Reject the queen-the project manager should be careful with Game 3

 

Some bosses are reluctant to face the reality. You told them: "We cannot meet your requirements on time ." They don't seem to have heard of you. They looked at you and told you, "I believe that you will be able to get it done on time as long as you are above your mind ." You sat there speechless, but they walked happily, as if the project could be delivered before the date they gave. In such a situation, you just met "reject the Queen.

There are many reasons for "rejection ". The most common reason I have seen is that, like the manager mentioned above, he wants to encourage the project team. Sometimes, people refuse because they are afraid that the project cannot be completed before the deadline. They don't care what you say. This is the ostrich effect. Sometimes, the company's top executives believe that if you set a vague or impossible date, the project team can complete the project earlier than they expected.

You can use the following method to respond to "rejection ".

• Find out why your manager refused. Use context-independent questions (see section 1.5) to understand the reasons behind the project. For example, you can ask, "What is the success of this project ?"
• Write down the risks and potential impacts of the project. Use high, medium, or low to discuss the severity and exposure level. Do not use numbers. Those who don't take your schedule seriously will not take these risk figures seriously.
• Demonstrate what you can do and measure the actual development speed of the team in the project. Yes, it is very convenient to use iteration here, and the speed chart can tell others the real status of the project.
• Ensure that everyone involved in the project has professional knowledge in related fields.

If the management thinks that "rejection" is a way to encourage the team, it is recommended that other encouragement skills be adopted. Generally, this means letting him do something else useful to the Team (for example, narrowing the demand through negotiation) or attracting his attention to other projects. The management may think that rejecting existing problems or potential problems can encourage the team. In fact, this will lead to obstacles to the team. Shift their attentionOthersProject is a very useful technique that can make them stop staring at your project.

As long as the project manager can accept the reality, "rejecting the Queen" will not necessarily cause a disaster.

A team tried to persuade the project manager to accept the reality of the project. After several failures, they gave up and decided to organize themselves to ignore the existence of the Project Manager. They no longer participate in project team meetings and leave the project manager behind. They developed some features of the project and produced some data (but not a speed chart ). A few months later, we all saw that the project manager was not familiar with the current situation, and this person was fired. At this point, the project team has lost a lot of time and it is difficult for them to control when to deliver the functions.

The reality is always face-to-face with "rejection" at some point, which is inevitable, and that is why "rejection of the Queen" is only a planning of the game, not always a cause of disaster. When the management sees the real reality, the project manager should ensure that he has some products that can work and data that can be displayed, so that the management can discuss with you what to do next. This is also a good time to discuss "what can be done without doing", so that you can complete the current project and make better plans for the subsequent projects.

If the project manager always Encounters "reject the Queen", you can integrate the following methods during management so that you can see the actual progress.

• Use iterations with time box restrictions so that everyone can see the progress of the project.
• To-do list of products with priority. The team can implement the functions one by one based on their business values from high to low. When the investor wakes up and finally realizes that the project cannot be delivered on the date given by him, the Team has developed several high-priority functions, so that the project manager can also get valuable things.