Your Job is to BE a Hurdle
Bob McGannon, PMP

The project manager’s ultimate responsibility is to protect and promote the business for whom he is working. Towards that end, the project manager works diligently to produce the best business results, meeting or exceeding the objectives of the “triple constraints” – scope, time and resources. However, there are a number of instances where the astute project manager will realize his business is on a pathway to failure. These situations need to be addressed and assessed against project objectives or corrected before the business suffers avoidable losses. The initial approach for the effective project manager is to remove the hurdles that impede her project. Sometimes however, that cannot be accomplished easily. In these cases, the project manager needs to take a profoundly opposite role – they need to become a hurdle – a hurdle to impending disaster. This role as a hurdle becomes vital when the organization is unlikely to “back off” the execution of a project even if there is little chance for project success. Some of the more common circumstances that lead to the demise of projects are addressed here. When these surface, it’s “hurdle time” for the courageous project manager!

Projects with pre-defined triple constraints

The trend is very disturbing – a large number of projects come with all of the triple constraints predefined. The project manager is told what will be produced, how long it will take and how much it will cost. Pre-defining the triple constraints is a short sighted sponsor’s approach to “being a strong leader” and it just doesn’t work. How often have you taken your car to the service center and told the mechanics what they will find when they peer under the hood, told them what time they will have your car available for you to pick up, and how much they will charge you for the service? Of course we don’t do this with our cars! Accepting a project of this nature without questioning the sponsor is irresponsible. Projects need to be examined for the credibility of the desired outcomes, imminent risks, and evaluated against the organization’s available skilled resources. Except in cases where there is a very well documented and understood history of analogous projects in the sponsoring organization that validate the predetermined triple constraints, projects will all three triple constraints pre-defined will not succeed.

With the ever increasing demands on senior leaders – be mindful that they too are trying to do more with reduced numbers of resources – the details and challenges that are everyday issues for the project manager don’t always enter the mind of the project sponsor. Tactful and tactical approaches – like asking to conduct a short investigation – can bring these potential issues to light, giving the project manager some “breathing room” to negotiate the expectations for the project. At the very least it provides a means to identify risks and potential response actions to increase the chances of meeting the expectations for the project.

This is an example of the project manager presenting an appropriate “hurdle” to what the organization is asking. There are many examples of these projects however – here are some additional cases.

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