I can see why you chose this option because we are all grown adults with a job to do and Chuck hopes their professionalism will guide their behavior. He is confident that he can foster productive dialogue.

   Chuck meets with Ean to request cooperation on digitizing the dashboard. He shares his agile experience, the lifecycle drawing, and that the scope of the Charter is to digitize not to change who owns the dashboard. Ean does not agree with Chuck. Chuck asks Ean to share the workshop materials and stop meeting separately as it is detrimental to the project. Chuck suggests that Ean resolve his issues about dashboard ownership with the leadership council. 

   Chuck meets separately with Steph to discuss the fact that she would not share workshop materials and that she has been meeting undercover with engineering. In addition to being the 'classical' negative stakeholder she is actively undermining the project. Steph denies she is doing anything wrong. 

   Chuck is confident he made the right choice in discussing the issue with Ean and Steph. He knows others that have confronted Ean are not well liked by the leadership team; They do not get raises, or new projects. He is haunted by the thought that negative stakeholders that are called out for their behavior can become worse.

   At The Flying Fig all projects go through leadership for approval before execution. In theory, gaining leadership approval would increase team cohesion and facilitate constructive dialogue so Chuck carefully crafts the presentation using the 'standard' template. Chuck has a nice display of the signed charter, lifecycle, and the estimated timeline, budget, and resources.

   He proudly shares the presentation with his sr. manager, George Custer, because he runs the leadership council and he doesn't like surprises. George Custer calls Chuck to his desk. George is very tired of his team submitting leadership presentations that make it difficult to grasp the purpose. Chuck is to use a new report named BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) that will give leadership what they need. Chuck is to remove all the other slides as they are not needed.

   Chuck takes this opportunity to discuss Ean and Steph's dual project that must be addressed. George is not surprised and together they create a response to Ean’s claim on the dashboard that will be discussed in the leadership council.

   Chuck created the BLUF presentation, but instead of deleting the slides as requested he hid them in case he needed to discuss specifics. Chuck presents the plan for execution of the project to the leadership council. It was a rough meeting. The director, who is new to the organization, asked some great questions about the new agile process and the timeline. To respond to her questions, Chuck shared the hidden slides he created earlier. 

    Chuck takes this opportunity to ask Ean if he has any issues with Business Operations owning the dashboard and digitizing. Ean launches into a tirade of accusations about business operations taking over engineering projects that do not belong to them. He states that Chuck's BLUF presentation was unclear and that Chuck is not the best PM for this project. Ean insists engineering take over this dashboard immediately. He states his team has been working on this project for months and are well prepared.

   George is prepared for Ean’s issue and mentions Chuck’s unique agile skills and that the scope of the project is to digitize not ownership. He proposes the dashboard be digitized as planned and the leadership council discuss ownership in three months’ time. Leadership agrees.

   Izzy, the IT manager, informs the council that this project would have to wait at least three years before it can be executed. The very tight IT resources are assigned to other projects that are a higher priority. Chuck and George were unprepared to address the IT resources issues.

   Debbie, the director, asks George Custer if he agrees with Izzy. Knowing Debbie's one rule is "be nice and play nice or get a job elsewhere", George acknowledges that Izzy's resources are allotted to higher priority projects. The project estimated timeline of two months is moved out to three years in the future. 

   Chuck meets with George after the leadership meeting. George is very unhappy because his career goals were to have this project digitized within three months’ time. George makes it clear that Chuck did not prepare him for Izzy’s resource issues, and he has impacted his promotion.

   Chuck responds that leadership approved of the slide of three years to the right is change management and should not be considered a failure. George is unconsolable because he does not have a “win” on his record that would support his promotion. Because Chuck will retire in two years, he will not be able to complete this project. 

Exit the Game – Chuck did not win today.

   Well darn! You cannot win them all!

   To be honest this option should have worked if the stakeholders were working for the good of the organization. 

   A wise man once said if everything was fine, they would not need a PM. 

   Thanks for playing the game.

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