Is it wrong to be honest to the manager about a messed-up project?

Question

Recently, I was shifted from one project to another. The project was developed by a small team of a small company, who could not continue the project because of resource crunch, and hence the project was sold to our company. I had no experience or knowledge on this new skill. However, I took 2-3 days to get a brief idea about it, and joined the new team.

When I asked other team members about the flow of the project, I found out that nobody knew anything about the project, despite working on it for over 22 days prior to me. As some of the members mentioned, the only thing they ever did was uncomment some code, that too the ones which were told by the client himself (apparently, the client has some knowledge about the coding skill used). According to the team, the project only dragged on for so long was because of a single person in the team (not the team lead), who knew how to convince the client to retain the project.

So, I was completely blank, because neither had I learned anything about the new skill, nor did anyone in the team know anything about it. Upon further investigation, I found out that the team lead who was assigned to get the knowledge of the project did not do his work. When the other dev team asked whether any documentation (or KT) of the project was required, the team lead denied. Now, no one has a clue on anything going on in the project for 20+ days.

Also, the team lead has a bad habit of unloading all the blame game to the team members when the manager questions. So, before that happened, and since I was new and the manager had high hopes from me, I honestly told him about the project and the problems faced by the team, without the team lead's knowledge. The manager has asked for documentation from the previous development team, and hopes that everything will go well from now on.

However, I am afraid about the team lead's bad habit of putting the blame game, and that he would find my smallest mistakes and report it to the manager.

Did I do the right thing? Or should I apologize to the team lead?

Answer 1

Did I do the right thing

There is nothing ethically wrong with your actions, but you potentially made an enemy who is higher up the hierarchy than you. Only time will tell if this works against you.

should I apologize to the team lead?

No, what's done is done, you need to stand by your actions now, and you have nothing to apologise for. An apology achieves nothing except confirming what you did. You may not be the only one who said something.

Generally you do not get into potential conflicts unless you have a clear goal in mind that benefits you. It's not your company or project. In this particular case I don't know all the details but would probably have referred the manager to the team lead.

Answer 2

I would like to to reiterate that what you did is completely right.

However, whether the outcome of your honesty will be beneficial to you or not is unclear. It is unfortunately out of your control, since it will depend a lot on the reactions of your manager, team lead and the approach they are going to take to solve the situation of the messed up project.

So, if you are only looking for justification for your honesty, you are right. Every good manager would appreciate this even if you might be wrong. In your case it seems rather unclear how this situation is going to play out.

Answer 3

Your role on this project is not clear from your question. You were asked to give a report to your manager, bypassing the team lead. Is that because you are senior to the team lead, or just because the manager thought he'd (finally) get an honest answer from someone who is not invested in the status quo? Often, managers already know what's going on, but they want to know who else is honest enough to tell them (and provide a different viewpoint at times)

In either case, you did nothing wrong; you were asked a question by a superior, and you answered it. If you are a junior on the team, make sure that you are able to back up all your assertions - you may be asked to defend them at some point. If you are in a lead role, then you need to follow up your report to the manager with a strong list of recommendations which will either bring the project back on track, or which will kill the project before more money is spent on it. Bring solutions, not problems.

Whatever the case may be, there is no reason for you to give an apology. The people on the project are the ones who more need to apologize, for wasting time and money.

Answer 4

Your manager asked you a question and you gave the response which you thought best describes the situation. If this is indeed how you feel, then there is nothing wrong with what you did. Whether your understanding of the root cause (your team lead) is right or not, will be seen later but you did what you were asked to do and hopefully it was your genuine understanding.

Answer 5

I also think that there is nothing wrong with what you did. You were asked - you gave the response. I think I'd have done the same.

Answer 6

Did I do the right thing

It's not clear what exactly you have said to your manager, and whether it was right or not depends on what you have said exactly.

I think you should not have blamed specific people (such as team leader), and you should not say something along the lines that "the project is a mess" etc. After all, you don't know all the story, maybe the team lead spent those 20 days sorting out some debts from their past project or whatever, or maybe they are having a similar communication problems with someone else. So there may be perfectly valid reasons for them not having studied the code.

You should have stuck to the facts and to specific problems you are facing, and provide suggestions and solutions to them. E.g. you should say "I was assigned tasks A and B, but for this I need documentation for C and D. I've asked the team lead for this, but he does not have the documentation either. Should I ask somebody else, or should I spend X days working out everything by myself?"

If the manager asks you to evaluate the project state, you may say something like "Apparently, very little has been done. I've asked the team lead to give me basic introduction to the code, but he would not do it. I also see that the project repository has only two new commits in past three weeks". Support every evidence with facts (e.g. don't say "no code has been touched", say "only two commits in past three weeks in the repository").

should I apologize to the team lead ?

No, you should not in any case. If you have based your speech on the facts, then there is nothing to apologize for as long as the facts are valid. If you did not follow facts, then think for yourself whether you can backup your speech with the facts and be ready to provide them should you be asked (by the team lead or by the manager). Be ready to stand your ground; if the team lead comes blaming you for your speech, tell him the facts and explain that these facts slowdown your work and you manager should be aware of them.

If anything, you may owe a apology/correction to your manager. If on your second thought you realize that you have painted the project too black, or that you were too heated and overblamed the team lead or whoever, you may come to your manager and provide them with update. Maybe this would not warrant a special meeting with your manager, but you may mention it on a regular meeting with the manager or in informal talk if you have such, etc.