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From the previous question I've gone and decided to:

  1. Talk to the CEO about the situation
  2. If the Response is not something that's right for me just get out of here

So:

Had a chat with the CEO , and I'm dead sure of what's happening now. My manager is telling the CEO me and him are working on things but he's leaving everything to me, He's also telling the CEO bull about what's happening with the app, that we're so close like a week away the whole time, and then he takes away resources from me and blames me for delays.

The CEO just told the Manager to buy me a new laptop if that's what it takes and the guy just sat down doing nothing. It seems as if I'm getting pushed out, for someone else's mistakes. He's been here 10 years I've been there for 4 months.

What I'm thinking is, I'm going to do my best to finish this app, not on their deadlines, I'll show them what I have. When they try to push up deadlines and if they're not happy I'm going to just continue, as this is a learning experience for me, but I'm also going to be applying for new positions. If I have a Manager after me for some reason I don't think that's a fight I'm going to win.

What is it I am to do in the meantime in regards to the manager? Do I attempt to communicate or do I just keep things as are until I can move on?

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One defence against moving deadlines is documentation. This means communicating in writing, via email. If you have a face-to-face conversation with your manager, write down what was said and send him an email. This way all decisions are documented and traceable.

When the deadline moves, this is my SOP:

  1. Why has the deadline moved?
  2. What are we cutting from the scope to make the new deadline?

Both of these are important but we're focusing on (2). Now, all advice so far applies to deadlines as well as resources. If a resource is removed from your project, send your manager an email like this:

To: Manager
CC: CEO

Since [the deadline has changed / resources have been removed] our previous estimate is invalid. We will need another estimation with current resources, and we need to agree on which features to cut to make the delivery date. There is no way to deliver the original scope with less time and fewer resources. Which tasks should I focus on?

In essence, you're playing defence by making project progress visible to the CEO. There's nowhere to hide from there.

While you're at it, you can also try this:

To: Manager, CEO

Hello, I was told by CEO that I'm getting a new laptop! Do we know when it's getting delivered? Thank you

Continue all conversation in email and update it with any in-person conversations. Never blame someone in an email. Stay factual. If someone does X which impacts you, the email should never say You did X and you're stupid. Rather, it should say Due to X we cannot deliver Foo by Date. Can we have a meeting to discuss this?

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  • The issue is hes, Desk is right in front of me so it make's it difficult to communicate over email as that seem's strange as we are basically right next to each other, I Do think its great advice tho, I do believe however that I will communicate all Deadline related Queries via Mails as to have documentation as you mentioned thanks for that.
    – Azurry
    Jan 14 '20 at 11:56
  • @Azurry I sit right next to my boss, if important words need to be had, we do email each other. If it's a passing comment, we talk to each other. There's a time and place when to use email and when not to. Distance doesn't matter if you need it written down somewhere. If you still have issues with that, make sure when you get the new update of the time schedule, write it down with the time and date, so you keep your own log of what happened. Though issue is that they can say they never said that, hence why email is the preferred route
    – Draken
    Jan 14 '20 at 11:58
  • +1 about the laptop. Maybe you should consider adding to the message, "would it be OK if I purchased one myself and asked the company to reimburse me?" In small companies there's no magic about buying stuff: somebody has to do it.
    – O. Jones
    Jan 14 '20 at 14:29

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