainly see a place in an organization for good project managers, but they need to have some experience with the types of projects that they manage, rather than spending entire careers as project managers.

[Anonymous]

You job is to create a schedule, request resources (people and money) and protect the scope.

If you are assigned resources that are also responsible for operations, operations will take precedent. You need to ask for dedicated staff.

You cannot be told an end date; you must ask your staff what work needs to be done and schedule it. When there is a delay, you tell upper management and they either accept the schedule shift or give you more resources.

You can not allow people to add or change the scope, otherwise the project will go on forever and people get frustrated.

Remember good, fast, cheap.... pick 2 you can't have all 3.

Good and fast is expensive.
Fast and Cheap will be not a great product.
Good and Cheap will take a long time.  

[Anonymous]

We love ours! We follow an AGILE-like approach, but with some flexibility. Having dedicated PMs is newish for us. Before the responsibilities were sort of vaguely shared with team members who were supposed to do PM type stuff in addition to their specific roles. Life is much better with PMs.

[Anonymous]

It is your job to tell the PM what work needs to be done, money you need and the date it will be done.

...

In my experience, PM's have to schedule meetings because engineers/workers refuse to talk to each other if a meeting is not scheduled.

Arguing with people who are actually doing the work to complete your projects will not endear you to those people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m now in the field and I notice so much push back. Why are people not accepting of the efforts the project manager and the project management team put into helping meet deadlines and lessen the issues for not delivering on time.

If this is how you communicate at work it's because your vagueness is unhelpful distraction.

And your use of "on time" suggests that you push impossible due dates on them instead of accepting reality.

[Anonymous]

One word: Dashboards.

Some really don't care about the program and the nuances of the work. They just like to make spiffy dashboards to track KPIs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because I have never encountered a project manager who had any clue about what was involved in actually completing the project that he was supposedly managing.

It is your job to tell the PM what work needs to be done, money you need and the date it will be done.

Also, because they mostly scheduled status meetings, which a) I hate, because I hate meetings and b) become an impediment to actually making progress in completing the project in question.

In my experience, PM's have to schedule meetings because engineers/workers refuse to talk to each other if a meeting is not scheduled.

And I apologies if OP is actually good at the job, but I have been scarred by past experience with worse-than-useless project managers.

I can certainly see a place in an organization for good project managers, but they need to have some experience with the types of projects that they manage, rather than spending entire careers as project managers.

Good PMs will listen when people tell them what needs to be done and how long it will take. Bad ones will say "I don't care, this is the deadline."

Good PMs will facilitate useful communication between people and teams when it is necessary. Bad ones will take up hours of everyone's time with meandering meetings that accomplish nothing.

Like all things, PMs are a tool. When done well they can be incredibly useful. When done poorly, they are just another annoying thing sucking up time and draining morale and productivity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really like our team's project manager. I hear that she's stressed out and frustrated and wish her well. Our team gets along, we have much trust in each other and flexibility, worked together for years.

So why am I not delivering as the PM asks? Because mine is mommy-track job. I work from home juggling work obligations and little kids with insufficient childcare. My priority is to meet all the competing responsibilities well enough - at a "good enough" level. When there's situation at work that needs my attention, I set everything aside to come through for the team at an A level. But because of competing priorities juggling work/family, I am not able to do A-level work as the standard. I know that B is good enough and that's what I aim for. And to get me to do A work most of the time, I'd need a big raise to outsource some of my other responsibilities.

This type of behavior exmplifies why there needs to be a person to prod people to keep them on track.

[Anonymous]

Because the PMs have zero idea what goes into each task they are asking me to complete and yell at me when I politely push back and offer up a reasonable TAT. Your timeline is not my issue, I am happy to be a team player, but some of their asks are just ridiculous.