We have all seen it before: the project was going so well, everything was on track, green light after green light, and then… from one week to the next, seemingly without warning, the project goes from green, bypasses amber, straight into red.
The reason for this is rarely as obvious as a global pandemic, strikes, or critical equipment being stuck at port. Mostly it just seems to come out of nowhere. This is because – either by design or by accident -the project manager has not been presenting the truth during update meetings.
So why do project managers lie? Here are some of the most frequent reasons, excluding maliciousness, and what to do about them:
Pressure to meet deadlines
Project managers and project teams must constantly show progress against the project plan, all while navigating constraints like limited resources and tight budgets. This often leads to team members, intentionally or unintentionally, overstating their progress.
Your team members do this due to some very basic human needs: to preserve self-image or to avoid conflict. They want to show that they are a good team player, and do not want to be seen as the reason the project is delayed. As a project manager (who is under the most pressure) you will be tempted to take their statements at face value. And so, you have a perfect storm, where a project goes from maybe having a couple of delayed tasks, to the entire project being late, requiring massive change requests and overspends.
The only way to prevent this is to have a realistic plan in place, which all stakeholders have contributed to. For more information about planning – not just for a project, but in general – check out this article. This article gives you some information about why project planning is more than just having a Gantt chart.
Managing Expectations
Having a realistic plan is the first step to managing expectations. The plan should lead to a clear goal. The goal will give the project team a point of focus, and will set the foundation for roles and responsibilities. When goals are not clear, information is not clearly conveyed or is open to multiple interpretations, your team will struggle to understand their roles, responsibilities, and objectives. Consequently, misaligned expectations can lead to confusion, inefficient use of resources, and potential conflicts within the team. Moreover, this lack of clarity may result in missed deadlines or project scope creep. This is why it is crucial for you to establish a clear goal, and to have effective communications.
In addition to a distinct goal, one of the most used (and abused) communication channels is the project meeting. Read this article for a how-to guide on maximising your project meetings.
Subjective Interpretation
As human beings, we have a tendency to focus on rewards (especially if the rewards are immediate) and to downplay risks, as they only affect potential future events. This leads to optimistic guesses.
This is best illustrated by an example: let us assume you need to write a standard operating procedure. When asked about how far along you are, you may be tempted to guess you’re at 80%, but does that take reviewing and editing into account? What about getting it signed off?
To prevent this type of subjective interpretation of progress, it is imperative that your goal can be tracked by a predetermined set of key performance indicators (KPIs). You have to clearly state how the measures are tracked and where the information is coming from.
For our example above, it would perhaps be better to have an agreed-on rate for writing documents, for instance, that a document can only be considered at 50% when the first draft has been completed, at 80% when it has been reviewed and edited, and at 100% once it has been signed off.
For more information on KPI’s, why not read this article on creating SMART KPIs or this article about revisiting your current KPIs.
Organisational Culture
As a project manager, you have a lot of control over the above factors, but this last one is something you can try to influence, but cannot directly change.
In organisations with highly competitive cultures, where projects are pitted against one another, people will often lie to gain a short-term advantage and/ or to protect themselves from negative consequences. This type of culture will also lead people to overcommit to projects, thus affecting the availability of resources. It will also cause many to set unrealistic goals. This will all lead to false reporting on project progress.
One of the best ways you can action this is by showing up other projects. Here is an article questioning the number of projects, and here is one to help you stop bad projects in their tracks.
From the above, it should be clear that the best way to prevent being a project manager who lies is to have:
- a clear goal
- a project plan, that all stakeholders have bought into, to achieve the stated goal
- clearly defined roles and responsibilities to drive the plan
- key performance indicators that are transparent, with consistency
And finally, try to stop as many poorly conceived projects as you can!