Posts Tagged ‘Project’

Over the years I have participated in a number of discussions (debates really) about whether or not project managers are decision makers. The opinions seem to be pretty polarized. The camp that says "NO" argues that the executives in the organization make the strategic decisions and project managers execute those decisions. In most organizations this is probably true.

Those that argue "YES" (and I find myself in this camp), argue that depending on the size and dynamic of the organization many project managers are a part of the strategic discussion. They might not make "the" decision, but they are part of the process. What’s more, project leaders make all kinds of decisions every day. With that in mind, I think it’s important for project leaders to build some sound decision-making practices. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert once said, "Informed decision-making comes from a long tradition of guessing and then blaming others for inadequate results."

Adams might be describing many organizations, but it doesn’t have to describe yours or how you interact with the decision-making process. Most companies don’t foster good decision-making practices—handicapping project leaders, project teams and their organizations. The answers to the following three questions will help your organization foster a workable decision-making process:

1. Who? Prior to the beginning of any project, determining who has decision-making power is the first step. Of course on most projects, there will likely be several decision makers.
2. What? Different members of the team will probably have different decision-making responsibilities based upon their role. Identifying the scope of everyone’s responsibility regarding the type of decisions they can and can’t make avoids confusion and makes it possible to streamline the process. Nobody wants to "Mother, may I?" every move they make, nor should the project leader or stakeholders be expected to make every decision.
3. How? Identifying how decisions are made and how they are shared with project team members is almost as important as the decision itself.

Regardless of you work management practices or project management tools, making project decisions is part of a project leader’s job. What’s more, it’s been said that in-decision becomes decision with time.

The Chinese philosopher Confucius suggested, "By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is the noblest, Second: by imitation, which is the easiest; and Third, by experience which is the bitterest."

I don’t think there’s anyone who has to make decisions on a regular basis who wouldn’t agree with Mr. Confucius. What do you do within your organization or project team to foster good decision-making practices?

Strategic Project Management

Before I started my ride on Saturday, I washed and polished  my bike and prepared for a few hours in the saddle. Taking time to clean the motorcycle gives me an opportunity to inspect it and make sure that there are no glaring issues in need of attention. One of the things I like to keep a pretty close eye on are my tires. Tire condition is a pretty important indicator of the safety of your next ride. I can think of few things worse than a blow-out at 70 mph going around a corner on the highway. After Saturday morning’s inspection, it looks like I’ll be setting up an appointment for a new rear tire this week.

As project leaders, there are also subtle indicators that can give a savvy project manager an idea of how the team is performing—before a blow-out. Last spring I wrote about some of the early warning signs of a project in trouble, the equivalent of checking the tires and inspecting the bike before a ride. Although I think this list applies to almost every project, I’m sure there are some warning signs that are unique to your team. As a project leader, you should identify what they are and regularly monitor them to make sure that everyone is operating at peak performance.

Please feel to share some of the early warning signs you watch out for.

Strategic Project Management

If you have read my blog for any length of time, you know that I work with a team of mostly young people. Except for the fact that I am a 50-something guy who rides a Harley rather than a 20-something guy that rides a bullet bike, I don’t think there’s a real generation gap among my colleagues. Of course there are some age-related differences, but for the most part they are minor things less associated with work and more related to fashion and other personal preferences.

On those rare occasions when my older colleagues and I talk about the younger people on the team, we talk about how their passion and energy is contagious. In fact, I think we universally agree that our younger colleagues keep us on top of our game (hopefully that doesn’t come across as condescending, it isn’t meant to be). The luxury of sitting back and resting on our laurels just isn’t an option.

In an article written for LSJ.com, Doug Stites writes, "Young, talented workers have fresh points of view and learn about progressive ways to make business better. They can offer newer and more innovative business practices, agenda-setting theories, issue attention cycles, crisis management and the top social media tactics needed to market your company."

