Reply to: Tyrant PM - Quit or not?

[ImaginativeTruth]

Assume in your reports that the PM asks for you are itemising the time taken to fill in the report - making it clear the time wasted in the exercise.

I find terrible PM's are 10 a penny these days and they hide behind bureaucracy. Unfortunately they decide resource so when it goes bad, its time to move on.

[tarbera]

"just had a mouthful from her at 7.30 am as soon as I walked through the door"

Your keen, put some headphones in next time and remove at 9am after your coffee and breakfast and newspaper at your desk

[Elliegirl]

Great idea.

I won't use her real profile pic, though, otherwise she won't get any prospective punters.

Don't do it Pip, she's not worf it!

Seriously though, her time will come.....

[rocktronAMP]

Well I did quit and tomorrow's my last day.

I just couldn't take any more of her and her power games. Her latest trick was to have me find her swiveling in my seat when I got back from the loo on a few occasions.

So, the question is - who do I stick it to with both barrels tomorrow? I really think this stupid cow need bringing down a peg or two.

Trumps!

Guess what? In the last week, I have also fallen victim to a stupid Tyrant PM, who could not project manager to save herself. My contract was ripped up and I now have also joined the "State of the Market" forum thread. My ex-PM didn't curse or swear or bully. She just went behind my back. She couldn't understand IT software development, linked dependencies, like a central user story A has to be constructed before user story B or C, which depends on A being done. She couldn't plan her way out of a teacup to save her life. Result, that I was the one at fault, even though I was new to this. It was a blame culture and I got the bullet for non-productivity or non-delivery. Another attempt at being Agile, but Fragile. I shouldn't known when I signed up and after two weeks in the gig. B****H!

[ChimpMaster]

Can't do it if you need to confirm the email address

You seem to know a lot about this.................................

[Eirikur]

Set her up as a low-class escort on Adultwork. Make sure you use her work email and phone number as the contact details.

Can't do it if you need to confirm the email address

[Pip in a Poke]

Set her up as a low-class escort on Adultwork. Make sure you use her work email and phone number as the contact details.

Great idea.

I won't use her real profile pic, though, otherwise she won't get any prospective punters.

[ChimpMaster]

Well I did quit and tomorrow's my last day.

I just couldn't take any more of her and her power games. Her latest trick was to have me find her swiveling in my seat when I got back from the loo on a few occasions.

So, the question is - who do I stick it to with both barrels tomorrow? I really think this stupid cow need bringing down a peg or two.

Set her up as a low-class escort on Adultwork. Make sure you use her work email and phone number as the contact details.

[radish2008]

Well I did quit and tomorrow's my last day.

I just couldn't take any more of her and her power games. Her latest trick was to have me find her swiveling in my seat when I got back from the loo on a few occasions.

So, the question is - who do I stick it to with both barrels tomorrow? I really think this stupid cow need bringing down a peg or two.

Option 1: Kick her head in.

Option 2: Explain as you're leaving to her management how they lost a valuable resource solely because of the way she behaves.

[Pip in a Poke]

Well I did quit and tomorrow's my last day.

I just couldn't take any more of her and her power games. Her latest trick was to have me find her swiveling in my seat when I got back from the loo on a few occasions.

So, the question is - who do I stick it to with both barrels tomorrow? I really think this stupid cow need bringing down a peg or two.

[perplexed]

Hopefully you went over to one of the testers and helped to illustrate this PM's incompetence?

If you are given work outside your skillset and schedule it's just a case of getting the right people over to inform the PM that it's their job.

Work outside skillset and schedule?

"I'm afraid I can't undertake that work as my insurance doesn't cover me for any claims for work outside my skillset and schedule. I'm however happy to advise others with any thoughts I might have as long as you're willing to indemnify me against any potential claims".

End of the day, if any client team I encounter are decent people, I'm happy to go the extra mile. Someone like that PM, it would be pure business and purely sticking to business. That usually winds someone like that up far more than yelling at them.

EDIT: Of course, encountering someone like that PM, you always find devs et al who can't stand them. Giving those people ideas as to how to improve things could lead to a groundswell without you having to do a hatchet job.

