At small companies (or larger mismanaged ones), project management can be haphazard. The start of a typical project is "Drop what you're doing and work on this project we committed to deliver in two weeks." Look around the internet and you'll find variations on the lifecycle of a typical project:
- Enthusiasm
- Disillusionment
- Panic
- Search for the guilty
- Punishment of the innnocent
- Praise for the non-participants
If projects at your company look like this, I'm sorry. These are terrible places to work. It's demoralizing to be without leadership and it's a waste of everyone's time and energy. If you haven't already, you'll become cynical about the company and its products or services. If you've pointed out to your boss that a project needs to be better managed and nothing has changed, you have two options: become the project manager or get the hell out.
