It is important to remember that the scope MUST change if the amount of work changes and time does not. Adding resource may not always work.

The most common failure of a manager is to trust the estimates provided, and “bank” the business on that. While estimates are guesses at best in most organizations, the reality is that those providing the estimates don’t often have the discipline to stay focused on Sunny Day Scenario when creating the estimate, or simple don’t do the research necessary to give the estimate validity.

The manager then has no choice but to turn to those who have proven accomplishment in delivering what was asked – by whatever means necessary.

While it is easy to try to fix blame, it is in reality the whole team that has failed.

Building a team based on trust requires the best effort of each member, manager included, always operating with the success of the other team members at all times. If this level of commitment and trust is sustained, the team will perform better and better, and will deliver the near impossible. If it breaks down, it is the sad responsibility of the manager to correctly identity and cull the team or as stated, “remove the impediment”.

Once a poisoned attitude has been established, it can be very difficult to clean up.

Signs of a problem in a team are exactly as described above. Managers blaming. Panic mode. Fast not right. Owners and specialists. These are all signs that a team is moving faster than their ability to retain integrity. And the march of the clock always wins. And everyone is discouraged with each other. And the team effectively dies.

The key is to focus on the problem. Lose the sense of criticism, either towards each other or others towards oneself. And focus on the improvements – not the failures. Learn, and get better.

Panic manifests itself as valuing certain developers and not others, creating owners and specialists so that you can ensure work is completed “fast” and not necessarily right.

Bad managers are also creatures of habit and will therefore introduce process because something someone did once happened to have successful results. As a result bad managers will therefore prefer to introduce impediments and label them as process.

Then during the “postmortem” the bad manager tries to find the person to pin the blame on for missing the deadline rather than identifing and removing impediments.

We have to find a cure for bad management. Right now the only thing that seems to work is “deliver on time”. I am a strong advocate of removing impediments and if you have a bad manager, well then I know what the first step is … remove “the” impediment.