People, It's About the People!

Mike Griffiths is an experienced project manager, author and consultant who works for PMI as a subject matter expert. Before joining PMI, Mike consulted and managed innovation and technology projects throughout Europe, North and South America for 30+ years. He was co-lead for the PMBOK Guide—Seventh Edition, lead for the Agile Practice Guide, and contributor to the PMI-ACP and PMP exam content outlines. Outside of PMI, Mike maintains the websites www.LeadingAnswers.com about leading teams and www.PMillustrated.com, which teaches project management for visual learners.

  Agile   Communications Management   Talent Management  

Project management has matured with many professional organizations, certifications and bodies of knowledge, yet we still hear of numerous project failures. What has gone wrong? Is project management broken? I don’t think it’s broken in terms of being fundamentally wrong, but it’s certainly flawed in the view that good project management ensures success.

You see, what project management with all its plans, estimates and reporting omits is a good recognition for the huge impact people play in projects. Consider for a moment the roadblocks we encounter on projects. The most common and toughest to resolve are always people related. Yet the classic project management guides focus more on earned value than influencing, more on KPI’s than knowledge transfer, more on project tracking than team performance. Project management may be correct, but it is not sufficient for creating success.

Like considering only speed limits and traffic signals but ignoring other traffic movement when driving, we will run into people, have accidents and not get to our destination on time with such a myopic view of the big picture. A large portion of the missing part of project success is Emotional Intelligence, and the EI skills most needed by project managers include:

• Communication Skills
• Persuasive Leadership
• Conflict Management
• Change …

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