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| Figure 1: The Monster |
In the narrative, Dr. Frankenstein’s project was to assemble dead tissue and body parts into the form of a human male then reanimated the lifeless hulk using electrical jolts as a life-giving source. The monster then assumed human-like qualities that lead to a conflicted and meaningless life demanding a mate for himself. Dr. Frankenstein became horrified at the thought of creating a civilization of monsters then destroyed the project to create a mate monster. Enraged, the monster rebelled against his creator. Dr. Frankenstein's monster project has many parallels to modern project management. Poor leadership and wayward vision in organizations create monsters too. As in the book, Frankenstein, a question begs an answer to who is the monster, the created or the creator?
Fixing Frankenstein
Rogue Monster Projects
Rogue Monster Projects
Overall project management is a challenging and rewarding endeavor. However, there are a few challenges that project managers need to be aware of and how to identify the signals. Getting into a monster project will significantly wear on the project manager.
Monster Projects: The ability to form ideas and smoothly roll the idea into execution and then to delivery is the mark of strong leadership. However, ideation that is not well developed during the project formulation is when the Frankenstein Project begins to take shape. An organization can be like Dr. Frankenstein, who was obsessed with his project to animate life from the inanimate. These companies are obsessed with the lifeblood of projects and rush to results by assembling the project team then executing before bringing in the project manager. Under this pressure to begin, short cuts are made and decision making is from the holster, which is not unlike the movie Young Frankenstein when Igor selected the abnormal brain after damaging the healthy brain in an attempt at a patch. Frankenstein projects are faulty at the core due to poor decisions that lead to a monster project having a conflicted runaway life. Driven by whims of the moment upon seeing reflections of their creation, they change their decisions and direction, re-scoping the project. Like Dr. Frankenstein who becomes horrified at his creation then flees leaving the town’s people to deal with the monster, the organizational leadership flees their creations leaving the monster to a project manager.
Fixing the Monster: Looking to a project manager for leadership is not uncommon since standing leadership had been less than successful so far. However, the organizational culture and problems that produced the Frankenstein project persist. Does a project manager fix the monster or Frankenstein? There are several approaches to fixing the monster:
- Stop and reset the project correcting all the issues as best possible before restarting
- Compartmentalization of the project into workable segments isolating problem areas
- Redesign the project on the fly, if delivery time is not adjustable.
However, there are more meaningful activities that the project manager must undertake before tackling the monster project. In Shelley's works, a question begs who is the more enormous monster, the creator, or the created? The project manager must assess this significant question. I have mistakenly overlooked this question and taken on monster projects only to learn that the creator was much worse than the created. Sadly, the creator is the monster, and the reason a Frankenstein project tends to persist. The project manager must not only manage the project but place intense efforts on the creator to rein in controls and establish stronger processes. Garnering top cover is extremely important and often very difficult as the reason for assigning the project manager is to distance themselves from the problem. Providing top cover puts them too close to the project for their comfort and should signal a loss of confidence in the leadership for the project manager to reject the project.
Looking Frankenstein In the Eyes
Identifying a Frankenstein project is critical early on. The effort is different depending on the project manager's relationship with the company. If internal to the organization, there is a lot of backstories available to the project manager and prior relationships. Decision making and management on the project can be a lot easier in this internal case. If the project manager is external to the organization, then decision making and management become exponentially more difficult. The first tale-tale sign of a rogue project is that the organization chooses to use a contract or contract-to-hire vehicle. Another indicator is the presence of expeditors and reporters.
Employment Contracts: All employment is a contract but in different forms. Full-time employment (FTE) is a contract having a high level of constraints placed on both parties. Contracting a Project Manager may be in various forms to include; verbal or letter engagements, labor agreements, and full contracts. Verbal agreements and engagement letters are rarely enforceable in court and should not be entered into for any project unless the dollar amount is meager. These engagements are a low dollar and agreed upon via a brief letter that details the work and compensation or bill rates. Engagement letters are mildly enforceable in a court and usually use arbitration to settle disputes. Labor Agreements are lengthy documents detailing the arrangements between the parties and the kind of work to be completed. Labor Agreements tend to be broad scoped are moderately enforceable in a court. Full contracts are specific, often having Statements of Work (SOW), Request for Information (RFI), Request for Quotation (RFQ), and Request for Proposals (RFP). The bidding environment is controlled and may be open or closed. Like agreements, full contracts detail the arrangements between the parties but specify the work to be completed in detail. Most project managers are hired under the Labor agreement as contract labor and not specific to any project since this is the most flexible approach for the employer.
