Have I bet on the wrong horse, here?

Dear Undermined PM

Reading your letter at face value, the behaviour you are encountering is unprofessional and disappointing.

There are many challenges projects face and, while politics is recognisable as one area we must manage, this is not the same as deliberately cutting you out of your own project, or undermining your role.

I want to start with a fact. Your terms of employment are with the online betting company and not this supplier, and as long as you protect that working relationship, any bad behaviour should not affect your position or standing.

I would add that by maintaining integrity in what you do, two outcomes may be nearer than you think: 1) the supplier runs out of energy for this behaviour, realising your value and their own error, or, 2) they get found out by your company and the behaviour is finally addressed.

A start-up environment for a contractor is challenging as I assume it may lack the HR or Governance functions of a larger, more established organisation. A start-up by its nature can also live off a positive tribal energy as it races to get its product to market.

Yet this does not mean you need to simply endure what you are facing. And I should counsel that staying in is not always the healthiest decision if you think behaviours will not change.

I can share practical tips if you choose to remain and sort out this conflict:

• Openly address the scheduling and communications issues, and refer to any material you have created about roles and responsibilities and the project structure. This is an objective way to prove you should be in critical meetings.
• Speak with your Sponsor or client lead one-to-one and reiterate that part of your role is to provide scrutiny and protection for the company, and that this is impossible if you are not involved in key planning meetings.
• Use your toolkit. As PM, you have overall responsibility for the Project Plan, RAID Log, facilitating the mini-Senior Management Team and for comms and engagement. Lean on action setting, decision tracking, risk management and other much-needed taskwork as your project currency.
• Once your Project Sponsor is aware of the problem, arrange a another supplier meeting with a senior stakeholder from both organisations. Include clear examples of where the project’s “code” is being breached and request clear commitment to stopping these behaviours.  It is the adult way to address what you are facing, even if you have tried this before directly without success.

Often the best way to deal with people problems is with a degree of practical objectivity. Any good project simply cannot afford behaviours that detract from a common purpose. Even more simply – there is too much to do in too little time to accommodate bad behaviour when it can easily be avoided.

I hope this contributes to a solution, and do return to Dear Savi if you continue to experience these problems.