131–140 of 212 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So much this it's painful. You will never be thanked for telling them uncomfortable truths, even if they -don't- know. Even the private conversation is dangerous; as you say, keep it as low key and minimal as possible ("i have some concerns about the timeline" is literally all you should say unless they ask, and your answers to any followup question should be equally circumspect). Instead, as others have mentioned, j…
What's PO?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So much this it's painful. You will never be thanked for telling them uncomfortable truths, even if they -don't- know. Even the private conversation is dangerous; as you say, keep it as low key and minimal as possible ("i have some concerns about the timeline" is literally all you should say unless they ask, and your answers to any followup question should be equally circumspect). Instead, as others have mentioned, j…
What's PO?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is how things should run if the work culture was logic based but with rare exceptions it isn't. As a borderline autistic person I have a very direct communication style and lost account of how many times I burned myself for failing to "beat around the bush". You can't say "the project is doomed" even if it is true. You can't say it will be so over budget and take so long that it would be better to cut the losses…
PS: you do get some leeway when you just joined a company, enjoy your honeymoon grace period.
In some, you actually have to "earn your place" in the company, and most recommendations I've seen are "keep quiet and listen".
This is not going to be like the other advice you get, but I've managed many projects in different organizations and I think it is sound. First and foremost, don't sound any alarms. Many organizations have common characteristics in this regard. First, they don't expect you to be on time. Sales may think you're going to launch on time, but it's in their financial interest to think so. The rest of the org probably made…
http://gettingreal.37signals.com/
Yes sound the alarm. Your heading towards a a million dollar failure.
Instead define a bare minimum feature set for 1 user role, build a mvp with that minimal feature set and get it into the hands of users
then start adding more
This is not going to be like the other advice you get, but I've managed many projects in different organizations and I think it is sound. First and foremost, don't sound any alarms. Many organizations have common characteristics in this regard. First, they don't expect you to be on time. Sales may think you're going to launch on time, but it's in their financial interest to think so. The rest of the org probably made…
Well put. Deadlines often slip. It happens ALL THE TIME, regardless of elaborate and sophisticated project management techniques and skilled contributors. Deadline slippage is also RARELY FATAL, but yeah, leads/PM's can absolutely get themselves metaphorically shot by bearing bad news to the wrong people at the wrong time. Some orgs hire a ridiculous number of PMP's who pretend like they're making a difference but ar…
I've seen this so many times, it's like why even bother attempting to describe what we'll deliver. Just put the date down.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Best thing OP can do is learn from the mistakes and speak up next time during planning phases, well before deadlines slip. How do you know deadlines are going to slip when planning the project? Makes no sense.
Take your estimation of the work to do, multiply it by 2. Surprisingly, it works relatively well to estimate how long the project will actually take.
It falls apart if you're talking about 10's to 100's of people working for weeks/months/years, or wherever you need to compete with other vendors for the contract.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Best thing OP can do is learn from the mistakes and speak up next time during planning phases, well before deadlines slip. How do you know deadlines are going to slip when planning the project? Makes no sense.
Take your estimation of the work to do, multiply it by 2. Surprisingly, it works relatively well to estimate how long the project will actually take.
3 hrs => 6 days
2 days => 4 weeks