(^90) 97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know
Don’t Throw
Spreadsheets at
People Issues
Anupam Kundu
New York, New York, U.S.
hAvE yoU EvER BEEn ShoWn A SPREADShEET with lists of activities
to explain your work on a project? Many experienced managers try to use
spreadsheet lists as a “silver bullet”* for managing and monitoring projects.
Tom is an information technology development architect in the online division
of a large organization. He serves four or more different stakeholder groups.
Since he has a poor ability to prioritize the deliverables for different stake-
holders, he ends up annoying or disappointing someone every week. With too
many commitments to fulfill, and too few resources on hand, he is always at
the center of the resulting conflicts among the groups.
Tom and his team are talented IT architects, yet their lack of time and the skill
sets necessary to manage stakeholder expectations creates problems for every-
one in the online group. The solution? Get a trained software project manager
to prioritize and list the deliverables for Tom and his team every week, month,
or quarter.
The PM can facilitate discussions with the various stakeholders to prioritize
the deliverables. Then, the priorities are evaluated across all the internal cus-
tomers. This way, not only do the stakeholders have their expectations set cor-
rectly, but Tom and his team get a frequently refreshed list of tasks. They can
stay focused on developing the most important items on that week’s agenda,
across all projects.
The secret to making this plan effective is not to stop with a spreadsheet list
of deliverables for each project. Instead, the PM sets the expectations of the
- Silver bullet: In folklore, a silver bullet was the only kind of ammunition that would be effective in
killing a werewolf, vampire, witch, or other variety of monster. Now, the metaphor can mean a new
software or technology that will magically solve all major organizational problems. It can be any
solution that is perceived to have far-reaching effectiveness.