Notice for projects

[ManagerJay]

One of the people I currently supervise has their time divided among three different suervisors. One supervisor has the employee's time 60% of the time and the other supervisor and myself have the employees time 20% of the time.

Recently, this employee came to me and asked for advice on how to explain to the supervisor, who supervises them 60% of the time, that implementing some of the changes wanted to the corporate web site cannot happen overnight.

I suggested using Microsoft Project and outline the projects for the upcoming two to three months. Then take the timeline to the supervisor and ask if their are any additional projects that should be allowed for in the time line.

The employee told me they have tried talking to the supervisor, but they deny doing this.

I definately do not want this organization to lose this employee because they are extremely good at web development.

Does anyone else have any suggestions?

Thanks for your help.



Jay

 

[pivan]

Hi Jay:

Here is what I would suggest.
1) You need to talk to the 60% supervisor. It sounds like it is now an issue ie: beyond the werewithal of an employee to resolve him/herself. You need to explain to this supervisor why "world peace cant be solved this afternoon".

2) Anytime I have a developer mucking around in MS Projects instead of developing, something is wrong in my department. ie: if they are doing project planning that is time away from coding. This is something a Project Manager or Supervisor should be doing. Basic stratification of labor.

G 'Luck
pivan In not now, when?
If not here, where?
If not us, who?

Just do it!!

 

[Luckyfour]

What about having a meeting with the employee and the supervisor to try to resolve it? Or, the employee can write up a quick list of responsibilities and a potential time-line to be distributed to all of the supervisors for "information and feedback". Perhaps the employee would gain more support and this would decrease the possibility of colusions taking place.

 

[johnny99]

You could also have a much bigger problem.

If the 60% supervisor can't/doesn't want to understand that 2+2=4 the problem could be that he doesn't know anything about what his job is and should be.

If he doesn't want to learn there is only one way out of your problem and that is to get a new supervisor.

Many years ago at had a talk with the director of HR in the company I worked for at that time.
I tried to tell her that even if she had to hire 1 extra in IT for every 2 she fired in administration she still saved 1. (this was basicly about how many we needed for support in IT for the users when they implemented a huge system that would save them a bunch of people in administration.

When she told me that saving 2 in administration and adding 1 in IT didn't save 1 on the bottom line (we didn't talk about money just headcounts) I just looked at her and found a way out of her office. She had to learn it the hard way.

If basic things, like how to count simple numbers, are not in place don't try to run any kind of projects they will just fail badly.

/johnny