Throwing in the towel with a contract early. Moral dilema

[surfstar]

Hi All,

A long time lurker of the forum and wanted to get some peoples opinion of a dilemma I am in. I appreciate that this question is often asked as people are in a similar situation to me but I wanted to share all the same.

3 months in to the project and I could sense things weren’t right. The programme manager left, an experienced PM left and my own concerns were growing. The project is huge, budget is no issue and I have contractor resource coming out of my ears and more if needed. However there is a drop-dead date when it must be completed.

So what’s the problem?

• A matrix managed environment meaning I rely heavily on the FTE ops teams to do the project work.
• No top down comms from CIO/director level of importance of project resulting in staff who don’t care if the project happens or not.
• An organisation with a history of morale problems within their IT dept.
• Heavily unionised so people wont do things if they think they don’t need to.
• Senior management are ineffective and cannot assign work to their staff. When they do the staff often do not deliver.

Do I suck it up and see it as experience and take the money? Or do I leave and work on a contract that is ready for this type of project and I can get satisfaction on delivering something? Am I underestimating the senior position as one that should be less involved with the technical ‘doing’ and more about getting people on board?

Anyway that’s it and thanks

[northernladuk]

TL;DR

It's up to you.

[cojak]

Read this book, it will help you to decide whether it is doomed or just a tough project.

http://www.amazon.com/Death-March-Ed.../dp/013143635X

It will also help you decide what to do next.

[northernladuk]

LOL ... 80% to 90% of this on every contract + another 20% = "that's life"

Now if you want to jack it in, go for it. Just don't expect much better on the next one. If this is just an internal justification for taking more money and stuffing your current client, talk to yourself as nobody else will believe it.

Could have either snipped it or not quoted :

[BrilloPad]

Keep invoicing. Look for another gig.

[vetran]

wrong login Suity!

[DimPrawn]

Sounds like public sector (unlimited tax payer budget, unions and zero chance of delivering anything).

You suck it up, try and get as much money out of it as possible for as long as possible. Invoice, invoice, invoice, then retire early.

HTH BIDI

[darmstadt]

Hi All,

A long time lurker of the forum and wanted to get some peoples opinion of a dilemma I am in.

Surely the wrong forum for a such a question. As a long time lurker you should know this or is this the standard of PM's (*) nowadays, not being able to understand the environment


(* I'm not a fan of PM's and can't see the point of them, they just make projects run longer and over budget and I tend to treat them as my secretary, mainly because I'm tulip at Excel, and gofer...)

[NigelJK]

The project is huge, budget is no issue and I have contractor resource coming out of my ears and more if needed. However there is a drop-dead date when it must be completed.

1. I rely heavily on the FTE ops teams to do the project work.
2. organisation with a history of morale problems within their IT dept.
3. Heavily unionised so people wont do things if they think they don’t need
4. Senior management are ineffective and cannot assign work to their staff. When they do the staff often do not deliver.

OK I've heard enough (and having worked that side of the fence before seen enough) to know what the issue is here. The way I tackled it was to put that contractor resource to work. Put a delivery team together consisting entirely of contractors, they report to you.

If 1 is true what is your contract resource doing?
Only answer to 2 is to deliver something, anything, and let the Permies take the credit.
Contractor crew gets around 3+4.

Only give the permies work the can do within the timescales, the contractor crew gets to put in overtime (budget is unlimited correct?) to get the thing over the line. Explain this in words of one syllable to those who's 'career' depends on the result.

[BrilloPad]

Sounds like public sector (unlimited tax payer budget, unions and zero chance of delivering anything).

You suck it up, try and get as much money out of it as possible for as long as possible. Invoice, invoice, invoice, invest in golden property, then retire early.

HTH BIDI

FTFY