Chapter 14: Handle Your Management

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Overview

Your effectiveness as a project manager, not to mention your job satisfaction, is somewhat linked to your relationship with your boss, whether he or she is your project sponsor or some other senior project stakeholder. To make the best of this relationship, you need to understand your manager's strengths, weaknesses, and predispositions in several areas, so that you can:

  • Leverage the better qualities

  • Learn how to tiptoe around any deficiencies

No disrespect for the management chain and those who occupy its higher levels is intended or implied by this chapter; however, certain conditions can impact the project manager's effectiveness that appear to spring directly from the personal attributes of senior managers, including sponsors, to whom we report and with whom we must interact. I do not want to get into a lot of the political or social byplay that typifies the modern workplace because I do not place much stock in those things myself. What I do want to address is how you can understand your boss to the degree that you do not get either one of you in too much hot water while doing your job as best you can.

As the project manager of a complex project, you have a tremendous amount of responsibility. In this role, it is not always easy to know when to involve your immediate supervisor, or how. This is because there is so much activity that decisions constantly beg to be made, seemingly each hour, at times. As a good project manager, you want to get them made as they arise. This is because one of your most critical tasks is keeping everything moving, given that time, along with everyone's good will, is your most precious asset. If, for whatever reason, you feel like you have to go running to your boss each time choices must be made, you are not adding much value to the process. This interim approval step can also elongate the decision-making process. How much delay this can introduce depends, of course, on how available your boss is, how quickly he or she responds, and other issues that will be called to your attention in this chapter.



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Complex IT project management(c) 16 steps to success
Complex IT Project Management: 16 Steps to Success
ISBN: 0849319323
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 231
Authors: Peter Schulte

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