Who's In Charge Here?

Note to managers: You probably don't want to read this. I'm basically fed up with the lot of you!

So, we have this contract. We're working hard on it but circumstance has consipred to thwart the majority of our efforts. There are lots of little "nuggets" of progress that can be reported, but overall, we're behind schedule. Everyone down in the trenches is aware of this. Seriously - we do know that we're behind schedule...and if we didn't, the 9,000,000 meetings to convey the annoyance of upper management that we're behind schedule would have driven home the issue. HOWEVER...while we at the bottom of the pile scurry around to get the project back on track and working, shouldn't the management be doing something other than breathing down our necks and wringing their hands? Since the project fix is under control management-wise (we have a plan and schedule to get back on track), my thought is that they should then be doing the rest of their management job. What is this, you might ask? Well, from my non-managerial position here are my thoughts on constructive things they could be doing:

1) Managing Customer Expectations.
This could take several forms. One form it absolutely should not take is to express how far behind we are in terms that make it sound like we're going to overrun our deadlines (which at this point I don't think is a given. Yes, we're behind. But we also know how to get things moving, are making progress in that direction, and more than likely will be pulling the fat out of the fire very soon.) So letting the customer know that we're behind is counter productive because then it brings heat down on their heads and gets their panties all in a twist and then they feel inspired to come and release more wrath on the heads of the programmers...and this usually involves long meetings which only pulls us away from actually FIXING things and thus....makes us behind schedule in our "get back on schedule" plan. What I think they ought to say is along the lines of, "We've hit a few snags, they're being taken care of and things look good for us to make our hard date of June 1. We may slip a little on sub-deliverables, but the final deliverable should still be on target."

2) Leaving the developers alone.
Now, granted, this is tough because yes, they do still want to have updates and find little "nuggets" to pass along to the customer (though I think this could even be avoided if we had managed the customer correctly in the first place, but our PM is spineless and so the customer walks all over us and really runs the show). Most people with any sense are thinking to themselves, "No problem, have the team leader(s) report to the PM and let everyone else continue working." This would be a great thing...except that this company has no organization. No one is in charge. Or perhaps from the "positive" outlook, everyone is in charge. There's the CEO and then the rest of the company. Oh sure, we have VPs, Presidents, Directors of this and that, Leads and Seniors and Juniors. But at the end of the day, depending on the time of day, the Junior may be actually "in charge" of the President. Because we have no organization. Period. Our org chart is one big flat list that might as well be in alphabetical order for all it matters what your title and job function is. And with this project, we see it biting us in the ass.

Now, this lack of organization could actually be mediated somewhat if, on a project by project basis, we instituted some sort of "project organization". But we don't. We have a PM and then everyone else. So we have no concensus of design. We have no concensus of even what the end product is supposed to be. We do manage to have lots of mass confusion though. Lots and lots of mass confusion.

We need to rebrand and just sell mass confusion - we'd make a mint.

With that, I should get back to work. Of course...I don't know what I really need to do because there's no one in charge to go ask. I guess I'll ask myself.