The Art of Project Management

Chapter Ten. How not to annoy people: process, email, and meetings

Bureaucracy (n): An administrative system in which the need or inclination to follow rigid or complex procedures impedes effective action.

The larger your team, the greater the odds are that your project management activities will annoy someone. Anytime you track someone else's work, or make decisions that impact others, you will potentially annoy someone; it comes with the territory. If you're smart, you'll look for ways to be effective without annoying the people you work with. They'll be happier, the project will run better, and you'll get fewer dirty looks from people in the hallway.

The three activities with the greatest odds of annoying people are email, meetings, and team processes (i.e., build or spec procedures). This chapter will run through the common mistakes and basic approaches for performing these tasks with a minimal annoyance risk factor (a.k.a. MARF).