Comments on: Rockstar Project Management: The Art of Escalation

By: Carl

Carl — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:16:11 +0000

the trick is finding the right one to accomplish it all!

By: HR Think Tank

HR Think Tank — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 01:34:57 +0000

[...] had previously posted about the Art of Escalation and how important it is for a project manager to understand their role in helping the team be [...]

By: Rockstar Project Management: Know Your Role

Rockstar Project Management: Know Your Role — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:24:58 +0000

[...] productivity of your project team. Pair this with the tips from last week’s post about the Art of Escalation and you are on your way. Stay tuned for the final post in the series, about the importance of [...]

By: Jason Davis

Jason Davis — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:10:45 +0000

@Samantha – Thanks for the comment. I agree that of all of the tips above, #1 is the most important, but if a PM isn’t good at managing escalation, then I would prefer that they don’t do it at all, rather than being an alarmist – which can actually be very detrimental to the project.

@Michael – At the risk of torpedoing the rest of my Rockstar series – I would have to agree with this. I have worked with, managed, and hired Project Managers in all industries and verticals and I found that in many cases more ‘junior’ PMs were more effective than ‘senior’ PMs with many more years ‘experience’. As you said, we need to give all PMs the tools to be good PMs, but the absolute upper echelon may just have something innate (and I’ll actually be featuring one of the ‘softer skills’ that plays into this later in the series…). Thanks for the comment.

By: Michael Krupa

Michael Krupa — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 06:57:46 +0000

Great information but I’m just going to come right out and say it. You can’t teach someone to be a Rockstar Project Manager. Either they “get it” or they don’t. You can teach someone to become a good PM but to be a Rockstar you just have to have the DNA in your system.

Thoughts?

By: Samantha

Samantha — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 04:59:41 +0000

Hey Jason,

Really enjoyed this post quite a lot! You didn’t disappoint. Your point about timing being everything – including the reasoning behind it – is spot on. Some great thoughts going on here, and your writing is seamless. Can’t wait to check back for more. Awesome job.

By: Jason Davis

Jason Davis — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 01:08:59 +0000

Katy, well said! Thank you for taking the time to read the post and comment.

By: Katy

Katy — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:44:27 +0000

Great post Jason! You are right on target with #2 – the biggest issue I see with new project managers is that they panic over every setback thinking the customer is going to be upset. The measure of a great project manager is not that they never have setbacks but that they deal with them gracefully, professionally and proactively.