How to survive a completely mismanaged project with terrible leadership
Incompetent leadership and forced, useless processes trap teams in a cycle of endless daily meetings and broken workarounds like manual file editing. This administrative overhead prevents actual work from getting done and leaves employees feeling helpless with no authorization to fix the underlying chaos.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- This comes up 181.0× more often in r/projectmanagement than across the site as a whole.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Manually editing files before environment deploymentDid this help you?
- 2Documenting processes and risksDid this help you?
- 3Escalating issues through risk and issue logsDid this help you?
- 4holding separate meetings after the official project manager meetings to actually get work doneDid this help you?
- 5consultants and developers bypassing the project management layer to coordinate directlyDid this help you?
- 6Asking detailed questions about existing accounting processes and audit history before acceptingDid this help you?
- 7Passing on the offer to avoid potential operational chaosDid this help you?
- 8Evaluating whether mature accounting practices and good net assets reserves are already in placeDid this help you?
- 9trying to go with the flow and not getting overly investedDid this help you?
- 10protecting your own sanity and letting them run in circles instead of pushing backDid this help you?
- 11Establishing a formal social media policy that dictates approval workflowsDid this help you?
- 12Removing access or framing coordination as a strategy to maximize visibilityDid this help you?
- 13Looking for new employmentDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I'm currently dealing with a shit show of a project and I learned these teams have bashed heads for a while now.”source ↗
“our qa test isn't actually testing what it should because we're manually editing files before each environment deployment.”source ↗
“Every person, manager, and department basically does things their own way, and the strongest voice moves the tide in that wave pool.”source ↗
“There is overlap in efforts and function, things are launched without review from others, decisions are changed between people without looping in others.”source ↗
“It is a nightmare we are not authorized to wake from or improve.”source ↗
“The overlap in work is the part that would drive me mad, you got people burning hours on same thing because nobody loops each other in”source ↗
“To get shit done, we now have meetings after their meetings, with only the 2 operative employees, the 2 consultants and the developer and thats working perfect.”source ↗
“My colleague is already overworked and like many of us, hates that we know have 80% useless PM meetings daily and cant get shit done.”source ↗
“my Problem is, that i feel like most PMs dont know what they are doing, thinking they know it, or thinking way too much of themselves.”source ↗
“Our ED sporadically makes posts on our social media page without consulting me.”source ↗
“He'll sometimes not even include copy, if he does, it's like one word with 100 exclamation points.”source ↗
“He also cancels our fundraising meetings, doesn't call donors, then I'm told by board members that I need to fundraise more.”source ↗
“Yes, I'm looking for new employment.”source ↗
“many nonprofits lean into the mission and aren’t as finance oriented, so it can be very operationally messy and the technical knowledge base isn’t there.”source ↗
“man that's a tough call. the mission pulling at your heartstrings while your brain is doing the math on work life balance going out the window”source ↗
“it can get incredibly messy very fast if there isn’t good processes in place for grant reporting and expense allocations.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 13How to deal with toxic leadership during company layoffs
- 15How to deal with a manager who is confidently wrong
- 5Why do administrators reward misbehaving students?
- 5How do I deal with non-technical managers and constant interruptions?
- 5Why does IT make work harder instead of helping?
- 2Why is my entire day eaten up by meetings and micromanagement?