Most of the time, we face this question while tracking our projects.
“Are the team members really working on the project so as to complete the deliverables on time?”
If not all, the doubt comes when we observe a couple of team members giving a positive status but we do not see substantial progress in the project plan. Many a times, we are usually not equipped with handling such a situation and end up with a devastating situation when it comes to delivering at the end of the project timeline.
Before we discuss on the real scenario solutions, let us first look at what causes such type of a situation and what can possibly resolve the problem.
First, it boils down to the type of organisation. Is it a matrix based organisation and are some of the team members reporting to a functional manager? If yes, you are likely to have a situation where the team member may actually be working on some other priorities for the functional manager while his assignment to the project would be more on the face value. The team member cannot help but keep his functional and appraisal manager happy and may just be “managing” the work of the project assigned. In this kind of a situation, it makes sense for the project manager to deep dive into the situation. There are different approaches that can be used depending upon the organisation. One suggested approach is to check with the customers on the deliverable timelines and quality. Then, take the feedback to the appropriate senior management and/or discuss with the functional manager. A constructive dialogue often sets the right expectation and the team member can better prioritise the tasks. If the problem still persists, it might require to escalate to the top management and hard decisions to be taken.
Second reason could be if the project has just started and say, you are in the first couple of sprints. Here, you may not even have detailed project tasks cut out. In this case, it is imperative to get more insight into the project task details. Ensure the assignments are clearly made to each of the resources. This would ensure that no one just gives a vague status and then unnecessarily building up the pressure of non delivery at the end of the sprint.
Third key reason can be the limitation of the project manager to confine to the boundaries of tracking only the task statuses, resulting in the scope and functional requirements being solely managed by the product manger or the Business Analyst. Though, the project manager cannot really take the role of the BA or the product manager, he should definitely understand the product functionality to help appreciate the scope and deliverables. The project manager should be able to align the functionalities with the business goals.
The project manager can then be able to do better justice to the project deliverables and be able to appreciate the role of each team member in the overall project execution.
Nice … lot to take Sambit
Nice post!