I have to agree with Mr. Stites. Over the last five or six years, I’ve noticed that young people entering the workforce are more empowered and technologically savvy than any other generation that I’m aware of. Something else Stites suggests also resonates with me, "Also, learn about their work styles. Younger generations are focused on quicker, more efficient ways of completing tasks. This translates into the workplace in positive ways."

On numerous occasions I have literally been blow away by what the members of my team are able to accomplish when given the opportunity to contribute at a higher level. There’s a lot we can learn from our younger colleagues and as Stites suggests, we should "[g]ive these young workers the credit they deserve for handling substantial responsibilities."

Is there a generation gap within your project team? If not, congratulations. If there is, you may want to rethink the way you interact with the team. Part of being a project leader is to help and mentor younger workers. According to Mr. Stites, "Companies should be flexible in accommodating young talent. Having an open mind to new and progressive ideas will encourage the growth of younger and older employees."

Strategic Project Management

Failure is not uncommon. According to growthink.com, here are 10 Famous Failures that you might remember (if you visit the above link, you can actually see the commercials for these products):

10. Sony Betamax: It may have been higher quality, but the lower price of VHS-C camcorders and the 40+ companies that decided to run with VHS was just too much.

9. New Coke: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. There was nothing wrong with old Coke.

8. Polaroid Instant Home Movies: A reputation for standing around shaking a photo that may or may not have come our right was probably too big a hurdle to overcome for the instant film manufacturer.

7. Crystal Pepsi: See #9 (New Coke)

6. McDonalds Arch Deluxe Burger: Most adults don’t consider McDonalds fine cuisine, and weren’t interested in paying significantly more for only slightly different burgers.

5. Apple Lisa: Apple was targeting business consumers, and the lower price tag of IBM PCs just didn’t allow Apple to capture much market-share.

4. Levi Type 1 Jeans: Fashion is fickle.

3. IBM PCjr: When it was introduced, it was twice as expensive as an Atari or Commodore.

2. The DeLorean DMC-12: Despite the fact that it was a very cool car, DeLorean himself took the company under after he was arrested for drug-trafficking which resulted in bankruptcy.

1. The Ford Edsel: There were many reasons why the Edsel failed. The name for one. The Edsel story is now a real-world example of how not to market a product.

Although the above examples are all products that failed, it got me thinking about the number of project failures that happen every year. Fortunately, when projects are in trouble, there are early warning signs (if you’re watching). The earliest signs might be hard to measure, but easy to recognize if you’re paying attention:

1. Lack of Interest: Whether it’s a lack of interest within the project team or among the project stakeholders, it’s often demonstrated by people not showing up for meetings, a lack of active participation and feedback, or a poorly organized user base. This is an early warning sign of a project in trouble.
2. Poor Communication: If nobody is communicating, including stakeholders, team members and end users, there could be a problem.
3. Lack of Velocity: Projects should always be moving forward. The best way to keep a good velocity is to divide your project into small deliverables at frequent intervals. If the project isn’t moving forward, it’s likely in trouble.
4. A "No-Bad-News" Environment: Nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news, but sometimes organizations need to face the reality of negative news. This includes project team members who don’t want to be the messenger and business leaders who tend to shoot the messenger. If there isn’t an environment where the communication is honest about "reality", projects tend to fail.

You don’t need to depend on some of the intangible signs that a project is in trouble, there are also a number of easily measurable signs as well:

1. Lots of Overtime: A project running on schedule should have little or no overtime. Overtime is often a quick fix, but leads to poor employee health resulting from too much caffeine, too many late nights and too much junk food. (It also leads to mistakes.)
2. Diversion of Resources: When people are pulled from one project to work on something else, it could be a sign of trouble. If you’ve budgeted your people properly, a few hours here and there on a troubled project can quickly add up and cascade down, endangering healthy projects.
3. Ratios Trouble: Cost ratios and schedule ratios are financial metrics that allow business leaders to measure budgeted time and money verses money and time actually spent. Without metrics, all you have to rely on is the accuracy of communication you receive from project teams.
4. Milestones Aren’t Met: This is pretty obvious, but it is surprising how many times this warning sign is ignored. Small, discrete and often, are the guidelines for the milestones of a successful project.
5. Scope Changes: A common approach to shoring up a lagging project is to change the scope. Eliminating features or relaxing requirements is not uncommon, but if project teams are doing it because the project is struggling, it’s a huge warning sign of danger ahead.

