Si i think IT is interesting to give you somme great mistakes to do in such a friendly environnent to finally have the opportunity to search for another job.
1. Lie
Lying is always an excellent way to get sacked in s Steerco. But be careful because not all lies are valid.Some people lye about a subject nobody can really check. Information can be real or not. Pretty much only the liar knows about it.
He does that to cover something he did or didn't. Or to incriminate somebody in the room, the Project manager usually.
These lies won't help you to get sacked. They will just create doubts in the room to the stakeholders.
A good killing lie relates to a truth somebody can clearly defend.
You assure something knowing that it is a lie and everyone else knows it is.
These lies are killers. You immediately sound incompetent in the best case, a mean and useless person if things turn well.
2. Tell (all) the truth
Not al truh are good to say, except if you have an hidden agenda like getting some free personal time.Try than telling just the truth about every possible issue encountered in the project.
Defend honesty and openness as a religion.
Be sure you reveal every possible detail of the project and certainly technical details that only you and the techies in your team can understand.
Try something like "Oh, we encounter some problem with the java function linked to the onclick event on the unsubscribe button".
This kind of detail will immediately freak out every stakeholder in the room who is not completely sure of making the difference between the flat screen of his pc and the one of his PC.
Hopefully the stakeholders will ask you: "What can we do about it?" And you have the opportunity to answer "Hum, I don't really know, but this really annoys my developper. He nearly spent a night on it"
e sure that this will create a serious panic into the assembly. You will be asked to define a clear response plan to this important issue and to report to your boss every day at 8:00 sharp.
Of course, your boss doesn't want to be mean with the executive and will acknowledge that such an issue should not remain unresolved.
You are good to have a bad reputation, to report to your boss about a detail without any importance, and to be considered a totally incompetent by the steerco.
Because indeed the steerco expects major issues to be reported.
3. Laugh at your stakeholders
Sometimes project go well (or not) and this create a king of happiness in the project manager's mind.It is interesting ho bad things can create funny reaction into a sick brain.
Stress can cause this kind of reaction.
That's the right time to have an inconsiderate laugh at your stakeholders.
For example asking them if they read the last meeting minutes, wait slowly to thei polite acknowledgement and announce that you haven't sent them.
Another good example is to laugh at the proposed solution in a project you take over and learn on the spot that this solution has been asked and forced by your executive.
It is interesting how stakeholders expect some respect in a Steering committee, certainly when they are paid 10 time your salary.
4. Die by Powerpoint
No worry this is a classic. If you want to lose your stakeholders and to decoy their attention to the real content of the project, just use Powerpoint.Steve Jobs said "People who know their subject, don't use Powerpoint". And he was right.
2 efficient ways of dying by Powerpoint: the content and the style.
Give a totally irrelevant and appropriate content.
This could be related to telling the truth but it also includes this weird desire that some project managers have to make joke and add information that has absolutely nothing to do with the project.
Funny icons, jokes, irrelevant details, all very efficient ways of losing your stakeholders and letting them wonder "What is wrong with you?"
Use a totally irrelevant and appropriate design for your presentation.
Some company haven't understood yet that giving some freedom to a project manager i directly an open door to craziness. They don't impose a powerpoint template.
There you are in heaven to use colour-blind combinations and interesting transition effects.
Interesting how the human brain and even the brain of a stakeholder likes good taste.
5. Get drowned into details
You speak to managers, top managers. When 2 top managers meet, what do they speak about, top managers stories.You are probably not a top managers so, you don't know that.
But you have to speak to them and however you are probably able to understand their high level topics, they seem to be unable to understand your low level ones.
When there is a risk of misunderstanding, there is an opportunity to get misunderstood.
Two levels are present here: project wise and product wise.
Project wise, if you present a level of detail that absolutely nobody cares about, they will lose the big picture and get lost.
And BAM, you will be asked to clean up your mess and give information that relates to what they are interested in, which is? Ah you see you don't know neither.
Product wise, giving detail about every button colour will probably also lose them.
They expect a high level of info and if you show up with an info it is necessarily the right level.
Because don't forget something. You are there because you are supposed to know what to do, what to say, how to say it.
Practically you are expected to be the perfect Project manager.
Interesting ho stakeholders tend to idealise the PM and not to pay him the price.
6. Make surprises
However the human likes surprises on a private environment, the same human doesn't want any one he is in a professional ine.This is probably because in a professional environment, his future is linked to results and these results are linked to your project.
And surprises are not good friends of a easy going professional life.
Imagine a steerco where members have only a part of the info. You can suddenly pull a bunny out of a hat and scare everyone in the room.
