PMO | How Would You Describe A Bad Project Manager?

Project managers need to put in quite some effort to build good relationships with developers and stakeholders. In summary, project managers need to:

• Provide meaningful assistance to developers, such as helping with tasks and time management and solving communication issues.
• Facilitate stakeholder communications through project requirements, plans, and status reports.

Let's explore signs indicating something is wrong with project managers' engagement.

Being a poor listener doesn't necessarily mean we don't listen, but more that people's actual needs are not heard. Understanding people's real intentions, challenges, and the help they need before taking suggestions or actions. Being a "poor listener" could be the first alert that the communication channel is broken. Sometimes, project managers need to proactively consider the developers ' situation purely when updating the plan or documentation, which can cause friction.

Lack of organization or planning is a disadvantage for any project manager because their primary responsibility is to help the team organize communication, tasks, schedules, and priorities. It's essentially the time management skill that every project manager has to prioritize. Comments about a lack of organization come from constantly not clearly defining the task scope and timeline or shifting schedules and priorities. Maintaining a stable project execution pace is critical to avoid falling into this trap.

Micromanagement can be translated as "project managers are essentially dictators telling people what to do and chasing results." Project managers are indeed responsible for deliverables, assigning tasks, and chasing results. However, after providing reasons to help people buy into our actions, it's crucial to step back and let the team take ownership. This approach fosters a sense of trust and empowers the team to take initiative. It's essential to avoid too many meetings as they could be distractions.

Poor communication means not conveying the message at the right time, in the correct format, or with the right content. This requires understanding the context and the audience and adjusting our communication and what to communicate. Here, we have to pay attention to team building.

This summary can be a checklist for project managers to reflect on.

References

• Deadly sins for project managers​