Miles was called by John after the conference call, to express his concern about the hopelessness of the situation. “So, what did you think about all that?”
Miles was also miffed. “I don’t know. “I don’t know.?” The director speaks about our project like he’s doing the job.
“Tell me about it.” John replied. John replied. I don’t know how they are supposed to use the tool you and me are using.”
Project Blame Management
“Me neither.? While I am sure the tool you and me are creating will be useful to everyone, the restructuring they do seems not to be adding any value. Is anyone able to calculate the ROI? They have between 20 and 30 people taking up a lot of time. What are you waiting for?
John sighed.? “Oh well, let us just keep our noses on the grindstone and make sure that our part is right.” Even if everything fails, they won’t be in a position to point fingers at us.
“Are we sure that we shouldn’t tell the director about this?” He might be unaware of the whole thing over there.”
“Na, we already told Brian. If we do not listen to our manager, we will only get in trouble. Brian is aware of what’s going on and will have our backs when it all comes crashing down. Our department is doing all we can.”
Is this a familiar scenario? If not, excellent!? This silo mentality is a problem for many project teams. Incentives can be detrimental to the project’s overall success. If communication is limited to telling people what they want to hear in meetings and then having conversations later, you know you have trouble with your project.