Improving Project Performance Through Assessments: Q&A

Mark Waldof spent 44 years in industry in management and development roles including corporate positions at Lockheed Martin. He teaches project management and systems engineering and provides consulting services to Fortune 50 corporations, Federal and State Government agencies and academia including the University of Minnesota. Mark is a speaker for PMI and other associations.

  New Practitioners   Quality   Stakeholder Management  

What types of assessments are appropriate for projects and for organizations? How can assessments be used to surface improvement areas and strengths? Our webinar Improving Project Performance Through Assessments was so popular, presenter Mark Waldorf continued the conversation with this in-depth question-and-answer session.

1. How can one get management support and buy-in for improvements in project management? (This is a combination of several questions.)
The first thing to do is to be aware of the how most individuals in management make decisions. Management takes actions and makes decisions based on who they are, what they want to do and the environment they operate within. Key factors affecting management decisions and actions include:

• Pressures and priorities they are facing from their own management
• Time and resources available to them to support changes
• Their own interests and biases
• Their need to be viewed as productive and successful in the organization
• Meeting their metrics and the expectations of their own management
• Personalities affect improvements as some in management will want to improve things and others will want to keep things the way they are

As such, there are many forces acting on your management that can work for you or against you as you make recommendations for improvements. What can you do? Consider the following:

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