Project Scheduling Games...

Managing Product Development

"Schedule Game #8: Pants on Fire

You're a project manager. Your project is proceeding fairly well. You've had a few bumps, but you're making progress. You come into work one day, and there's a message to meet with the Big Cheese. Big Cheese says, 'Stop working on that project. Start on this one!'

Not only does this happen once, it happens several times, either bouncing you and the project team among several projects, or back and forth between two projects. Whatever the circumstances, you're multi-project multi-tasking, and so are all the people on your project team. You know you're not making progress on anything, and the urgency of all the projects keeps going up and up and up...

This schedule game is called 'Pants on Fire.' It occurs when management is afraid to focus on one thing at a time. It has several possible causes: when the technical staff has a track record of being late, when there's no corporate strategy, or when the corporate strategy hasn't been broken down into sufficiently-detailed tactics. ..."

Oh yeah, played this one (well been played on this one)

[rant]
I call this yoyo'ing. Going back and forth on different projects or priorities/features on the same project.

We need THIS feature NOW (hours/days spent working that feature pass)...
No, we need THIS feature NOW (hours/days spent working that feature pass)...
No, we really need THAT feature (hours/days spent working that feature pass)...
etc, etc.

One way I've found to handle this, is always be clear as to the costs of these changes. Costs in man-hours and release delays. You usually don't have to say "No" if you clearly communicate the costs. Also always keep the project sponsor in the loop.
Either the requester/project sponsor backs out or understands and you continue. If they want to eat the costs, well they ARE the reason for the project...

Communicate open, honestly and often.
[/rant]

Check out some of these other "games" at Managing Product Development. What's cool is that Johanna provides suggestions on how to work around/consider/with/etc each one.

(via Bill Brelsford - Schedule Games)