Of course, warning signs are not the work management harbinger of doom, they are just warning signs that a project might be in trouble. Depending on how your organization handles project-based work, the right project management tools can help identify potential problems early, when there’s still time to do something about them.
Strategic Project Management

I am really enjoying the Gartner PPM Summit in San Diego this week. I feel like the metaphorical kid in a thought-leadership candy store.

Yesterday afternoon Gartner Analyst Carol Rozwell led a very interesting panel discussion titled Social Media Meets Project Management, featuring David Held from Yum!, Brands and Michael Stratten from Boeing. Both organizations have introduced aspects of social media into their project process with what they describe as positive results.

I am a big fan of making project management more social and collaborative, so the title of the session captured my interest. Although I have long felt that there is a place for something Twitter-like to help the Facebook Generation manage work, Michael Stratten suggested that it isn’t just the Millennial Generation that has taken advantage of the tools at Boeing. "It’s about your mindset, not your age," he says.

Both Boeing and Yum! Brands suggested that leveraging social media tools has allowed them to capture the intellectual property learned by experienced members of their project teams and made it easier to share. By using social tools to spread PPM methodology throughout the organization they were able to share that "tribal PPM knowledge" more effectively in a very organic-feeling approach.

According to Stratten, they are using an internally developed tool to manage social communication, while Held says they are using Jive to socially collaborate. Both suggest that this method for sharing knowledge has been very effective and that the conversations and comments have been very useful, in Boeing’s case for about 45,000 of its employees.

Held suggests that this social approach fosters an atmosphere of openness, which I think is critical to engaging employees in what they’re doing. Although both Boeing and Yum! are not using social tools to collect status information, I don’t think it’s a big leap to do so. What’s more, I believe the natural way a social approach can collect contextual information regarding status can prove to be invaluable for informing decisions and promoting transparency within an organization.

Twitter-like conversations that are centered around the work undertaken by project teams give project leaders and executives valuable insight into what’s going on in their organizations—where the rubber hits the road. Project leaders have a more complete story to share with project stakeholders and the executive team, while executives and other decision-makers have the real story—a more complete story—than a reliance on simple color-coded status indicators.

When they were asked about whether or not things sometimes get out of control with an open social environment, both Held and Stratten suggest that the approach is self-policing. When using email to collaborate, you need to be invited to the conversation—social tools imply that everyone can join the conversation, which keeps everyone honest (those last few words are mine, not theirs). What’s more, if you need help, a Facebook-like plea is more likely to elicit a helpful response than an email that may or may not reach the right person who can offer the needed assistance.

I don’t think we’re there yet, but for those of us who believe in democratizing the work management process (which certainly includes projects), we really need to adopt a more "social" approach to communication and collaboration. It just makes sense to serve up an easily recognizable metaphor to facilitate collaboration. Which, by the way, has proven to be very effective for millions of Facebook and Twitter users who spend their days collaborating and updating personal status.

If you’ve had success implementing social media-like approaches within your project environments, please share with us what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.
Strategic Project Management

The Keynote presentation I attended this morning at the Gartner PPM Summit with futurist Anne Skare Nielsen was very inspiring. Nielsen’s presentation,"The Era of Constructive Visions Has Begun—Are You Coming?" was spot on. Her message really resonated with me, she talked about how success in the future is not about "more" but is about "better." She describes a shift in paradigm from "human doings" to "human beings." I think this really applies to how we should be thinking as project leaders.

