Project manager needs help handling arrogance in the team.?

Question:

I recently got assigned to an existing supply chain management project consisting of highly technical IT team. The team is arrogant. I can see many things not in place in the project. For example no proper documentation (teamlead does not want to document, it is all in the head), no good production support (no proper attention to on call pager, developers have access to production servers), no communication protocol (servers are brought down at will, migrations are done at will). The application users (external vendors) are complaining. I am answerable to the users. I actually became infamous in the team for bringing this to table, to the extent that the teamlead came up to me and asked me to backoff and I would not get support from him or his team. My supervisor, who is nontechnical, is very buddy with the teamlead and perfers to support him. How can I save myself in this situation ? How can I still bring some improvements in the team ?

Answer:
It sounds to me like you are the victim of insubordination. If you have the authority to determine what happens to this team you might want to think about breaking it up in some way, also to make it clear that certain things which have been done in the past will no longer be allowed in the future. If they, as a group, have worked togther for some period of time and view themselves as an indisposable unit, it may be time to replace a few of them. This kind of insubordination, to the point where it is affecting overall performance and causing problems with external vendors, cannot be allowed to go on. You must go over the head of your supervisor, who is also part of the problem in that he is reinforcing the bad work ethics of the team. It seems to me, even without knowing very much about what they all do exactly, that their association together is becoming detrimental to the purpose of the unit, and it is time to create a new team willing to handle the work in a more professional manner, and this means firing some of them, including maybe, your supervisor. So this means going upstairs and making a complaint with someone higher up the company chain of command.

Good answer, A E N. My years of both managing projects and consulting with disfunctional teams completely agrees. Too many times a team is seen as comprised of members that are infallible. No one, I repeat, NO ONE is THAT important. A good, functioning team can surmount almost any problem. They will "learn their way" through the project and can create new and better ways of doing things. It doesn't have to be complicated, but we are really good at making simple things way too complicated! Good luck in your work with this team. Remember, there are many other projects and teams and companies, for that matter if life isn't fun!

Project manager needs help handling arrogance in the team.?

Hot Topic