This is part 2 of Bad News Travels Fast. BAD projects have had a charmed life over the past several years. Bad news can affect BAD projects. The first post discussed how good news sounds to team members, sponsors, and senior execs. Now we explore how bad news sounds to those same stakeholders.
‘Not good news’ on a BAD Project starts quietly – conclusions between team members, project managers, and keep contributors. A quiet update is provided to each sponsor after a ‘narrative story’ is built for going on with the project. Simple and quick counters will be tried to remedy any ‘not good news’ with project managers and team hoping optimistically for those countermeasures to work. The stress ends up on project managers for projects where technical issues, availability of key domain specialists, or coordinated actions are needed. BAD Projects news doesn’t become loud so much as well-known.
Sponsors won’t be pleased (although often not surprised due to prior experience) when coordination, technical feasibility, or unforeseen events look to require changes in schedule, resources, sponsor attention, or more priorities. Ultimately the adjustment of scope, objectives, or schedules has to be justified to (and by) sponsors who will hold the ‘political blame’ for a BAD Project’s changes. Sponsors savvy with project performance (and how to cope with events) are key to continuing a BAD Project.
Senior managers will often hear the gossip and receive their ‘story’ at a regular operational, planning, or budget meeting. In all enterprises (pubic and private or non-profit) an unfailing example of news ‘percolating up’ is that news rarely improves (remembering that the verb phase comes from water boiling in an enclosed space). Schedules are slipped with major results further away. Resource budgets are almost never reduced. Management attention is needed to clear obstacles. Priorities are needed to stay on the new, slipped, schedule.
Senior managers will first wish the issues never get to their level (sponsors being enough to deal with events). Unwelcome news (‘official attention’) will usually require spending time, people, monies, or political capital – each in its own way unwanted spend by senior management. A key is that senior managers only want to fix situations once – and don’t want unfortunate events coming to their ears without fixes already in progress. Senior management, even more than sponsors, want to spend the benefits and not the expense.
Now, what can be done to defeat the 24-hour news cycle?
Bad News Travels Fast! continues at www.ekalore.com/bad-project-blog
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