ForumPublic Forum: Business / Work / CareerCase Study - undermining subordin …

Please or Register to create posts and topics.

Case Study - undermining subordinate challenging your plan

#1 · December 29, 2021, 12:47 pm

Quote from Transitioned on December 29, 2021, 12:47 pm
Situation:

Subordinate (Carlos) had caused trouble to previous manager and acted as a spy in the camp to Marketing manager (Felicity) who is a nasty player and likes to keep IT and the business bickering so she can be seen as bringing IT into line. He was pushing for my job (as project manager) and often referred back to when he had been managing projects (which nobody seemed to remember). Felicity cared about fast delivery that she was saying she was driving (to Exec) while promising everything to the business teams, looking after her BAU guys (2 admins) and scoring points on me and IT in that order. I'd done all heavy lifting on the proposals, she'd added some lipstick and taken them to the board to secure the money. The org was one that played the 'nice nice' game. The knives were there but kept well out of sight.

We were meeting to review my plan for the next phase of the CRM project. There was a task assigned to me far down the schedule to investigate moving to JIRA from trello - needed doing but just a bubble away type job.  BTW my boss said the next PM after me had trouble with this guy too.

What happened:

Transitioned: Thanks for making the time to come together on the plan for phase 3.

As you know we’ve got some high adoption, but some areas of the business are behind the curve. Particularly in the community fundraising teams. This phase of the plan will deliver on new capabilities with webforms and case management which will enable us to onboard and support those departments.

We’ve shared and consulted on the plan and walked through at SteerCo. This session is to consider the feedback to date and poke any holes so we can make the plan even stronger.

Most of the activities have come from the great work Felicity has done with the business setting up our backlog.

Felicity as our product owner what do you see as the key priorities and deliverables for this phase.

Felicity: We had some challenges in phase 2 on the technical side that held up bringing the fundraising teams on. The board’s expectation is that all those teams will be operational on Blink by the end of this phase. That is critical. We also need to support the great work the content and journey teams have been doing with Marketing cloud and make sure we’re ready for the kickoff of the September campaigns. The business hasn’t really been able to trust the contact data in the system because of incomplete, wrong and duplicate records. So that must be cleaned up before we go live.

Transitioned: Thank you Felicity those are some strong themes we can take into the sprint goals.

Let’s have a look now at the timeline and how that fits in with the Marketing Cloud project.

Carlos: Just before we do that I’d like to call out that there’s a line in your schedule around the JIRA work that won’t be delivered until October.

Transitioned: thank you Carlos – From an agile perspective we welcome all opinions.

You might recall we formed the schedule as a team so that the team could understand the work and be comfortable with the estimates and how we were going to get where we needed to go.

And actually I’m looking down the team’s plan and the JIRA work appears to be in August so we're all good there.

Carlos: as you know I’ve had a lot of experience with JIRA so if we need to get that moving to hit Felicity’s dates I’m happy to help.

Transitioned: thanks Carlos I think that’s one of the strengths of our team. We have roles and responsibilities like any well organised group and when asked we’re happy to play a good game of tag.

The JIRA work around planning isn’t essential. We only need JIRA for bug tracking which we already have setup. I need you working on the sprint backlogs with Felicity so we’re not holding Pracedo up and burning time and budget. The money didn’t come easy for this phase and if Felicity has to go back to the board that won’t be an easy conversation. If we get a couple of sprints ahead with the user stories then we can look into extending our JIRA usage as a team. I’ll definitely be talking to you at that point.

I think we need to look at the breadth before we look at the depth so if there are no further questions let’s look at the timeline and how the sprints are laid out

Analysis:

Carlos made a Double attack.  He's saying its 'my' schedule - i.e. I'm imposing it on people above me.

Obviously the other prong is that he's saying I'm dragging the chain on work that could be done to make sure Felicity gets the dates she's promised the board.  He's tried to grab this work for himself previously as its around planning and task management software which would allow him to nibble away at my control of the team.

