The Project Manager's Nightmares

I was thinking of apologizing since this is a rant but I can't help myself.

Nightmare #1 Team members who will not give you information or if they do, give you inaccurate or totally wrong information
I love people like this. Technically a PM's job is to manage, control and implement projects. So let's say that I have to give updates to clients. I go to another location for a meeting with some team members. I ask is x done? What about y? I then check things off my list of things to follow up on and dutifully write down any other details. What else do we have to do? What were the issues encountered? So I write my report and send it to client. I get a response the next day from the client asking me why I reported so and so is done when it is NOT! Nice.
I'm still torn whether or not getting no information at all is better or worse. We meet and team member claims there is an e-mail being drafted that will show all the updates on what we discussed. After one day I follow up, where is that e-mail? Another day goes by and I give it up as a lost cause.
Another one rising quickly is the person who owns a similar project but will not share documentation that could expedite the creation of the technical specifications. I ask myself why? Can there really be a person dumb enough not to have documentation on such a project or is that person deliberately not sharing pertinent and vital information?

Nightmare #2 The client who simply will not accept the project.
So acceptance means the project is done according to specifications and has met the expectations of the client. The definition of a project is that it is a temporary endeavor with a finite duration. It has a beginning and an end. Acceptance is the end of the project. Thus, they refuse to accept the project in case there are some bugs that might appear or because there are a few issues that crop up after everything in the scope of work is done. The only thing they'll sign is delivery!
Then again we might as well debate over the meaning of full implementation. Thanks to the guys who underscoped the project and left it to me to clean up the mess but that leads us to ...

Nightmare #3 Taking over a project in the middle to save it from utterly failing due to the previous project manager's incompetence.
I guess I'm on a roll. My boss once told me that being a project manager was one of the worst jobs to take since everybody hates you. Here was one project manager who I guess people didn't hate. Mostly because the person really didn't do anything to be hated for. Try cracking the whip on the team members this person left behind. They whine about how the old project manager was like this or like that. I wanted to scream at them to take back their old PM and make sure their project never got anywhere. It would've stalled for months if I didn't do the necessary things I did. I don't care if you don't like me, just do your damn job and I'll do mine. What was the first thing I did? I created the scope of work.

Nightmare #4 The project has no scope of work
Yes, there was a presentation. But there was no scope of work. Which is why people kept arguing what was supposed to be done and delivered and who was supposed to be doing it. The dang project could not move forward. Finally I crammed them (client and sales) all in one room and made them agree to one. I made sure they signed it too. And that is how you prevent scope creep; plus a change management process of course. Nothing and I mean nothing stays the same.

Well this adrenaline fueled rant has lost its steam. If I think of any more I will post again. Mwahahaha.

Uncensored at last

I created my first blog in the hopes of expressing to those who knew me, my everyday life experiences and thoughts. I did try as much as possible to keep people anonymous if I wrote down any reflections on them. However, it looks like I was unsuccessful since my other friends had their own blogs where they were not anonymous. Also, if one person is writing about some similar experience to another's, they are most likely to be the same experience from different viewpoints. In short, people got offended and hurt by my reflections.

Why pray tell did they get hurt? Because in my reflections I was writing in stream of consciousness mode and some of my opinions are not in agreement with my friends. To be more exact, I said that I was frustrated at some of the choices they have made in their lives, with some of them being risk takers or being risk adverse. They took it pretty badly and thus it was two months before one of them had the courage to tell me through chat that they were hurt and offended at what I had written. Worst of all, I had written something that people could view all over the world.

I in turn was suitably irritated myself. I write for myself and not for anyone else. I did my best to make sure that I did not offend anyone and due to the conservatism of my friends, I still did. I guess my boyfriend was right in saying that "you can't please everyone." I mean, what would be offensive to them would not neccessarily be offensive to me. Most of all, I think that differences in opinion among friends should be respected. Not become a cause of war.

I thought I had friends among whom I had mutual respect. We have taken different paths in life and made different choices. Some of their choices I would not have taken, and I think they would not have made the choices I made either. But at the very least I expected that I be allowed to have a different opinion. Not that I would have to be censored. This is my second blog because I had to edit my first one! I did it out of consideration of the "privacy" of my friends. Maybe some of things I wrote were hurtful. But I had never considered myself as "plastic", I always wanted to be truthful.

If I'm your friend I expect dissent at times because we are not identical. However, I also expect that if you disagree with me, you will still support me because I'm your friend. That is what I do for my friends. I guess for some people it is not good enough. Maybe they follow the saying that "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." I guess that saying works for people you've just met, not people you've known for years!

I apologized to them. I edited out the "offensive" material. Have I received a response that I am "forgiven?" No, I was reprimanded by my friend who claims "my mother told me not to do my laundry in public." It's a good saying but it doesn't fit the situation. I did not air a dirty cat fight nor spread rumors. I simply wrote down my thoughts on choices and decisions made by unnamed people. I think they said they were afraid that what I wrote might instigate rumors about them. Without their names even being mentioned in the blog!

I myself have been victim before of nasty rumors. It made me cry. But I also had this resolve inside me that if people believed those rumors without getting to know me, it was their loss. I know that I am not like that. My good friends know that I am not like that. So what I see here is a sad sense of privacy and self. If you want total privacy, don't go out of your house or your room. Stay in a little box the rest of your life or heaven forbid someone sees you or talks about you. And if you can't put your chin up amidst distasteful talk, go back to that little box and stay there.