At the center of this dilemma is the issue of allegiance.
Imagine for a moment that you’re facing a critical decision.
Unfortunately, what’s best for the project will negatively impact
your work group but what benefits your work group will hurt
your project. What’s the right decision? What do you do? If you
make the decision that benefits your work group, you risk being
viewed as a poor project manager. If you choose the course of
action that benefits the project, you may incur the wrath of your
peers and/or departmental management. It’s a tough spot—and
you can almost bank on being in it, possibly often.
A more fundamental problem of the dual responsibility trap
is figuring out how to divide your time and attention between
the two roles. How much should you allocate to each? How long
can you try to satisfy both before you realize you’re working
most nights and weekends?
Finally, a third issue often surfaces in the form of thetwo
boss syndrome.The project manager reports to his or her func-
tional supervisor and to the person who manages the project
management function in the organization. Again, this is a diffi-
cult situation for most project managers.
The Fundamental Conflict of Certainty and Uncertainty
Many misunderstandings and disconnects between project man-
agers and organizational management can be traced to the fun-
damental conflict between the certainty that management
requires to properly run the business and the inherent uncer-
tainty of project work. Cost and schedule estimating provides us
with an excellent example.
Suppose you’re just beginning a project. It’s likely that you
have limited information on this project and there’s a significant
degree of uncertainty. In a situation such as this, project man-
agement practice suggests that you would be well advised to
use ranges of values when providing estimateson cost and
schedule. The size of your range would reflect a level of accura-
cy consistent with the extent of your knowledge and the amount
of uncertainty. In our example, it would be perfectly appropriate
for you to estimate that the cost of your project will be some-
where in the range of $400,000 to $550,000.
The Role of the Project Manager 35T
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