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It's graphical, but not very helpful. How would the employee go about saving the project? The manager has authority over him/her, so their only choice would b

It's graphical, but not very helpful. How would the employee go about saving the project? The manager has authority over him/her, so their only choice would be to convince the manager that a drastic change is needed. Yet no manager is going to be receptive to the truth that they've personally failed over the past 1.5 months to such an extent that the next 1.5 months are impossible to salvage without throwing away most of the existing work. That conversation would not go well for the employee.

dspillett 13y ago
> It may be graphical, but it's not very helpful. What is OP supposed to do to "save" the project? I would disagree there. A good manager might take the situation well - they may have been misinformed by others and think things are far better than they are. If that isn't the case there may be the option of going above the managers head, though this has to be considered very carefully. In may case once it went rather well: the person above me had grossly misreported things above him. We are still dealing with some of the legacy of that period, but getting through it (and that person is no longer here). Of course depending on local politics this could go very badly, so I'll repeat: consider this sort of action very very carefully before taking the step. In my case saying "things have been X bad for a while, if things don't change either we are going to fail badly very soon or I'm going to burn out inside a couple of months" got the message across (it turns out an honest assessment was appreciated and that not losing some of us through walk out or burn out was important enough to warrant rearranging some plans and expectations). Of course I'm lucky: the Powers That Be here are sensible and I've been here over a decade & proven myself a good few times over so my word carries some weight - a relative new-starter under a less receptive hierarchy would not fair so well. If there really are no options for plan A for whatever reason, no end of time/overtime will fix the problem and there is no way the management can be made to appreciate the scale of the problem, that leaves plan B: get ready to jump ship.
PakG1 13y ago
All good managers rely on the people under them to give them high quality information and feedback to make decisions. don't blanket all managers as being too egotistical to avoid irrational escalation of commitment. That being said, decisions like reversing project directions or pivoting are usually huge multi-party decisions not up to a single person (unless it gets escalated to the very very top). A politically savvy employee would be able to make it work. Albeit, after saving the project (or making an admirable effort that catches everyone's eye), that employee would probably be marked by management for a management role. ;)

dspillett 13y ago

> It may be graphical, but it's not very helpful. What is OP supposed to do to "save" the project? I would disagree there. A good manager might take the situation well - they may have been misinformed by others and think things are far better than they are. If that isn't the case there may be the option of going above the managers head, though this has to be considered very carefully. In may case once it went rather well: the person above me had grossly misreported things above him. We are still dealing with some of the legacy of that period, but getting through it (and that person is no longer here). Of course depending on local politics this could go very badly, so I'll repeat: consider this sort of action very very carefully before taking the step. In my case saying "things have been X bad for a while, if things don't change either we are going to fail badly very soon or I'm going to burn out inside a couple of months" got the message across (it turns out an honest assessment was appreciated and that not losing some of us through walk out or burn out was important enough to warrant rearranging some plans and expectations). Of course I'm lucky: the Powers That Be here are sensible and I've been here over a decade & proven myself a good few times over so my word carries some weight - a relative new-starter under a less receptive hierarchy would not fair so well. If there really are no options for plan A for whatever reason, no end of time/overtime will fix the problem and there is no way the management can be made to appreciate the scale of the problem, that leaves plan B: get ready to jump ship.

PakG1 13y ago

All good managers rely on the people under them to give them high quality information and feedback to make decisions. don't blanket all managers as being too egotistical to avoid irrational escalation of commitment. That being said, decisions like reversing project directions or pivoting are usually huge multi-party decisions not up to a single person (unless it gets escalated to the very very top). A politically savvy employee would be able to make it work. Albeit, after saving the project (or making an admirable effort that catches everyone's eye), that employee would probably be marked by management for a management role. ;)