Dealing with PMs

nel

For those of you who work on large projects and deal with PMs, what key advice would you give to anyone who has to work with them?

One of our current projects has a ton of PMs. The PMs have been changed a few times which has never helped our cause. The majority have conflicts on a personal and working level between each other and tend to provide different streams of direction and information that causes a clash. Sometimes they appear to be tearing the project apart and creating lots of problems, something that is not good from the clients point of view.

How do you guys handle with such situations?

KenC

Number one piece of advice I would give to you is get it in writing - always.
Try and hope you can find a good PM among them and interface with that one as much as you can. When you come across a good PM, you'll know it.
Let them fight it out among themselves, steer well clear of that stuff (although it will filter down and affect you in some ways). Though I have to say I've never been in a project with a "ton of PMs", there is usually one with ultimate responsibility. The scenario you describe sounds like a recipe for failure.
Tech people really appreciate an effective PM.

SteveO86

Take notes in every meeting. Stay on top of your piece of the project, I've worked with a few PMs and they are great and easy to get along with, but the second you start slacking off or miss a deadline all bets are off.

nel

yeah, there are several PMs on the project! 5 from our company excluding 3rd parties and the customer.

From an early stage i decided to stay out of the politics. However, that has also worked against me because it comes across as if i have no interest. As a result, many of the leads bypass me and go to colleagues whilst i also get left out of many meetings and new requirements but i always deliver on my deliverable which has showed my value.

jibbajabba

I used to try to fix 'politics' when PMs were messy. Nowadays though I stay out of it. I say to myself 'not getting paid for it' so if someone tries to involve me I usually say 'Sorry, I am just the guy who screws things together'.

If their mentality affects my work then I usually send my manager onto the battlefield.

This is usually the only way to get people to note the work (or lack of) of the PMs.

Our PM is good though. So good that I usually only really just get the projects itself and their deadlines so I can just plow on.