Dipesh- The Project Manager

Dipesh- The Project Manager

Converting high-strung young technologists to managers is no easy task mused

Dipesh as he began dialing his customer for the weekly conference call. He was a senior
manager in a big multinational, and was responsible for a very prestigious program for a
big French telecom operator. He had just come out of a meeting with Ram, Rohit and
Ravi --- the 3 Project Managers in his Application team. The team had seen steep
growth since July 2000, growing from around 10 people to around 50 by the end of the
year. Dipesh tried to manage the situation in the best way he thought possible --- he
promoted his brightest technical talent into the Project Managers, each managing a team
of about 15. The promotion came as a pleasant surprise to Ram, Rohit and Ravi, and
they were excited about the future potential that came with it. After the initial euphoria,
however, they had started getting frustrated in their new roles, especially with the human
issues. This became very evident during the performance appraisal-planning meeting
they just had with Dipesh.

After all, the whole team has contributed; why cant we give all of them the same
performance rating and be done with it? quipped Ram, while looking at the bell curve
Dipesh had just drawn to explain what the distribution of performance ratings in each
project team would be.

It is your job as a manager to... Ram tried to explain.

Do you want us to deliver the project in time? added Rohit, the brightest technical
person in the whole team. Why cant HR do this for us? That would give them
something real to do, for a change?
Ravi was more forthright in expressing the difficulty all of them were really facing. How
can you look a guy in the face, and tell him that his performance is below the mark.
Ultimately, the performance rating will reflect in his salary, and he will just quit if he does
not like it. I do not want to spend hours recruiting another fresh person and training him
on the basics of the domain.
______________________________________________________________________
This case was written by Piyush, Prashant and Srinivasa, PGSM-99 participants under the
guidance of Prof. Narendra M. Agrawal, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.

Copy right: Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, August 2001

20 August 2001 1
 Dipesh- The Project Manager

This touched a sensitive chord in Ram who said, I was wrong in taking up the Project
Manager role, I think. It is rapidly draining me of my technical expertise. Just yesterday, I
had took nearly 30 minutes writing a silly shell script that I could have written in 5
minutes flat just 6 months ago. I feel like a glorified clerk whose only job is to keep
making PowerPoint slides and Excel charts, apart from pretending to look important in
long, boring organisational meetings.

I hate those meetings continued Rohit. Hardly anything gets accomplished in them,
given the amount of time one spends there. I see absolutely no value addition in any of
them. I could easily churn out a UI routine in the time one has to spend in painfully
writing minutes.

At least, you do not have to spend hours on the phone with your customer contact
added Ravi. I have no understanding of why my customer loves to talk on the phone for
hours going over my status report with me after I have wasted a full 2 hours creating it. I
am not averse to staying late in office --- I spent 36 hours at a stretch in office once,
coding a full protocol layer. My family is used to it. But, poring over a boring status report
is not my idea of productive work.

You have full responsibility for architecting the software being written for each of your
modules, Dipesh tried to explain. That is a significant technical challenge.

If drawing blocks and arrows is all architecture is about, disagreed Rohit, I would
rather code.

Moreover, said Ravi, I can code in 5 hours what I have to make my best engineer do
in 5 days. I cannot work with a team as incompetent and de-motivated as I have. Give
me 3 IIT graduates like me, and I will complete my module in one-fourth the time.
Go, find them, Dipesh was getting irritated now.

They will not come to us with the salaries we offer? Rohit was quick to respond. If
you really want excellence, you need to reward it, without worrying so much about the
budget limitations.

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 Dipesh- The Project Manager

As managers, it is your job to coach people and counsel them into better performers
Dipesh tried to explain.

It is much easier said than done, Rohit persisted. You cannot make a horse out of a
donkey. You cannot imagine the amount of time I have to spend explaining trivial
technical issues to my team members. I get interrupted every hour by one of them, and it
dampens my productivity.

I really think we need to change the culture in our team, Ravi assented. People just do
not know how to use a beautiful tool like e-mail. They have to see me repeat the same
explanation I sent in an e-mail, before they understand it. I see no reason why we need
to waste time meeting in person, with such a powerful tool like e-mail. It is extremely
counter-productive.

It is time for my customer call now said Dipesh as he heard his watch beep. I will send
you performance appraisal guidelines by e-mail, and meet in a couple of days to go over
them in detail. He stood up abruptly and went to his office, wondering where he had
gone wrong, and what should he do to manage the whole situation. There was more
work coming up and the customer wanted the team size to double in the next 6 months.
I should probably refuse any more work, Dipesh thought to himself in desperation, if I
want to have any chance of success, as he proceeded to his office.

20 August 2001 3