Dickhead Project Managers
 

<rant>

not normally the sort of post i'd put up (so apologies in advance) but i'm having a load of problems wity my project manager and would therefore appreciate any advice you folks could give.

having worked for the past 6 years as a design engineer i've had two fantastic managers (is this possible :) ) who have been extremely professional and have trusted my team to produce results. recently however the last one has moved on to pastures green and my group has now inherited an up and coming manager that's only just got his mba. lacking any 'real' experience he's making our lives hell by micro managing and nit picking at everything we do. at meetings we put forward ideas to solve everyday design problems etc but he's never happy with them, casts them aside and then dictates to us his own ideas which are often short sighted and unfeasible (as he's not an engineer and does not understand the basic principles). to say we're all cheesed off is an understatement but sadly my colleagues are not the sort of guys to stand up to him. i've already approached him and made a complaint but he's disregarded my concerns and has carried on as usual.

now i love my job and want to keep it but am getting to the point where i don't want to put my name on anything he manages as his ideas are crap. i could go above him and make an official complaint but don't want to be seen as a grass.

my question is therefore, what can i do to get shot of this dickhead without making myself look a snitch ??

</rant>

I've been in the same situation and it wasn't nice. We had a four year project and the manager of the project changed after year two. The new manager didn't have a clue but made out he did, especially when faced with his managers.

I (as lead technical geek) spoke to his manager and basically said I wasn't happy that the project would be delivered if this carried on. His manager agreed to listen to the issues and we agreed to keep him informed. We (three of us) simply outlined how poor every idea or change he asked for via email, and then blind CC'ed it to his manager.

About three months of this and the manager got pulled and sent back to simply managing people (which he is good at). Everyone ended up happy in the end and the project was delivered.

I wouldn't worry about grassing on people. As far as I'm concerned, I'm there to do a job and I'll do what ever it takes to deliver. If that means telling someone that they are simply not suitable, I'll do it. You shoud not be penalised for telling it how it is.

Cheers

Ian

PM's shouldn't be getting involved in technical decisions, that's not their job. They should be ensuring that all the pertinent parts of the project are running to time and budget. I suggest you ask to have a word with his manager because he is dabling in areas for which he has no expertise and his dabblings may actually jeopardise the project.

I have the reverse problem - a code monkey who seems to think it is down to him to analyse business requirements rather than code against the specs that he is presented with.

Snitch!!

:D

Like the man said, just tell it like it is - by the sounds of it no one likes him anyway!!

Just stick the knife in!!

Hello

If it's possible, I would ask around in other departments what their opinion of the person is. He may have some interesting friends that you do not want to annoy.

Steve.

I had a project manager complaining at me a few years ago for surveys that were taking langer than expected - he told me that I MUST have them completed by the following friday.

I took great delight in telling him "That'll be difficult, I start my new job on Monday..."

thanks for the response guys.

although i have limited management experience my feeling is that a project manager should only be interested in the result and not the intricacies of the engineering itself. to micro manage tells me that he has no confidence in the team and is counter productive.

to highlight a recent conversation he wants us to carry out environmental testing (i.e. shock, vibration etc) on components without having carried out any form of prior analysis. i said this was completely ludicrous but he want's to go ahead anyway as he thinks it will save ££ by not doing any fea :cuckoo:

i'm going to give the snitch option some serious consideration but have just found out he plays cricket with one of the directors.

Sorry Ian, thats nasty ... people cannot and will not develop themselves if they do not know. It takes a while for it to get through to some people but blind cc's aint nice. Surely you could have told him that you were doing and and then do a normal cc instead.

You have to ask would you like somebody blind cc to your manager. In fact the manager should have taken responsibilty and told that manager that we wanted to see the mails

Dave.

... ooops should of answered the original question,

if you have had the commonsense to complain to him and he has disregarded it, then tell him you will have to take it to his manager, See his manager, be clear about the points (document it for proof) and then you cannot be responsible for the project failings. A lot of senior managers think everything is ok because nobody makes a stand nowadays. (and that is why some business (ie BT) are in such a poor state)

Dave,

You are right, I actually felt a little bad for doing it. But his manager insisted that it would happen this way.

He was discussing the project in depth with this project manager on a weekly basis and I assume used the emails as hints to drop into conversation.

What can I say, it's **** but short of standing up and shouting "You are crap at this job, please go away" we didn't know what else to do. We had tried all sorts of other less direct ways and were at the end of our tethers.

Ian

If you have mentioned your concerns to the PM and he's effectivley ignoring you, the only thing you can really do is escalate the complaint to someone higher up. Yes it could be seen as grassing him up, but whose neck will really be on the line if the project falls behind?

It is somewhat tricky, as he could get uppity and run crying to his cricketer bum chum that you're not a nice person for grassing him up, then again, he could accept that he's overstepping the mark and that on engineering/tech matters he should accept the opinions of those who know what they are talking about. If he "runs to mummy" well, he's a brown nosing git and needs a swift kicking after school :D Seriously though, I'd have a polite informal word with his manager.

sounds like his manager was maybe the cause of the problem if he wasn't asking for open communication

and don't knock the shouting "You are crap at this job, please go away" solution, can be an eye opener for some (and it does work :D)

Has the previous project manager moved on to a new job within the same company, or has he left and gone outside? If he is still in the same company he may be able to put the newbie straight on a few things.

well he is a brown nosing git, i know that much. considering he came up from the same level as us, he spends work do's etc ignoring us mortals and 'getting in' with the management :Whatever_

i've a couple of options at the mo and speaking to my last manager is one of them. i think i'm going to speak to one of my more senior colleagues today as i can trust him and he knows the 'system' far better than me. hopefully i'll sort this tw@t out without making too many waves.

thanks again for all the advice and for not making me feel like the snitch i am ;) :D

Having project managed a few things before (although perhaps not in this league) I always thought that the project manager was not there to do it all him/herself but rather to co-ordinate all the different skillsets available to get the job done. In the projects I have managed before (some of which I have known very little about the key intricacies involved) I have always pointed out that I will co-ordinate the work to make sure it dovetails with each other core concept, but not complete all the tasks myself and that for the project to work each party had to accept responsibility for their part of the project. It might be useful, depending on the project structure, to access the project team, group or Exective project sponsor and ask for the team, group and exec sponsor to revisit the roles, responsibilities and terms of reference of each party involved due to the recent change in project manager to "refresh" and guide the project. Good luck, working with a team that isn't working is a nightmare - I have seen the other side and his is a lonely position sometimes!

this is exactly how i perceive a pm's role in any project so to be micro managing is overstepping the mark imho. its a shame that all managers don't share the same mentality when it comes to this kind of stuff but i guess power does strange things to people.

the sad thing is we're a good team (if i do say so myself :) ) so there's no justification for it at all. i'd understand if we did a crap job but there you go.