I recently had a project which suffered a needless delay of a month because all three people involved thought it was someone else's turn to do something. My reaction was "Sigh, now finish the project". Their reaction was "See this chain of emails? I said here that I'm going to do this, how could ...
Why isn't it clear who's job it is? That sounds like a decision for who every is above them. Also it sounds like they tried to clarify the situation but the email was ignored. But to be honest it's hard to say without specifics.
@sf02 line manager wasn't aware what happened until the 1 month delay happened, when the line manager wasn't even needed, because it quickly became clear to everyone what happened.
@KeithLoughnane if you really want to know the specifics (I don't see why it matters), it went something like this. Alice, Bob and Charlie are the three people involved. Alice is supposed to coordinate, Bob and Charlie are supposed to do X and Y respectively. Charlie is waiting for Bob to let him know it's time to do Y. Bob does X. He suggests to Alice that they do X". Alice says it's a good idea, and she will do it.
Two weeks later, Bob sends a reminder, and Alice says she's waiting for Charlie. Another two weeks later, Charlie sends a reminder asking why he hasn't heard anything. Alice and Bob quickly figure out that Alice thought she'll do X" after Y, while Bob thought Alice will do X" before Y, so he hasn't contacted Charlie.
Do the people involved have daily or weekly status meetings? And what does "Alice is supposed to coordinate" mean if it's not clear she's supposed to keep track of who's doing what or waiting for something?
@JollyJoker no, the three of them were not in the same country. Alice is the employee in the HQ, i.e. she is the person anyone who wants to know the status of the project contacts.
Also each person has ~10 projects. It's not feasible for the manager to keep close track of each one of them.
@Allure ten projects each? I'm not sure how the individuals are supposed to keep track of all those. Is there a project board or similar software package involved? Does it help?
The general term for a low-blame mindset is "psychological safety", for future reading.
@pjc50 turnaround times for each of those projects is quite long (they take months to complete) and for long periods, it's not one's turn to act. That's why it's not surprising that Bob & Charlie waited two weeks before asking for a status update. They could easily have waited longer if they're busy, since if it becomes their turn to act they won't be able to do anything anyway. Keeping track of all the projects is pretty easy. What happened here is that they genuinely thought it was someone else's turn to act; they definitely did not lose track of the project's status.
@Allure sure, but "unable to progress because of someone else" aka "blocked" is an important part of the project status, and that's what things like kanban boards try to make as visible as possible.
@pjc50 yes, but someone else blocking progress happens all the time, for every project. With 10 projects on hand it's often the case that 8 or more of them are waiting on someone else. Imagine for example that I'm repairing cars. I repair the first car and find component X is broken. I tell my colleague I need X, and while he prepares it, I repair the next car. At any one point I'm only repairing one car, even though I know the status of all 10 cars I'm handling. It's only when I run out of cars to repair (very rare, in my industry) that productivity starts being lost.
... Because the employees of your company know they're going to get yelled at for making wrong decisions? I mean, this isn't one or two people. It sounds like everyone at low levels is refusing to make high-level decisions - and about the only reason they'd do that is they know the 'reward' for making a bad/suboptimal one is getting punished for it. That's why they're pushing everything back onto your lap.
Discussion on question by Allure: How…
Discussion on question by Allure: How…