I read an article from Project Times that focused on escalation when work is not being completed. In many environments and project structures, those doing portions of the work on the project are not likely to report directly to the project manager. Oftentimes, these people may be on multiple projects or if a standard employee in a company, might not normally have project based work at all. The article looks at what you can do when the work that needs to be done for your project isn’t getting done and the steps for moving above the person to force progress.
The three steps given in the article are:
- Determine the impact
- Discuss the situation and impact with the team
- Escalate
The idea is to first determine how significant the impact is and gather concrete examples, discuss the situation with the under performing member and see if the situation can be corrected, if not correctable, inform the employee you will be escalating to their manager, and finally escalate to the manager.
The article goes over the fact that oftentimes, it isn’t a situation of an employee being unwilling to complete work given to them but rather the simple fact that they’ve been given too much and just don’t have the time to get to your project. Options that are offered up are redefining their workload, bringing in someone else, or other options that can free them up like transferring other work they’re responsible for.
The article finishes by listing rules for escalating:
- Business policy is primary, then project policy.
- Only discuss the problem, not the person.
- No surprises: Notify those involved as to your next steps.
- Notify your management before you escalate to a team members manager.
- Document your examples, conversations, and resulting commitments.
I think this article gives a fairly concise look at ideal resolution process for when work isn’t getting done within a project in most cases where people involved are known to each other. However, I do feel it is lacking in that it ignores situations where people don’t have normal contact as in situations where people are located states or even countries apart and only marginally connected to a project. I believe in situations where say a legal team is needed to sign off on a project, it may be best to move right to top down pressure if possible. While a clear line of communication likely exists between your manager and yourself, and your manager’s manager, it is possible no strong communication exists between yourself and the legal team. For the legal team, a minor contract revue may be far down their list, and repeated attempts at discussions and emails are likely to not product any effects. Direct communication up your chain, and the cross communication at a higher level to produce quick results may be easier and more effective. As with most things of course, each situation is unique.
http://www.projecttimes.com/articles/getting-the-most-from-your-project-staff.html
This is a very real problem from my experiences. I sit on a number of project teams and have noticed some best practices:
Attendance is critical, but also costly. A detailed agenda lets attendees know when to attend or dial-in to discuss their portion of the project. This respect for people’s time has increased attendance.
Follow-up notes with next steps, and calling out those who are not attending at the top of the recap. This accountability is critical.
Control side conversations/tangents. If the meetings are quick and to the point, participants will think it’s a worthy use of their time and will continue to participate.
By implementing these steps, those conversations with manger’s etc. to get the work done have been dramatically reduced.
I think you have chosen a great topic to talk about, unfortunately there is so much to discuss about the project escalation and so many different methods of the approach. One of the most important aspects that you have mentioned is that usually the person is willing to do the project, he or she just simply does not have the time to do so or is overwhelmed with the work load given. I have personally worked on many projects and given deadlines.Working in a huge corporation I deal with a line manager and direct manager. I can report in detail to my line manager why work has not been completed on time, however, I am not sure if the direct manager will receive the same details and reason why that I provided to my line manager. There are also many cultural barriers as well. In different countries people in a work place prefer to report directly to the head manager instead of the supervisor, and that is acceptable.
This article brings up a really good point about project escalation. In my opinion there can be many reasons why someone may not be able to carry a significant work load. For instance, they might not have the skills needed for the task, in these types of situations the manager should be more careful in trying to match the employee and the skills involved with the particular task.
This article brings up a very good point in the business world. Project management is very important to get tasks done for the top managers and if the employees are not reporting back to their project managers it will affect the communication and relationships greatly. The supervisors and the ones being supervised should follow their roles and the tasks that were stated in this article to complete the projects effectively.
This is a great topic to bring up here as it is very relevant in the business world today. As you mention, in most cases the team members do not actually direclty report to the project manager. I have personally faced this issue in the past and went through a process very similar to the one described in the article – although this would have been helpful to have as a reference at the time! In situations like these there is usually a lot of pressure to meet deadlines and a lot of stress on the PM and the team members where emotions can run high. It’s critical to be able to discuss the issues objectively and as mentioned here, focus on the problem, not attack the person.
Great article Brendan. Also, good point on how the article is lacking a global perpective. Working for a global company, I’ve been able to participate in several global projects as well as co-lead a global initiative. In several of the other posts, communication is highlighted as an important factor in the success of any project. With global projects, this is especially true and more difficult to accomplish. I found it difficult to get project participants to fully “buy in” to the project. In order to get the resources on board, we ultimately had to elevate the project’s importance and potential impact to each region’s CFO at which time the resources were glad to assist.
I’ve found too that it’s a challenge when other employees don’t want to share information or give up control of the process they’ve done for years. This too, often has to be elevated. However, this article correctly points out that the first step should always be with the employee. No one appreciates someone that goes above their heads without trying to resolve it with them first. This is especially true if you’re trying to build lasting relationships with this individual.