My response was  I pointed out we'd formed the schedule as a team and committed to an earlier date than the one he'd mentioned (i.e. there was no delay) and pointed out the priority work he needed to get moving as we couldn't go back again for money (which /Felicity is paranoid about because she'd have to go to the Board for a grilling).

This one actually happened to me. But it was about 18 months and a lot of projects ago so the detail is a little vague. Anything I could have done better? I feel like I was justifying. But being more direct and putting Carlos in his place would have been risky as Felicity depended on him a lot (as she didn't know CRM at all).

Situation:

Subordinate (Carlos) had caused trouble to previous manager and acted as a spy in the camp to Marketing manager (Felicity) who is a nasty player and likes to keep IT and the business bickering so she can be seen as bringing IT into line. He was pushing for my job (as project manager) and often referred back to when he had been managing projects (which nobody seemed to remember). Felicity cared about fast delivery that she was saying she was driving (to Exec) while promising everything to the business teams, looking after her BAU guys (2 admins) and scoring points on me and IT in that order. I'd done all heavy lifting on the proposals, she'd added some lipstick and taken them to the board to secure the money. The org was one that played the 'nice nice' game. The knives were there but kept well out of sight.

We were meeting to review my plan for the next phase of the CRM project. There was a task assigned to me far down the schedule to investigate moving to JIRA from trello - needed doing but just a bubble away type job.  BTW my boss said the next PM after me had trouble with this guy too.

What happened:

Transitioned: Thanks for making the time to come together on the plan for phase 3.

As you know we’ve got some high adoption, but some areas of the business are behind the curve. Particularly in the community fundraising teams. This phase of the plan will deliver on new capabilities with webforms and case management which will enable us to onboard and support those departments.

We’ve shared and consulted on the plan and walked through at SteerCo. This session is to consider the feedback to date and poke any holes so we can make the plan even stronger.

Most of the activities have come from the great work Felicity has done with the business setting up our backlog.

Felicity as our product owner what do you see as the key priorities and deliverables for this phase.

Felicity: We had some challenges in phase 2 on the technical side that held up bringing the fundraising teams on. The board’s expectation is that all those teams will be operational on Blink by the end of this phase. That is critical. We also need to support the great work the content and journey teams have been doing with Marketing cloud and make sure we’re ready for the kickoff of the September campaigns. The business hasn’t really been able to trust the contact data in the system because of incomplete, wrong and duplicate records. So that must be cleaned up before we go live.

Transitioned: Thank you Felicity those are some strong themes we can take into the sprint goals.

Let’s have a look now at the timeline and how that fits in with the Marketing Cloud project.

Carlos: Just before we do that I’d like to call out that there’s a line in your schedule around the JIRA work that won’t be delivered until October.

Transitioned: thank you Carlos – From an agile perspective we welcome all opinions.

You might recall we formed the schedule as a team so that the team could understand the work and be comfortable with the estimates and how we were going to get where we needed to go.

And actually I’m looking down the team’s plan and the JIRA work appears to be in August so we're all good there.

Carlos: as you know I’ve had a lot of experience with JIRA so if we need to get that moving to hit Felicity’s dates I’m happy to help.

Transitioned: thanks Carlos I think that’s one of the strengths of our team. We have roles and responsibilities like any well organised group and when asked we’re happy to play a good game of tag.

The JIRA work around planning isn’t essential. We only need JIRA for bug tracking which we already have setup. I need you working on the sprint backlogs with Felicity so we’re not holding Pracedo up and burning time and budget. The money didn’t come easy for this phase and if Felicity has to go back to the board that won’t be an easy conversation. If we get a couple of sprints ahead with the user stories then we can look into extending our JIRA usage as a team. I’ll definitely be talking to you at that point.

I think we need to look at the breadth before we look at the depth so if there are no further questions let’s look at the timeline and how the sprints are laid out

Analysis:

Carlos made a Double attack.  He's saying its 'my' schedule - i.e. I'm imposing it on people above me.

