"I’ll take 'What is pissing you off today?' For $200, Alex."

What is: The Douche!

Every company has one or more of this archetype. Yours may be old or young; male or female. When the day is done, they're all egotistical, narcissistic, self-absorbed, arrogant, pompous, royal pains-in-the-ass.

Allow me to elaborate: Loud, too smiley, pontifical and rambles about theory, concepts and general nonsense. The strange and mysterious drivel falling from their lips is generally 100% erroneous, flawed, incorrect or invalid! The words, "I don't know" have never crossed their lips. they just wing it and like some monkey in a cage fling shit at the wall in hopes some of it may stick. The claptrap has nothing in particular to do with the question at hand. They come in late, take long lunches and go to meetings they are not invited to, just so they can complain how overworked they are. And the most irritating part is that they always do it with a big smile and a sigh. Makes me want to go all “Leatherface”!

We are working together on different sections of a large complex interdependent project. As a courtesy informed the douche I was going to lunch, to which was replied: "That will be acceptable." I wasn't asking permission as I don't report to the douche! But the fool is always on-stage, playing to the assembled crowd and getting on the last nerve I have.

Any good project manager knows when acting as a Facilitator (for a RAD/JAD) you say touchy-feely things like, "What I hear you saying is…", but the silly douche repeats every key point that's made by anyone in a meeting; slowly while nodding in agreement. The assembled crowed rolls their eyes or checks time on their cell phones. Fire up the chainsaw!

Probably the most worrisome trait is how the douche attempts to turn every remark into a sexual double entendre. Now, I work with some very robust and tough women project managers and most are highly skilled in vocal bouts that would make a longshoreman blush. But, damn! Listening to a douche spouting snickering twelve year old boy’s female anatomy jokes, is just embarrassing.

Most go to their “happy place” and dream of unicorns, puppies and kittens - I hear the sounds of a revving two stroke engine, a leather mask and maybe a few screams of terror…

Wonderland

It's been a tumultuous bunch of weeks here in Wonderland. I haven’t been able to have a quiet thought, or give two minutes to ranting about it.

Two more project managers packed up and left, and one was let go. Still the same horrendous amount of work, with the same impossible drop dead dates, and no plan to back-fill the vacated positions.

Why all the upheaval? My guess would be that you cannot have a PMO comprised with nothing but contractors. Full time employees have a sense of permanence, a future of sorts. Contractors owe the company nothing more than an honest days work. There was the promise of eventually going perm, but so far well after one year, only one person has brought into the hallowed arena of a FTE (sound of angels singing).

I work on very high profile special projects. Not short bus special; but high visibility reporting to “C” level douche-nozzles. You know, the projects that have all the special issues of “if not completed on time, the company will not make security compliance or federal compliance or the hair will fall off the CIO’s left sack, if not done NOW!

To add insult to injury, my so called director intimated that maybe I shouldn't claim more than forty hours per week. Sure, that will happen, when I see a flock of pigs zooming past my third floor window! I'd love to put in only forty hours per week, but if I did, that drop dead date would go whizzing by my head like shots from a drive by shooting gone bad. So to get just the absolutes done I'm doing almost 60 hours per week. Yeah, I'm billing an ass load of time and making a ton of money, but spending a good amount of it on antacids and aspirin. I think I am beginning to hallucinate…

I can think back in 'the day' when project management was fun. Challenging, but not demeaning, and you'd never have to justify yourself. You were hired because you were a proven professional and the corporation let you to do what you do best.

When something went south in the project, you owned up to it, and when you did pulled the magic rabbit out of your butt and saved the day, the corporation knew about it. How? No horn blowing of course, but a single congratulatory email to the whole team, mentioning the high point of the project. End it with well wishes and the hope that you will work with them again. Add your signature and viola….

Okay, so all of that is not was I'm pissed off about. It's fucking so called PMO director. He knows very little about project management. So little in fact, that if it were represented by pinto beans, he couldn’t even manage a small fart! He has he never even successfully run a project. He's just a big bag of wind, taking up way too much space in the universe. His just walking through the PM rabbit warrens asking inane questions and trying to sound important. It makes by blood pressure jump to uncivil levels. Why such a reaction? Mostly because he's taken credit for some of my best work. Project managers by their very nature are possessive when it comes to their project. That's not to mean they micro manage or refuse to delegate. They manage in every sense of the word, and someone taking credit for their work fucking pisses them off.

What Dreams May Come

We all know that you don’t have to be certified to be a great project manager; but it helps.

Not the certification itself, but firm grasp of the PMI methodology, procedures, forms and templates. Having said that, how can a Project Management Director not be certified or even had a project management class?

