Managing Difficult People

Triya Chakraborty
Agenda
 Introduction
 Project Life Cycle
 Project Metrics
 Success Factors
 Difficult People
 Soft Skills
 Project Processes

2
Project Life Cycle
 Concept
 Planning
 Execution
 Closure

3
Metrics for Project Success
 Deliverables
 Dollars
 Dates
 Decisions & Deviations
 Deployment
 Documentation

4
Success Factors
 Prioritization
 Ownership
 Clarity
 Commitment
 Capability
 Control
 Communications
 Roles & Responsibilities
 Escalation

5
Difficult People
 Roles
- Stakeholders, Team members, Vendors, Users

 Levels
- Senior Managers, Developers, Admin, Peers

 Degrees of Difficulty

6
Dealing with Difficult People
- Soft Skills
 Don’t make it personal
 Don’t take it personally
 Don’t try to ‘fix’ the person
 Don’t assign blame
 Refrain from ‘he said she said’
 Listen
 Manage ‘people’
 Manage yourself

7
Dealing with Difficult People
- Soft Skills cont’d
 Create ad hoc informal Teams
 Timeliness
 Tact
 Thoroughness
 Target your audience
 Don’t make assumptions

8
Dealing with Difficult People
- Using Project Processes
 Communications
 Commitment
 Document
 Use the Power of Metrics
 Use Power of Processes
 Use Power of Project Control