Not unlike some of the opinions we share in this forum she suggests that people aren’t motivated as much by money or other external rewards but are really motivated by challenging and interesting projects. I have found this to be true throughout my career. The members of our project teams really desire to contribute to something greater than themselves—our job is to facilitate the kind of environment where they can.

To do that, we need to worry less about doing more and more. We need to focus on doing better. On creating more value for our customers and more value for our organizations. The last few years have conditioned many business leaders to expect more and more out of their people. Unfortunately, this has created an environment that stifles creativity and makes it difficult for team members to creatively solve problems, and ultimately handicaps their ability to help organizations succeed.

As we lead project teams, we need to make a shift toward a more people-centric approach that shuns excessive process for the sake of process and a command-and-control management model that just doesn’t work. We must give team members the opportunity to contribute at a higher level and maximize their contribution to the organization.

Will making this change be easy? Probably not. But the alternative is irrelevance or worse. Nielsen’s background is biology and she asserts, "There are only two organisms that don’t evolve and change, bacteria and cancer cells."

What are you doing to avoid being either?
Strategic Project Management

I’m not a big fan of flying.

It’s not that I’m claustrophobic or afraid the plane will crash into the ocean, but the romance of air travel has disappeared for me and it somehow feels like I’m sitting in a big bus with way too much time to think (Will the plan actually make it across the ocean? Will the landing gear work properly as we touch down? You know, all the normal stuff you think about whenever you get into an airplane). As I write this, I’m headed to the Gartner Summit in London to make a presentation, so I have a lot of time to to think about that too.

I do admit to a fear of loosing my luggage, which has forced me to pack light enough that a week’s worth of necessities could fit snugly into my carry-on and briefcase. I’m not what you would call a seasoned traveler, but I have been doing it enough lately that I’ve pretty much figured out how to toss what I don’t need and condense everything else down to the bare essentials. I’ll also admit that as I was packing on Friday night, my wife was pretty impressed that I was able to pull it off—she is NOT a light packer.

As I was getting ready to throw everything into my two small bags, I had to be very thoughtful about what got left behind and what got included. Usually by this time (several hours into my flight), I’ve remembered something I’d forgotten and am metaphorically kicking myself. However this time, I can’t think of anything I’ve forgotten, and am confident that I have everything I need.

I think it’s because I was trying to streamline the process of going through the airport, eliminate the requirements to check a bag and mitigate the risk of loosing the suit I need to wear for my presentation this week. The simplicity of my luggage choice doesn’t make the packing process any less important—in fact, in some ways it’s forced me to be more thoughtful. I think it represents an even better packing plan.

I’m not a big "P" process guy. I am a fan of the simplest plan possible to achieve the desired outcome—which is why I like my "Streamlined Carry-On Plan." I don’t think anyone in the airport payed too much attention to the "Streamlined Carry-On Plan," because it’s nothing new. It just makes sense to me and about a million other travelers I run into whenever I fly.

With that in mind, I have to ask, "Why then, do so many of us try to over-complicate the plans associated with our projects by insisting on carrying too much process baggage?"

A good friend and analyst, Donna Fitzgerald (@nimblepm) once told me, "Project managers used to be a lot more results focused. I’m afraid we’ve let our focus on method and process actually make us less effective than we used to be."

When my focus became streamlining my luggage requirements, I became better at ensuring the results I was looking for (a quick trip through the airport and no anxiety about losing any luggage). I wonder how many of the requirements we build into project plans are really necessary? Could we improve the outcome of our projects by focusing less on superfluous requirements and more on creating the simplest plan possible that would allow us to achieve the results we want? Einstein said, "Any idiot can make things more complicated, it takes real genius to make things simple."

For example, I know that there are some projects that require more governance than others. Does that mean that everything we do requires the same level of project heartburn? Donna also suggested, "We have entered a world of much more global competition and over the next five years, things are going to get lean and mean as a general practice. The good news is if you’re agile, if you’re collaborative, if you now how to get to value, you are going to excel."

