This is your
last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the
story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.
You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember, all I'm offering is the
truth—nothing more.
As a Project Manager or a Project Resource, we all live in the
Matrix. How deep the rabbit hole goes
depends on where you work, what your role is, what the project is, when it
needs to get done, and innumerable other factors.
For those keeping score at home, there are three different types of project
environments as defined in the PMBOK:
Strong
Matrix- the Project Manager is in charge of the resources assigned to the
project, and the resources are typically dedicated to the project. They say jump and you better believe those
resources jump. A strong matrix
environment is usually indicated by a PM that dresses up Neo-style, frequent
bouts of maniacal laughter and the sound of the Imperial Death March preceding
their entrance into the conference room.
(Seriously, try the latter sometime, it’s a blast)
Balanced
Matrix- the project management equivalent of the porridge that’s just
right. Here we have a normal looking
Project Manager with normal human attributes and the beauty of having enough
power to get things done along with someone to turn to if things go south on
them.
Weak
Matrix- the Project Manager has no direct control over the resources assigned
to the project, and the resources are typically given project tasks in addition
to their “day jobs”. If the Project
Manager says jump and the resources don’t jump, its tattle tale time. Signs of a weak matrix are a PM with sunken
eyes, permanent 5 o’clock shadow, torn and wrinkled clothing, and the sound of
10 middle fingers popping up every time they leave the conference room followed
by gentle sobbing trailing away down the hallway.
A Weak Matrix project can occur in any size organization, but the
condition can be exacerbated by two specific conditions:
1. The Project
Manager is also not dedicated to the Project and indeed not even to Project
Management itself. These unfortunate
souls are also known as Accidental Project Managers
2. The
organization is small and there is no formal change management process
I was recently approached for consultation by an end user, let’s call
him Alex, whose organization is currently undergoing a significant change. Briefly, his company is switching from one
operational software to a new operational software. There are approximately 10 people on
staff. After several days of running
both systems in parallel, it had become evident to him that there were
significant issues with the changeover and he was frustrated, angry, and quite
concerned that his clients would be impacted by the change.
I started out by explaining to him that what his company was going
through was in no way unique. They were
certainly not going to be the best at making this changeover, nor were they
going to be the worst when the dust finally settled. Change is difficult, and it is
impactful. It’s about managing the
change to mitigate that impact. Our
conversation continued.
“You and I have been through this type of thing before, Alex”, I
reminded him. “Remember when we made
that switch from one system to another ten years ago? You were on the front line for that one, in a
customer facing role. That had to have
been really difficult and you made it through”.
“But we knew that you were there to help us, Chris, and we had a lot of
support from the organization. When
things got bad we at least knew that we had some support behind us and that it
was organized,” he responded forcefully.
“Ah, but we were a dedicated team.
It was our only job to support you.
It sounds like right now your Project Manager is still working with
customers too, isn’t he? This isn’t his
sole focus, right?’
“That’s true,” he replied thoughtfully, “I hadn’t thought of that. He is trying to do everything he was doing
before and now this as well.”
Here I knew that Alex had gone from feeling like a victim to thinking
about how he could begin to support his Accidental Project Manager. This is a crucial point of the conversation,
because Alex can significantly impact this project negatively if he doesn’t
help in the “right way”.
I began to dispense my unsolicited advice. “The best thing that you can do is document
your issues, and make sure that you describe why they are issues and how big of
an issue it is. Give him a list. If you tell him things as you pass him in the
hallway, he will not remember what you told him. Help him to make informed decisions by giving
him the information that he needs in a way that he can digest on his own time.”
Alex was nodding throughout. “What
really bugs me is that this is impacting my customers. That’s the biggest deal
for me. I think that I will just figure
out how to make things work for now so that I can continue to service my
customers while we get this working right.
But the Project Manager doesn’t seem to want me to help them. My customer was waiting for 15 minutes for
someone to help him and when I stepped in to get him squared away, the PM
grabbed me and asked me to give the staff that were supposed to help my
customer some space. I was just trying
to help!”
“You are better off learning this new system the right way. Workarounds today are just going to lead bad
habits tomorrow”, I replied. “That goes
for everybody, not just you. Remember,
everyone else is learning this at the same time as you are. And sometimes it’s better to just let folks
figure things out without a bunch of other people standing over them. Hopefully, your Project Manager is looking at
the bigger picture, and you have to trust the decisions that he makes even if
you don’t necessarily understand them at the time”.
“Here’s the other thing that you have to understand”, I continued. “Your customers are going to be
impacted. You’re not going to avoid it,
so don’t run away from it. Again, the
best thing that you can do is document your issues and assign a severity to
each issue and to be an advocate or proponent for the change that is occurring.
That’s going to allow your Project
Manager to focus on the things that are impacting his business and your
customers.”
Alex was silent for a few minutes.
“You know”, he began, “I really resented the way that they were handling
this at first. I never really thought
about how this was impacting them. I’ll
try to work with them to get this working the way that it needs to.”
Change is never easy. Operating
in a weak matrix can make change all the more difficult. Being an Accidental Project Manager in this
environment can be seemingly impossible.
All companies are concerned about the bottom line; they make purchases
that they believe will have a positive ROI for them, and unfortunately when
they look to see where they can make cuts to the implementation of their
purchase, dedicated Project or Organizational Change Management is usually the
first to go and an Accidental Project Manager is born.
The thing that I simply cannot stress enough to folks like Alex and his
Accidental PM, and really to anyone that is part of is project is the
importance of structured communication.
Give your end users a mechanism to submit their issues and insist that
they use it. Don’t allow yourself to be
subjected to drive bys! Tell your team
what is going on, and what the plan is.
Set up touch points throughout the project to ensure that you keep the
avenues of communication open- proactive communication will reduce tension and
better still keep the rumor mill to a mild roar.
I’ll post a follow up to share how Alex’s story ends. I’m confident though that he will be successful, as will his organization. I’m glad in the end he took the red pill and we took the journey into his rabbit hole. It wasn’t nearly as deep as he thought it was initially.