Employment or labor agreements signal many concerns that need to be addressed. Most employment agencies push the contract-to-hire as a benefit to the employers. In most cases, the contract-to-hire is nothing more than a nebulous carrot for those contracted. The big question is, what does the contracted have to do to get hired? Most often, this is the highly subjective nebulous metric of doing a good job or being a spectacular project manager. What is a good job or spectacular? To the point, employers view any contracting, including the contract-to-hire as a means to offload liability and share risk as hiring staff, is high risk. All other justifications are ancillary to these two reasons. These two reasons are openly evident in the contract as to how they are handled. Usually, this is one-sided and the employer assumes no risk and liability. Full-time employees, such as hiring managers, tend to overtly or sublimely view contracting as a means to advance politically sensitive and unpopular projects that are too risky for the FTE to perform. These hiring managers view the contracted person as highly disposable and a sponge to which all unpleasant political and unpopular chatter is deflected. When anticipated problems arise, the fall is taken by the contracted person who is often released along with all the bad stuff.
Expeditors: Up through the 1970s, many companies had staff known as expeditors whose sole purpose was to work issues, bridge gapped efforts, and bring resolution to wayward business processes as well as resolve other business issues. When there was a problem, companies threw people at the problem, and a lot of them since the cost of labor was low in those days. The expeditor became so pervasive that many companies institutionalized the expeditor, learning from aerospace about tiger teams. Aerospace tiger teams are a short-lived team of experts used to solve complex engineering problems. However, in much of corporate America, the tiger team, often called by many other names, became a permanently staffed solution whose purpose was to take on business problems and resolve them. In other words, firefight issues. These people were aggressive, workplace politicians, and possessing type A personalities. Expeditors would bludgeon their way through issues using special authority granted to them by the leadership. Organizational management often viewed these folks as 'Golden' and necessary. In operations management thinking, this situation is viewed as a symptom of a more significant problem; poor management and poor leadership. To an operations manager, the operation is out-of-control. Usually, the problem is centered on poor business design, incomplete processes, and an outcome from a rush to results.
Not all PM opportunities or situations are expeditors, but PMs should be careful not to be or become expeditors as this is a departure from project and operations management at its core. The character of the company's operations will provide the indicators that expeditors are present. If a company has had more than one acquisition, merger, or transition, then the conditions are ripe for expeditors. Other conditions conducive to expeditors is the rush to results, rush to transition to new facilities, technologies, or significant systems. If there is go-live or we-need-results jargon in use, then there is a low attention span in the management, indicating a rush to results. If project management is not mature in the organization, there is also a tendency to form expeditors and call them project managers. Another signal of expeditors in use is when an organization has a large number of PM's working fragments of larger projects, busy writing many reports, and few have a full project or are certified. PMs should assess for these conditions before accepting a contract or a new project.
Reporters: Another common issue is using the project manager as a report generator. While communications are essential, the project manager should drive the need to report. If a higher authority determines the need for reports and the project manager is tasked with or working to reports, then this is a departure from project management as well. Project managers are not reporters feeding higher decision making authority. Project managers should be the decision authority and seek higher decisions when they deem necessary.
In Summary: The contract-to-hire is a considerable revenue boon for placement agencies with an overwhelming and compelling message throughout internet queries of an extremely high success rate for hires at 90% or more placement. Most articles, studies, and reports are highly biased, being written, contracted, or conducted by the placement agencies. Many of these articles when surveyed, give a host of ancillary reasons for contract-to-hire and miss the right reasons. The actual success rates are most likely much lower perhaps closer to 60% or less for project managers. Generally, many companies will hire for their boom season using contract labor. They often seed the contractors with hopes of being hired if they do a good job. One of these boom seasons begins in August with the most crucial shipping days of the year about October 15th for the Christmas rush. Most of these contractors will be released shortly after the new year if not sooner. Project managers during this time run the risk of being used as expeditors resolving boom period issues.
Frankenstein's Finale
The reason the Frankenstein project occurs is due to poor leadership, management practices, inexperience, political jockeying within the organization, and a host of other reasons. Leadership begins by pulling the organization together with proper management that can be difficult, depending on the organizational culture and political situation. Without top cover, a project manager cannot achieve success. The leadership must support the PM 100%. A common problem and failure of leadership 101 are senior leaders going around soliciting folks if they like the new PM which undermines the PM, giving the illusion of a lack of confidence. Additionally, any issues, regardless of merit, on their minds in the last six weeks spear the PM. This undermines the PM's authority on the project by elevating the staff's access and voice to leadership above the PM. Thus, the PM is rendered ineffective by default. There are proper channels for this when there are qualified concerns. Overall, project managers need to assess opportunities in far more detail than the average contract employee.
References:
Coghill, J. (2001). Cliffnotes: Frankenstein. Wiley Publishing, Inc: New Jersey ISBN: 978-0-7645-8593-7
Kendrick, T. (2004). The project management tool kit: 100 tips and techniques for getting the job done right. American Management Association: NY.
Shelly, M. (1818). Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus.
Gruskoff, M. (Producer), & Brooks, M. (Director). (1974). Young Frankenstein. [Motion Picture] USA: 20th Century Fox: