Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Time and again I have seen people make a terrible mess, work hard to fix their mess, and be proclaimed a hero. I still don’t understand why anyone would reward such a person.

In the mid-1980s I started managing projects. I looked about to see what my peers – other project managers – were doing. I kept hearing praises of some of my peers, so I looked closer to learn from their successes.

I got sick.

“So-and-so is dedicated to the project. Look at him, he cancelled a cruise that he and his wife were to take so that he would finish his project on time.”

I looked closer.

So-and-so had,

1. estimated the project to take X hours of work
2. estimated the project to end on date Y

So-and-so was a terrible estimator as the project required 2X hours, and the date Y would not move because so-and-so was a hero. To finish on date Y, so-and-so literally slept at work. He worked nights; he worked weekends, and he cancelled his cruise with his wife. I never heard if so-and-so’s wife divorced him.

Hmmm, so-and-so worked like a hero to save the day and put out the fire. The problem, as I saw it, was that so-and-so was the person who started the fire by terribly underestimating the work on his project. This all seemed obvious to me. Why would anyone hail so-and-so as a hero?

Well, senior managers didn’t see it the way I did. They rewarded so-and-so and everyone else who made the same terrible mistakes while estimating the work required on their projects.

Thirty years later, I see the same happening again. People make a terrible mess, work crazy hours or something, and clean up their mess. They are heroes.

Why do we proclaim heroes those people who make terrible messes or set their own houses on fire?