Her words strike a cord with me me. Unfortunately, there’s still that nagging question about the plan crashing into the ocean.

Strategic Project Management

I recently read an article by Rasha Mourtada titled Bosses Fan the Flames of Burnout. In discussing the real cost of employee burnout Mourtada suggests, "It is estimated to cost 0-billion in lost productivity in the U.S., causing financial damage through high turnover, reduced productivity and absenteeism, as well as hurting employee engagement and morale." Wow… that’s 0 billion with a "B". No matter how you slice it, that’s a lot of money.

You might be asking yourself, why am I writing about this, overworked and even "burnt-out" employees are something we all have to deal with from time to time, don’t we?

We’ve been talking a lot lately about empowering team members to be a bigger part of the process, I believe that when people are engaged and take ownership of what they’re doing, among other things, burnout becomes less of a problem for organizations. And, I’m not alone. Ellie Maggio, managing director of Emend Management Consultants feels the same way. As cited by Mourtada in his article, "The number one issue for executives is that they have to have more trust in the people they work with," says Ms. Maggio, explaining that less micro-managing gives the executive more time, but also gives employees a greater sense of ownership over their work, which increases engagement and combats burnout."

Although she is not talking about project teams, I think it’s very easy to make the connection. What’s more, she makes a very good argument for increasing organizational transparency up, into strategic plans and organizational goals. "Transparent communication is essential," says Ms. Maggio. "If management is open with staff about the future plans for the organization and employees, that leaves them feeling settled and secure in the job. It’s important but a lot of employers overlook it."

In the context of our recent conversations about the "strategic" nature of projects, project plans and project leaders, I think it’s pretty obvious (at least to me) that everyone on the project team should, at the very least, understand the strategy and vision behind every project they are working on. That is the way to drive ownership and engagement within the team. That’s how we start to elevate the role of project leaders to someone organizations turn to for strategic thinking and how we eliminate or reduce the costs associated with burnout.

"To avoid burnout in the first place, Ms. Maggio stands by a strategic approach," writes Mourtada. "’Burnout is the antithesis of employee engagement,’ she says. ‘…If an organization is strategic about human resources, they’re going to have higher engagement and less burnout.’"

The costs of turnover and burnout may be difficult to calculate within your organization, but they are there—and they are expensive. I think it’s encouraging that some of the actions required to reduce burnout within our project teams are the very things that encourage efficiency, team member engagement and the successful execution of projects.

As a project leader, if you don’t understand the strategic value of the project you are assigned to plan, ask. Find out why the organization is doing what they’re doing. If you don’t want to ask, shame on you. How can you successfully execute a project if you don’t fully understand its value? What’s more, how can you expect your team to take ownership of their contribution to the project if they don’t understand why they are doing it?

Strategic Project Management

Last week I wrote a post about providing recognition to individual contributors on a project team, Don’t Make Individual Team Members Blow Their Own Horn. If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you know that I am a firm believer in empowering the team to create and invent value for their organizations. We talk a lot about facilitating an environment where everyone on the team can contribute to something bigger than themselves, take ownership and dare I say it, act more strategically. Although I hadn’t put it in those words before, I received an interesting comment on Gantthead which I would like to share here (click here to read his comment).

Dr. Paul D. Giammalovo (www.build-project-management-competency.com) asks, "…how do you consider project management to be ‘strategic’?"

Dr. Giammalovo suggests that managing work isn’t strategic (in fairness, I am not in construction management, I work with knowledge workers, which might be a bit different), which if we look at the last 50 to 100 years of practice he is right. Project management has not been a very strategic discipline. He suggests that, "…project management/project managers are not high enough up in the decision making process to be ‘strategic’ decision makers … at best we are tactical, and although we clearly may be working on strategic projects within the organization, I can see no way to justify any claims that project managers are making strategic rather than tactical decisions, even though the projects we manage may be considered to be strategic in nature."

