ANALYZER

I work with a woman named Mandy, and she’s great! I’m a project manager at a small website development company and Mandy works with me to set the budget and make sure we don’t go over. She has to sign off on purchase orders, payment approvals, etc. I really like working with her — she’s funny and reliable and really good at her job. Her projects never go over budget, and management loves that.

What’s the problem, then? Mandy tries to force her predictable model on an unpredictable workflow. If we have a $10 increase in the cost of a widget that we need to make a doohickey, she will not sign off on anything until she’s found a way to save that $10 somewhere else. This can take hours.

Often, this isn’t much of an issue, because the widget person has 20 other widgets they’re working on, so it’s easy to switch focus. But sometimes, the entire project is stalled while we wait (which impacts negatively on my performance reviews).

I admit I’m more of an “approve now, figure out the budget later” kind of person (which is why I don’t have or want Mandy’s job!), but I would like to find some ways to get Mandy to keep things in perspective. Sometimes we need to move fast!

Do you have any suggestions on how to gently (or not so gently) remind Mandy that sometimes her time is costing us money?

Penny wise, pound foolish

Dear Penny,

Analyzers are great, aren’t they? They keep you on track and notice things you might overlook. As you said yourself, you wouldn’t want to do Mandy’s job. But, yes, sometimes Analyzers can get a little bogged down in the details. Here are a few suggestions:

• Try to establish a dollar amount under which you are allowed to proceed, and Mandy can re-do the budget over the next day or so (setting this up might require a meeting with management).
• Let her know the hourly cost in wages of employees sitting idle while budget decisions are being made. Being an Analyzer, Mandy really wants to create and follow effective systems, so sharing this information and asking for her ideas about ways to avoid expensive idle employee time might produce a change in her behavior. Or she might provide a good solution you hadn’t thought of. 
• Think about the impact of changing Mandy’s work habits. What if you get toward the end of your project and you’ve gone over budget because Mandy didn’t have time to rework the numbers? Would you have to abandon some features? What would be the losses associated with that?
• If Mandy works with other project managers, find out if they have also been affected by this. Maybe they have discovered a solution. If they don’t see this as an issue, try to discover why. 
• Finally, be realistic about how much Mandy’s actions are affecting projects. Are you missing deadlines or are you just chafing because you want to get moving on things? If you are missing deadlines, calculate that cost. This could include lost sales, penalties, or damage to your company’s reputation. If it’s just that she’s slowing you down, it might be better to find ways to stay busy with something else while she does her reconfiguring. 

Hope this helps!

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