Читать книгу Project Management For Dummies - Stanley E. Portny - Страница 40

Most people don’t enjoy delivering bad news, but all news (especially bad news) is best delivered as soon as possible, after you’ve performed your due diligence to confirm that the news is accurate and real. It’s also best delivered in a truthful, factually accurate, and direct manner. Your audience will ultimately appreciate your unemotional delivery of news, leaving as little as possible open to misinterpretation. Whether your audience is pleased with the content of your message or not, they cannot reasonably fault you for delivering the message professionally and honestly. Always remember that withholding information is akin to being dishonest!

You’ll likely find yourself at some point addressing one or more of the following example scenarios in your capacity as project manager that will require honest and frank conversations to remedy:

 Underperforming project team member: This can have a negative, demotivating impact on other team members and hinder the entire team’s ability to effectively deliver the project.

 Budget overrun: As soon as you are confident there exists a realistic risk of overrunning your project’s budget, loop in your organizational leadership, either for assistance in course-correcting the current path, depending on the cause of the projected overrun, or for a determination as to whether the project should continue as is or be adjusted in some manner. Perhaps it should be adjusted through a change order or similar contractual adjustment if there has been a documented deviation from the original project scope.

 Schedule slippage: Your stakeholders, particularly the client, need to know as soon as possible if the project schedule starts to slip so they have sufficient time to make any necessary adjustments to accommodate the updated schedule.

Each of these situations should be addressed head-on, by presenting all the facts available, as soon as available, so your audience has what they need to make fully informed, timely decisions.