Project Death Spiral: Autopsy

PMv1 is back from holiday today and has begun running through what Sluggo has left behind for him. The meetings begin, and bizarrely he stays in a great mood through all of them as he begins giving his version of the Death Spiral story. Perhaps he's cheerful because he's now found the ultimate scapegoat in Sluggo, someone no-one across the organisation was happy with.

(Scapegoating is a reprehensible practice, to be sure, but in this case I really only find it objectionable in principle).

From the Project Office history of events:

• Sluggo was regularly told to do one thing, before running off and trying to do the exact opposite;
• Sluggo (apparently) was trying to set me up as his scapegoat to get around having to produce any project deliverable of his own. Nice to know I wasn't the only one who saw that one coming a mile off;
• we humble Shed-dwellers hadn't seen Sluggo's revised project management plan for the simple reason that he'd been told a month ago that the one he'd produced was rubbish, and to do it again - properly! (There's those famous Project Office people skills again);
• Sluggo had been told explicitly what he was supposed to be doing ... but kept shooting off in other directions that usually led to the things we were doing being derailed in favour of what he felt was a priority at that moment (traditionally, Sluggo would then come back a day later and want to put things back the way they'd been);
• things Sluggo was declaring out of scope were, in fact, still very much in scope, always had been, and always would be;
• Sluggo is the new Root Of All Evil on Project Death Spiral.

For Sluggo's sake, I hope he never has to rely on a reference from here to get another job, because he'll be lucky if prospective employers don't tar and feather him, and then set him alight before pushing him into the street.

On the other hand, that could be kind of funny...