Although I respect Dr. Gimmalovo’s opinion, I think this is a great example of what’s wrong with the current project management paradigm. Although project managers in many organizations aren’t part of the strategic decisions made by executive leadership, does that imply that they should not approach a project plan strategically? Does that imply that their approach to any project should not be strategic? Does this mean that project leaders and project teams should be drones that simply shut up and do the work assigned to them without question and without thought?

Steve Denning, in a recent article for Forbes suggests, "In today’s marketplace, where continuous innovation is key to winning and retaining customers and the work is too complex to be accomplished by individuals, crushing the spirit and creativity of teams is a productivity disaster."

Unlike Dr. Giammalovo, I fell into the role of managing projects. I am not a big "P" process guy. I believe our goal as project leaders is to provide value to our organization, foster the most productive environment we can within the project teams we lead and successfully execute projects.

The PMI promotes the thought that project management deserves a seat in the C-suite. As long as we continue to act and respond to a call to think and be more strategic as contrary to our discipline, it will never happen. What’s more, we won’t deserve it. In my humble opinion, everyone on the project team should be aware of, and on-board with, the strategic vision of every project. That, my friends is the way to engage the workforce, improve efficiency and ultimately execute projects more successfully.

According to Vlatka Hlupic, in an article published in ComputerWeekly, he suggests that applying this type of management approach in a German IT consulting company "…resulted in an 1,700% increase in profit and a 23% increase in the number of employees in the first year, and a further 240% increase in profit and a 20% increase in the number of employees in the second year, despite an economy in a recession."

Do you want a seat in the C-suite? Those kinds of results will get you there (and yes, you will have to think more strategically to do it).

Strategic Project Management

Last week, Dave Garrett wrote an interesting post on social media and project management, Can Project Management Software be as Engaging as Facebook?. There were many great points brought up in the article and interview with Vantage Software’s founder Alex Leblanc.

I believe there is a lot we can learn from social media tools like Facebook and Twitter. The millennial generation has been collaborating on teams since elementary school and they have spent the lion’s share of their young adult lives collaborating with friends and family within social media. In my opinion, it just makes sense to leverage this knowledge into a project management solution that utilizies the familiar metaphor. What’s more, it’s not just the millennials that are jumping into social media with both feet. Many in my generation are turning to social media to reconnect with old friends, keep track of family or business colleagues spread around the world or follow their hobbies and other interests. Addressing the collaboration and business needs of the "Facebook Generation" with something that works and feels like Facebook just makes sense.

With that being said, in any discussion about the merits of social media within the project management context I think we need to identify and address the elephant in the room. No CEO is going to spend any money on a tool that simply incorporates a Twitter or Facebook feed into its project management solution. Business leaders don’t want to fund an employee’s ability to waste time talking about what they are going to eat for lunch or where they might be spending their weekend holiday. The conversations need to be about the work and projects that team members have in common, it’s the Facebook metaphor that’s important, not Facebook. Twitter-like but not Twitter.

Additionally, it’s not the tool or the methodology or whether or not it utilizes the strengths of social media that will ultimately make a difference. It will be our approach to how we manage "process" and lead "people" that will make the difference. Without a doubt, process is important. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be writing about it. However, if we continue to rely on tired and arcane notions of command-and-control to jam tasks and assignments down the throats of our project teams, we will fail regardless of the project management tools we use.

Top-down management methods fail. They produce information we can’t trust for making decisions, they create a work environment people dislike and ultimately cause projects and project teams to struggle and fail.

Steve Denning, in a recent article for Forbes wrote, "The mode of coordinating work must shift from bureaucratic control to dynamic linking." In other words, our job is to facilitate and help project teams collaborate with each other to develop and execute on solutions rather than build unwieldy project plans and make task assignments. "Communication must shift from top-down command to adult-to-adult conversation, thus avoiding the dispiriting effect of top-down commands."

When we achieve that attitude within our organizations, applying the social media metaphor to the work management process works. Until then, it will fail—much like our current approach to managing projects.

Strategic Project Management