Archetype Hero ·
Homo Sapiens PM Obfuscatus
Turns uncertainty into commitments made by other people.
Corp Role profile
SCHTICK Score™
Seven traits, rated from 1 (low) to 10 (high). These describe a fictional archetype; a higher score is not always better.
How the SCHTICK Score™ works ↗
- Sycophancy
- UnratedHigh: Tells power exactly what it wants to hear.Low: Rarely flatters or agrees merely to please people in power.
- Confidence
- UnratedHigh: Projects certainty, regardless of evidence.Low: Shows little certainty and hesitates to assert a position, even when well informed.
- Honesty
- UnratedHigh: Tells the truth, even when inconvenient.Low: Withholds, distorts or avoids the truth when it is inconvenient.
- Tenacity
- UnratedHigh: Persists through resistance and setbacks.Low: Gives up or changes direction quickly when resistance or setbacks appear.
- Influence
- UnratedHigh: Uses charisma and persuasion to win people over and shape decisions, priorities and actions.Low: Has little sway over decisions or other people’s actions; struggles to win support.
- Capability
- UnratedHigh: Has the skills and judgement to deliver results.Low: Lacks the skills or judgement to deliver reliably and needs substantial help.
- Killer Instinct
- UnratedHigh: Seizes opportunities and outmanoeuvres rivals.Low: Rarely presses an advantage or pursues opportunities at a rival’s expense.
Why this one bites
Obfuscatus inhabits the space between what leadership promised and what engineering can deliver. Keeps that space densely populated with meetings. Believes every problem has a solution involving an ETA, stakeholder alignment and someone else doing the work.
This fictional Archetype Hero draws on RBM’s PM obfuscation phrases, Moonbraker and The Absence of Evidence Dashboard: the timeline belongs to management, while the work and its consequences travel to engineering.
Famous for:
- Asking for estimates before requirements, then treating the estimates as promises.
- Achieving alignment by making the wording broad enough for everyone to agree with something different.
- Being accountable for the project while engineering remains responsible for everything that happens to it.
- Keeping the dashboard green by moving the explanation into the footnotes.
Favourite quotes:
- I’m not asking you to commit. I just need a date I can communicate.
- Can we reduce the estimate without changing the scope?
- We’ve aligned on the outcome. The contradictions are implementation details.
- The dashboard is green. Let’s take the actual situation offline.
Memorable moments:
- Secured unanimous approval for a project that every stakeholder understood differently.
- Scheduled daily productivity meetings to investigate why engineering had no time to work.
- Reported a disaster-prevention success rate without establishing what constituted a disaster.
- Asked for an ETA on the space programme before asking whether the company owned a rocket.
Reality Byte:
- Owns the timeline. You own the time.
Accessible summary
- A smiling PM wears a white shirt, black tie, dark trousers, sunglasses and a headset.
- One hand makes a reassuring gesture while the other holds a green dashboard tablet with smoke rising behind it.