Ensuring not to get exploited
Scenario
There will be many situations where a project manager gets exploited if he/she is too soft to push back. Below are a few examples of such situations:
Two senior leaders do not want to confront each other. They choose the convenient option of the project manager as a mediator who ends up being a scapegoat later whenever an issue arises.
In order to impress a senior leader some "smart" person identifies work items, get the needed mileage and dump the actual work on the project manager. To make things worse, the same smart person takes credit for the work after the project manager toils hard to do the actual work. If the works is not successful, this same smart person will look the other side and let the project manager enjoy the dissatisfaction of management.
To avoid work, some people pass-the-buck to someone else and asks the project manager to talk to someone else to get an answer. That person does the same and the project manager is left going from pillar-to-post and in this process, the most precious aspect of the project – TIME – is lost.
When issues start coming up, the project manager is held responsible for not doing a good job with risk identification.
When customer reports a defect, two teams point fingers at the project manager for not ensuring proper interface was defined between two components.
When a basic defect escapes testing phase and found by customer, the testing team points finger at project manager for not ensuring clear requirements were documented.
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And the list goes on. I am sure you got a flavour of it 😊
As a Fresh Project Manager
The first mistake I made in these scenarios was – Be a good Samaritan, take ownership of the issue and jump into solving the issue in fire-fighting mode. This is a dangerous spiral. Many organizations have a culture of recognizing those who always fight fires. Those who do their job perfectly and never create a fire are ignored as mediocre performers. However, fire-fighters who burn the midnight oil are treated as super stars. While this is absolutely correct in the case of real fires, it is absolutely a wrong culture in a project environment. So, a project manager might be tempted to do the same. This is not a recipe for long term success, both from a professional as well as quality of life point of view. Continuing in fire-fighting mode leads to build-up of negative energy which is not good for physical and mental health. This is injustice to the family.
The second and more significant mistake is – Continue working in this reactive mode without taking a step back and do a good lessons learnt exercise in the spirit of improvement.
With a Salt -N- Pepper Look & Many More Battle Wounds
Do your best to ensure you do not give an opportunity for anyone to point fingers at you or exploit you. Build a perception of you as a no-nonsense person. Publicly expose those who are trying to exploit you.
If two leaders are using you to be a mediator, setup a meeting with both of them and facilitate a discussion. If they don’t come together, escalate the issue to senior management using various tools you have. Ex: Blockers, Red Flags, Risks, Issues.
Escalation is a very powerful tool of a project manager. First and foremost, understand the escalation culture in the organization. There are two types of cultures:
Escalation is treated as a good practice to seek help and people do not take this as a bad mark on someone.
Escalation is treated as a LAST RESORT. This is considered as a failure and everyone looks down on the person/team against whom the project manager escalates.
As you can imagine, escalation has to be used very differently in each of the different cultures. You need to weigh the cost-benefit-analysis of escalating a particular topic. This is a balance that needs to be struck throughout the project lifecycle.
Another helpful tool in this situation is the "Importance of documenting key decisions".