Humm, my technical lead has just left the company. No I am just kidding, he get hart surgery, nobody knows when he'll be back.
This feature you absolutely want is a change request. We won't do it unless you pay and additional 10%.
Oh, you had booked resources for the go live week-end. Humm that's a bummer. Do they know how to play cards?
I don't really know why but executives are like wolves, they don't eat each other and they also expect to be in a controlled world.
7. Be personal
Being a project manager is more than just a manager, it ia also being a leader. An leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders.That's also when an executive expects. He wants to meet a leader who stands up for his team and is responsible for the activities perfomed in it.
So if you want to lose all credibility, and e considered as a loser instead of a leader, just go personal. Something is wrong, not your fault, the technical lead is the one to blame.
Yeah the one ho is in the surgery room.
Things go well, that is because you are there, you the man of steel, the only one, the superman of the projects. Being proud of a job never killed anyone, has it?
Being unprofessional neither? Or perhaps it has?
8. Be unaware of the reality
A beautiful mind named Jean-Claude Van Damme said that you have to be "aware".Another beautiful mind, meditation and mindfulness trainer said the same. And suddenly things made sense.
"The bird without the airs, it falls". But this means that the bird is just not aware of the presence of the air just like the fish is not aare of the presence of the water around him.
Even if the air and the water are there.
Being a PM, going into a steerco unaware of the reality is a winner. You announce a green status when everyone in the room knows it is bright red.
You say that an activity is completed when the executive got some news it was going nowhere.
But the lack of awareness can also be happening during the steering, in the present time. A stakeholders sighs and you don't notice.
Your boss turns red and you keep saying the same crap. The marketing guy realises that you are developing the wrong product and you don't see it.
Being connected to the reality before and during a steerco seems to be important for the stakeholders.
9. Forget the purpose of the project
Every department has business objectives, doesn't it? And every project fits in the department strategy and tactics.Yeah, we know better.
But usually, a project has an objective, a priority: timing, scope, quality or cost.
Having an executive interested in having a Y2K project delivered on time seems to be a reasonable request.
Announcing him that you are going to save 20k by using cheap resources available in Feb 2000 is a good way of experiencing a slow and painful death.
Similarly, announcing that the new feature you developer is very cool and funny can e interesting when the customer actually has a focus on the cost and doesn't want any scope creep.
Creativity can be a real plus if you are in Marketing but if the scope is well defined and expected by the executive, you better forget it.
Do you think the Excel project team really announced in steerco that they had included a flight simulator in Excel.
Why do you think eastern eggs are called undocumented features.
Do what you say does also mean that you must do only what you say.
10. Ask open questions.
Do you know how you call somebody who ask questions and doesn't care about the answer? An askhole.As mentioned before, being a project manager means that you know. And if yu don't known, you have to know.
According to me the best way of losing all credibility in a project i to ask open question.
This has various impacts:
You sound incompetent.Why are you so expensive if you don't even know what you are talking about?
But definitely by asking open questions you give the opportunity to the stakeholders to provide you an answer.
And this marketing guy aver there just expects this to become suddenly incredibly creative.
And God knows how a marketing guy can have some weird crazy ideas when you give him the right to express himself.
"Humm maybe we could do this cool feature, the customer would love it and your problem would be fixed".
Practically, the cool feature is much less cool than a flight simulator in Excel.
It is not possible to do it and you will be asked to report on it every day.
Of course, you cost won't change and you won't have the right to introduce a change request as you had a problem beforehand the the steerco helps you nicely.
I don't really know why but you should never give an opportunity to a steerco member to express his solution to your problem.
Bonus: Be confused between content and meta.
So far I presented you some best practices to get sacked. Some are project related. Some are product related.Mixing project and product issues or information is a good way of losing your audience.
That marketing dude is sure is is answering your problem when you actually talk about a bad effort evaluation.
Critical path becomes critical functionality.
Stakeholders become rapidly confused between what the product will do and how you do the product.
And of course you receive advices that are linked to this confusion.
Conclusion
As a conclusion, leading a steerco for a simple PM is far from being an easy task. You must talk about a subject that becomes your second life (or it is the first one?)You talk to people who don't really care about the subject, and just ant the outcome.
You try to pass messages and the right ones, even to the marketing guy.
When somebody says something irrelevant, you cannot laugh hysterically.
An in the meanwhile, your goats are there waiting for you in the field and hope you will free some time for them.
Everything is finally linked to a business objective. Yours.
Have a good day. thank yo for your attention.