[Abraham]

Whenever there is a tussle between the tyrant PM and a team member, PM always wins regardless of her/his bad behaviour. You are good at work, but they are good in "managing" you. It will be a losing battle, if you attempt to educate the tyrant PM. They would not tolerate any sign of "disobedience". Agile methodologies etc. are there only in paper, as many PMs are traditional PMs who have re-branded themselves as agile masters to protect their jobs, and their old style of project management never goes away. Unfortunately, it is the PM who has access to the higher ups, and he/she can badmouth you systematically so he/she can get rid of you anytime. Tyrant PMs want to run their projects like their little kingdom, and they would never like your talent or achievements visible to the higher ups, as that would weaken his/her authority over you.

With such tyrant PMs, all good people would have left on their own or terminated by the PM. With only the "yes master"s and his/her lieutenants remaining in the project, there is little or no chance of the project succeeding. At the end, the organisation would have no alternative but to cancel the project. The tyrant PM would now be in a new project, continuing destroying people's career and lives. The cycle continues.

Usually if your boss is a bully, his/her boss also is a bully, so the behavior is inherited. So, don't have any hope that you can report the bad behaviour to boss's boss, and if you did, you would have to face two bullies.

[SueEllen]

Got in this morning & she's decided she wants me to smoke test the application before it goes into a pre prod environment. She wants me to produce a plan & detail how long I'm going to spend testing each part of the application.

My initial reaction is to tell her I'm not a tester though the reality is I just can't be bothered to sit here all day clicking around on a website trying to make it fall over.

Dog end days of contract indeed.

Hopefully you went over to one of the testers and helped to illustrate this PM's incompetence?

If you are given work outside your skillset and schedule it's just a case of getting the right people over to inform the PM that it's their job.

[Yonmons]

Nature of the game enduring PM's like this, I only really locked horns with one who was completely useless and brassing off all team members, upshot was they made the bullets, and being a northerner ( who was once told that the email I had sent had attitude) I fired them, got me no where It became all out war which I lost and my services were dispensed with by said PM, but as I said at the time it was the right decision from him, in the 2 yrs I was on the project we had seen a whole trail of failed PM's come and go, and I had enough (we all had) of yet another fresh idea merchant. Shortly after he binned me, he got the order of the boot himself!

[ECommerceConsultant]

I'm a senior PM, and also manage teams of developers. I also used to be a developer.
Her behaviour sounds to be counterproductive. If there is a lot of work currently on, and there is constant re-prioritisation, then a rethink of methods needs to be discussed within the team.
What I would do in this situation (if I was a developer) - I would ask her the following (but do it in earshot of the rest of the team):

"Can we, as a team, meet on Friday afternoon, offsite for a drink, to discuss how to increase productivity and communication within the team?"

You could suggest making it a regular Friday meeting, every week or every second week. Say that the purpose will be for everyone to discuss what has gone well or could have been better this week. All team members can contribute to improvements, and everyone will agree on them at the time.

But....what you're really preparing for, for the first meeting, is to advocate an agile method of sprint delivery (do you have experience with this?). At the very minimum, you should suggest daily standups, 10 minutes only, for each team member to update everyone on "What did you do yesterday, what will you do today, and are there any blockers?" This will bring some benefits - the PM will get a daily update as to where things stand, and what was achieved yesterday, and she will be able to help unblock any obstacles which prevent the team from working. Also, because of this daily update, she will not be needing a daily summary by email of everything that each developer has completed (this is just ridiculous). Point it out to her that having to write this summary every day takes time out of your day which should be spent on high priority development tasks, and that the daily standup will provide her with the clarity and visibility that she needs to run the project (and if she needs further detail, she can look in JIRA).

I get the feeling she is not comfortable using JIRA and probably doesn't want anyone to know...how about you asking her in a gentle, kind way, that if you could show her anything in JIRA, how to set up alerts etc, you'd be more than happy to help? She might take you up on it, and it would make you look like the good person.

In summary, take a deep breath, and think about how to bring improvements in the team.
Make suggestions to have a weekly end of week meeting to run through the week's activities and learnings
Suggest a daily standup every day - to provide clarity to the development work and priorities
Offer to help her with Jira

If she is not open to change and positive improvements, then I'd suggest you find a job elsewhere where you will be happier.

Good luck.