I've noodled on your response overnight. Here are my thoughts:
[1] Working within a team to deliver on time, or effectively communicating when that delivery is behind, is part of a good team working agreement. For that reason, I would expect it is part of most job descriptions implicitly and often explicitly.
[2] Managers, be they personnel, project, or product, absorb things from individual contributors quite often. An example of this is when re-prioritization needs to occur because another team member is unable to complete tasks for any number of reasons.
A delivery failure isn't office politics. Do you feel that it is? I could see if a manager were setting arbitrary deadlines without consensus with the team as being a meaningless nihilist exercise (i.e. office politics and their ilk). But where consensus was discussed, the failure to deliver then lives with the team.
That's a high bar in today's social media climate; I'm afraid I'm responding without noodling on it.
> [1] Working within a team to deliver on time, or effectively communicating when that delivery is behind, is part of a good team working agreement. For that reason, I would expect it is part of most job descriptions implicitly and often explicitly.
I agree 100% with this. A good IC will keep the manager in the loop with the current state of progress and potential roadblocks. While I don't think 'communication' is solid enough to use in a job description, I believe it's crucial in a well-oiled team.
> [2] Managers, be they personnel, project, or product, absorb things from individual contributors quite often. An example of this is when re-prioritization needs to occur because another team member is unable to complete tasks for any number of reasons.
I feel this is similar to [1], IC -> Manager pipeline. I wholeheartedly agree that they should absorb as much information as possible and manage the project so that the theoretical matches the practical.
> A delivery failure isn't office politics. Do you feel that it is?
Sometimes? Many times? Delivery failures can be as arbitrary as an asteroid impact clearing out the team, office politics, bad planning, stupid ideas, bad teams, etc.
> I could see if a manager were setting arbitrary deadlines without consensus with the team as being a meaningless nihilist exercise (i.e., office politics and their ilk).
This also depends on what is delivered. Are we talking about founding engineers at an early-stage startup? Mid-level engineers at a company with thousands of them? In most companies, I'd be laughed out of the room if, after the business made the planning, features, and roadmap, I'd object with some personal and documented belief about the product.
> But where consensus was discussed, the failure to deliver then lives with the team.
I don't see any part in GP's * comment that makes me think of consensus. Nor communication. Nor re-prioritization. I feel this consensus is an escape hatch so that people in a position to fail end up protected. If I don't deliver, it's visible pretty fast, and I get pulled in for discussions regarding my failure mode. When the project manager fails, it's a team failure by consensus.
Ultimately, leadership is leadership for a reason. Management is the management for a reason. In the case of a failed invasion, would you blame the soldiers or the generals? I can see how one might blame the soldiers, but I'm not sure that will win you the following battles.
* > I work with a project manager who is obsessed with deadlines. "Hey do you have an update? When do you think it will be done? Hey, the deadline is really close!" They maintain a complicated Gantt chart. What happens when we miss the deadline? Nothing really, our updates aren't on a fixed timeline, and our users are very happy with our product today. Everything is artificial.
I've noodled on your response overnight. Here are my thoughts:
[1] Working within a team to deliver on time, or effectively communicating when that delivery is behind, is part of a good team working agreement. For that reason, I would expect it is part of most job descriptions implicitly and often explicitly.
[2] Managers, be they personnel, project, or product, absorb things from individual contributors quite often. An example of this is when re-prioritization needs to occur because another team member is unable to complete tasks for any number of reasons.
A delivery failure isn't office politics. Do you feel that it is? I could see if a manager were setting arbitrary deadlines without consensus with the team as being a meaningless nihilist exercise (i.e. office politics and their ilk). But where consensus was discussed, the failure to deliver then lives with the team.