Obviously the other prong is that he's saying I'm dragging the chain on work that could be done to make sure Felicity gets the dates she's promised the board.  He's tried to grab this work for himself previously as its around planning and task management software which would allow him to nibble away at my control of the team.

My response was  I pointed out we'd formed the schedule as a team and committed to an earlier date than the one he'd mentioned (i.e. there was no delay) and pointed out the priority work he needed to get moving as we couldn't go back again for money (which /Felicity is paranoid about because she'd have to go to the Board for a grilling).

This one actually happened to me. But it was about 18 months and a lot of projects ago so the detail is a little vague. Anything I could have done better? I feel like I was justifying. But being more direct and putting Carlos in his place would have been risky as Felicity depended on him a lot (as she didn't know CRM at all).

Lucio Buffalmano, Matthew Whitewood and Kavalier have reacted to this post.

#2 · December 29, 2021, 3:54 pm

Transitioned, I think you did great. It didn't strike me as justifying (i.e defensively justifying) at all. In my opinion you kept control of the interaction from the beginning to the end.

You addressed their attacks without being aggressive and maintained a strong "we are a team" frame, and Carlos had to backtrack - even if he justified it as "hit Felicity’s dates". This made your position even more powerful, because you accomplished this without putting him in his place more abruptly.

thanks Carlos I think that’s one of the strengths of our team. We have roles and responsibilities like any well organised group and when asked we’re happy to play a good game of tag.

To me this was the coup de grâce. You called him out on his responsabilities and and framed it as doing it "for the team" instead as "for Felicity" - and better yet, complimented him on doing so, as if it were his intentions all along lol.

What may have felt to you as justification was when you explained to him that JIRA work around planning wasn't essential. But I actually thought that was good. You were tasking him at that moment, and as I read in Lucio's Seduction University, providing a reason for the task when you are tasking increases compliance. You even "taught" him what higher priorities are without being a dick.

Matthew Whitewood and Transitioned have reacted to this post.

#3 · December 29, 2021, 10:48 pm

Thanks Kavalier

Your input is really helpful. I'm by nature a win win guy not a point scorer so sitting down writing these up can feel like an exercise in paranoia scribbling away off in my corner with my tinfoil hat on. Having the community here to check in with is purest gold

But it all happened so have to deal. And I appreciate you guys hanging in there for a complex situation. I feel like I'm writing a wall of text and blahing on.

That wall of text was probably just 5 minutes of the meeting. That is the level these days. I wish I could say this was a tough day but on that particular contract it was an average day.

I'm also hoping some of these case studies will be useful examples or extension material for PU. The forum didn't have a lot of examples of corporate style shenanigans when I looked. Now it does courtesy of our work TPM shall rise 🙂

Matthew Whitewood and Kavalier have reacted to this post.

#4 · December 30, 2021, 6:42 am

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on December 30, 2021, 6:42 am
I agree with Kavalier: it sounds very good.

Something I may add:

Quote from Transitioned on December 29, 2021, 12:47 pm

Carlos: as you know I’ve had a lot of experience with JIRA so if we need to get that moving to hit Felicity’s dates I’m happy to help.

Transitioned: thanks Carlos I think that’s one of the strengths of our team. We have roles and responsibilities like any well organised group and when asked we’re happy to play a good game of tag.

The JIRA work around planning isn’t essential. We only need JIRA for bug tracking which we already have setup. I need you working on the sprint backlogs with Felicity so we’re not holding Pracedo up and burning time and budget. The money didn’t come easy for this phase and if Felicity has to go back to the board that won’t be an easy conversation. If we get a couple of sprints ahead with the user stories then we can look into extending our JIRA usage as a team. I’ll definitely be talking to you at that point.

