You cannot protect yourself against your own people’s incompetence. If your own people are not up to the job at hand, you will fail. For more information http://www.itmplatform.com/en/blog/2012/07/09/defensive-pm

1. The defensive project
manager
Original in Spanish by Jose Barato

2. The defensive project manager
• It makes good sense for you as a Project Manager to take a defensive posture in most
areas of risk. If the client is inclined to vacillate, you take pains to nail down the product
specifications; if a contract vendor tends to “forget” promises, you publish minutes after
each meeting. These are common risk mitigation techniques a Project Manager should
use. There is one area, though, where defensiveness will always backfire: You cannot
protect yourself against your own people’s incompetence. If your own people are not
up to the job at hand, you will fail.
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3. The defensive project manager
• Of course, if the people are badly suited to the job, you should get new people. But once
you have decided to go with a given group, your best tactic is to trust them. Any
defensive measure taken to guarantee success “in spite of them” will only make
things worse. It may give you some relief from worry in the short term, but it will not
help in the long run, and it will poison any chance for the team to gel.
• So what? Let them make some mistakes. You can always override a decision (very
occasionally) or give specific direction to the project. But if staff come to believe they are
not allowed to make any mistakes of their own, the clear message you are sending is
that you do not trust them. There is no message you can send that will better inhibit team
formation.
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4. The defensive project manager
• Most Project Managers grant autonomy to the team while everything is running smoothly, but that is
not true autonomy. The team will only feel free if it is allowed to proceed down a different path to the
one set by the Project Manager. Only he with the right to err is truly free. If the Project Manager
interferes in every technical decision or prescribes a methodology applicable to each task, then the
team will not feel trusted, and will have little inclination to bond together into a cooperative team.
This text is based on the book entitled:
The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management
Tom DeMarco, Dorset House Publishing, 1997
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5. For more information
http://www.itmplatform.com/
en/blog/2012/07/09/defensiv
e-pm
or email us at
info@itmplatform.com
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