7.3 The Answer Man

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Word gets around fast about your behavior in the scenario we just discussed. Whether you went out and uncovered this potential project jeopardy or it came to you, your reaction will be duly noted by project stakeholders. Let us assume you followed the advice presented in the last section and helped bail a team lead out. Other team leads and key stakeholders will somehow learn, almost instantly, that you "get things done." As a result, they all will come to you, not en masse, but every now and then, with their own issues. This is a good thing from the perspective that your relevancy quotient is on the uptick that I believe is desirable.

Still, this can be a bad thing from a personal standpoint because along with the reputation for effective problem solving comes the tag I call "The Answer Man." This is an admittedly fusty reference to a marketing campaign a few decades ago, wherein the Answer Man knew practically everything. The point is that not all issues belong to you or the project and, in fact, may be inappropriately brought to you.

Be that as it may, the reputation you gain from a problem-solving perspective is pretty binary. Either you are seen as a good way to solve problems, or you are not. Believe me, you want the former to be the perception, not the latter, even though they will come at you more than you like. It bears repeating that if they see you as not helpful, you get cut off in all matters, and that is definitely a very bad thing. If you have adolescent children, you definitely understand this situation. Unfortunately, that model holds for project managers, with the same jeopardies that parents face, at least in the professional sense.

Take heart by reminding yourself and your supplicants that you are not "The Answer Man," just a humble project manager. Still, you cannot stop there. Unless the issue at hand is an absolutely dead certain showstopper, you are a mentor and a traffic cop, not a priest or Web master. About 90 percent of the problems that hit your inbox can and should be solved by using one of the following tactics:

"Let me make some calls. I think I know who can help but I have to check it out."
"All right, I can fund two more consultants for 90 days each."
"I will see if the customer is okay with that change and get back to you."
"Call Maria. If she is not responsive, let me know, and I will call her boss."
"I cannot make that decision, but will ask my boss to call yours, okay?"

The other 10 percent of the issues either require your special personalized handling, or you have to hand the problem back to them and say, "Sorry, I cannot help you." Before saying this, consider two things. The first is the impact on the project if the problem is not addressed and festers too long. The second, quite frankly, is a decision regarding the ability of the individual bringing the issue to your attention to solve the problem on his or her own. If the answer to both questions makes you queasy, then you should consider solving the problem yourself. In this case, you may want to check with your boss first or possibly get another team lead to handle it for you.

I recently had an experience of this nature, although the gory details are too lengthy to describe. The bottom line is that one of our project subteams was handed a serious problem that the previous owner failed to resolve. Leaving the issue open would definitely have exposed the project to incredibly bad publicity. The subteam lead who inherited the issue was not all that motivated to support one of his direct reports who was a key player on our project. I ended up running interference for this latter individual. Although the final results of our remediation efforts were satisfactory if not miraculous, it was a most unpleasant experience personally as well as professionally. I also had a real problem disengaging from the beneficiaries, who locked onto me as their personal "Answer Man." It took many months to obtain enough political cover to disengage from this group, even though the 3-month ordeal had thankfully turned into just another bad memory.

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