I think we need to look at the breadth before we look at the depth so if there are no further questions let’s look at the timeline and how the sprints are laid out

At this juncture I might have:

Say that his expertise will be used when the time comes: it's a nice bridge, friendly on the surface, and it sub-communicates that "you'll get your 15 minutes of glory, stop being the kid who yells "look at me, mom""

Say earlier and give more weight to the fact that it's not essential: that was the most important part. Make it center stage. If you don't, then Carlos can become the attentive guy who crosses all the T and that always wants to do more. And you may be framed as not as effective, or at least not taking all the opportunities to move faster.
If you make it clear that it's not essential and you've got other priorities to tackle first, then you self-frame as effective while framing Carlos as a time-waster posing for power and attention

Something like:

Carlos: I have a lot of expertise in JIIRA, so if...
You: Yes, I remember that (= you're repeating things we already know), it's awesome and we'll definitely lean on you and your expertise when we reach that point (= you're just one part of the team)

For now though, JIIRA it's not a high priority, because...

(go on to explain why it's not high priority and why these other things you're going to talk about are. The clearer it becomes, the more Carlos is framed as an idiot without a grander vision).

Then stop.

Your position now is solid.

The stop and silence thread-expands on what just happened.
The reality of you with the grander vision, and Carlos posing and wasting time sinks in.

Look around if there are any more comments, then say something like "alright, any more comments and questions or can we move ahead?"

And that cements the reality of you as the only true PM and leader.

Makes sense / could have worked?

I agree with Kavalier: it sounds very good.

Something I may add:

Quote from Transitioned on December 29, 2021, 12:47 pm

Carlos: as you know I’ve had a lot of experience with JIRA so if we need to get that moving to hit Felicity’s dates I’m happy to help.

Transitioned: thanks Carlos I think that’s one of the strengths of our team. We have roles and responsibilities like any well organised group and when asked we’re happy to play a good game of tag.

The JIRA work around planning isn’t essential. We only need JIRA for bug tracking which we already have setup. I need you working on the sprint backlogs with Felicity so we’re not holding Pracedo up and burning time and budget. The money didn’t come easy for this phase and if Felicity has to go back to the board that won’t be an easy conversation. If we get a couple of sprints ahead with the user stories then we can look into extending our JIRA usage as a team. I’ll definitely be talking to you at that point.

I think we need to look at the breadth before we look at the depth so if there are no further questions let’s look at the timeline and how the sprints are laid out

At this juncture I might have:

Say that his expertise will be used when the time comes: it's a nice bridge, friendly on the surface, and it sub-communicates that "you'll get your 15 minutes of glory, stop being the kid who yells "look at me, mom""
Say earlier and give more weight to the fact that it's not essential: that was the most important part. Make it center stage. If you don't, then Carlos can become the attentive guy who crosses all the T and that always wants to do more. And you may be framed as not as effective, or at least not taking all the opportunities to move faster.
If you make it clear that it's not essential and you've got other priorities to tackle first, then you self-frame as effective while framing Carlos as a time-waster posing for power and attention

Something like:

Carlos: I have a lot of expertise in JIIRA, so if...
You: Yes, I remember that (= you're repeating things we already know), it's awesome and we'll definitely lean on you and your expertise when we reach that point (= you're just one part of the team)

For now though, JIIRA it's not a high priority, because...

(go on to explain why it's not high priority and why these other things you're going to talk about are. The clearer it becomes, the more Carlos is framed as an idiot without a grander vision).

Then stop.

Your position now is solid.

The stop and silence thread-expands on what just happened.
The reality of you with the grander vision, and Carlos posing and wasting time sinks in.

Look around if there are any more comments, then say something like "alright, any more comments and questions or can we move ahead?"

And that cements the reality of you as the only true PM and leader.

Makes sense / could have worked?

Matthew Whitewood and Transitioned have reacted to this post.

Check the forum guidelines for effective communication.
---
Book a call for personalized & private feedback

#5 · December 30, 2021, 7:22 am

Thanks that makes a lot of sense and brings in the pacing and timing elements. Much more effective. I did feel I d got a draw instead of a win when this originally played out. Love the idea of getting a headline early in on JIRA being a distraction. Sets the frame. The rest is just tidying.

Matthew Whitewood has reacted to this post.