You may shrug and say: “Well, I guess that… maybe if….”

No; there is no way that someone can effectively direct project managers without a deep pool of experience and solid methodology. Case in point. Our PMO director was talking about the Triple Constraint as Better, Faster, Cheaper. (WTF?)

I said, “You mean, on time, within budget, to specifications?” And he replied, ”Yeah, same difference.”

Why is it the most uninformed people are always the most dogmatic?

You’ve sat in many a meeting listening to people droning on and repeat themselves endlessly, knowing you are the smartest person in the room and wondering how if you are so fucking smart why couldn’t you figured out how to get out of the damned meeting?

My project update meetings are held in minutes, not hours. We have an agenda and stick to it; mostly.

On my last major infrastructure project I had three engineers that weren’t impressed by my project management credentials… They knew better, about everything and fought on every point, making the meetings drag on endlessly. After about two of these endless pointless group gropes; at the next meeting when they showed up, all the chairs had been removed, leaving just the conference table.

I stood with a clip board and began going through the agenda. They were dumbfounded. They stammered, shifted from foot to foot and the ring leader of the three began to smile, ever so slightly. The meeting was wrapped up in about twenty minutes. I had cooperation and maybe a little respect. Is it that simple? Sometimes it is.

But what if the impediment to your job is the director? I’m sure you’ve worked for the type that has an automated response that is demeaning or just plain rude. Civilized professionals are generally taken aback by this type of behavior and generally don’t respond to such aggression as they should. For a split second you question what you could have done to provoke such a reaction. Then you realize it’s not you; your boss is just an asshole.

So, what do you do? Can you change him with facts, gentle persuasion or belly rubs, perhaps? Not fucking likely. Do you go around him and try to make end roads with his superiors? Possibly. Do you freshen up your resume and put yourself back out in the market? Possibly, but there are assholes everywhere, at one level or another. So what do you do? If you have a trust fund, the answer is easy, but I’m not that lucky.

So for now, my nose is glued to the project grindstone and I’ll stay under his radar, pushing my watermelon through the garden hose. But, I am patient and looking for that perfect crossroad of time/space/opportunity, so I can throw his sorry misbegotten woefully inept ass under the proverbial rapidly approaching bus. Which in this corporate incarnation would be the sponsor’s meeting. With perverted glee I can exploit a small known escalation issue that when aired in the correct context and audience will exhibit his profound stupidity in all that is technical and managerial. The “C” level incompetent ineffectuals will discover that he’s an idiot and have security “duck walk” his sorry ass out the door!

Sigh! One can have one's dreams...

Just Because Its New, Doesn't Mean It's Different

I work in the mystical magical and peculiar world of Information Technology. My sole purpose here is to rant and rave about my personal experience with best and worst practices within the mysterious profession of project management. Basically I am going to rant about whatever I’m pissed off about at the moment.

I started with a new company a month ago. Well, the company wasn’t new; I was the new hire PM in a newbie PMO. Presumably, I was hired to help build a Project Management Office. Hot damn! This is it what I do, what I live for? It’s my thing! Been there, done that, bought the damned tee shirt.

I was told to hit the ground running – stake out the PMO’s territory and run with the implementation! Yeah, right! Run right into an entrenched company culture that was defensive and extremely territorial. It’s a large company, several billion or so in revenue. The newly formed PMO consists of a director and lonely old me. So I hit the ground running and ran right into a brick wall of, “That’s great idea, but we have to move slowly so we don’t scare the C-level / Directors / Silo Managers / Rank and File / the kid in the mail room, etc.”
I never suggested a Big Bang approach, but well-timed phased releases after proper and thorough preparation and training. Seems simple enough, doesn’t it? I had been around IT long enough to know not to scare the anal-myopic C-level morons that run most modern corporations.

I suggested that we start with implementing simple project process and control utilizing a new suite of forms and templates for continuity, including initiating a Style Book to insure uniformity. That was it. Don’t want to be scarin’ C level folks and directors, now do we?
It is well known that successful project management has a firm foundation in defined process, which runs on forms and templates. Bad or non-existent forms and templates; insures a crappy outcome. If this first step gave the management goons an attack of ulcerative colitis, then steps two through one-hundred will certainly prove entertaining!

In trying to pin down this company’s maturity model, Level One would be way too high. Since negative numbers are not allowed in a Maturity Model, the PMO is currently having to look way too high to see some light. I was informed that in the past, the first person to raise their hand at an open planning meeting was made the project manager. Well, at least raising a hand indicates a modicum of ambition.
Some companies you can help, some you can’t. The jury is still out on this one. Stay tuned…..