Why We Should be Wearing Tights

 

Sure, we know that project managers can save their organizations by delivering projects that improve competitiveness in the marketplace or increase profitability. But according to new research, that's not all.

According to a study by Christopher G. Myers, Bradley R. Staats and Francesca Gino, project managers can do something else: help the organization learn better from failure. The authors did not mention project managers specifically, but bear with me for a few paragraphs and I will make the case.

The researchers found that one barrier to organizations learning from failure is "high perceived ambiguity of responsibility." Put in more basic terms, when responsibility for actions was not clear to workers, the tendency was to attribute failure to a source outside of their control. This tendency keeps the workforce - the organization - from learning from failure. This is why organizations continue to make the same mistakes.

Conversely, when workers perceived low ambiguity of responsibility - higher clarity on who is responsible for what - their tendency is to focus on themselves when attributing causes of failure. They then learn from failure. The organization as a whole can then improve.

Now think about this: One of your responsibilities as a project manager is to organize work and assign responsibility. So it follows that by doing this well, you are a key facilitator of organizational learning. Doing the following can help your organization improve:

• Spend plenty of time and get plenty of input on your work plan, aiming for assigning  responsibilities to precise tasks
• For those tasks that must be assigned to an individual that will be named later, monitor that these names are identified in a reasonable time.
• Ensure that tasks are defined precisely so that assignees know the scope of the task
• In early project communications to workers, make it a priority that everyone knows the scope of their activities and that they should bring up in advance any ambiguity. This will help create a work culture that fosters a sense of responsibility.
• Have teams work together to make sure that there is no "I thought you were going to do that."
• Monitor closely areas that are reorganizing or have had recent reorganizations where there is more risk of confusion over roles.
• Make sure any team actions are also assigned an owner as often as possible at the time the action is identified.

It seems simple to have clear tasks assigned to individuals, so people underestimate the work it takes to do this right on a continual basis. You should not underestimate the difficulty. You should also realize that by doing so, you help workers take responsibility for their own tasks.

The more we know about the benefits of project management, the closer we appear to being super heroes. Maybe we should be wearing Spandex and capes!

OK, that might be going too far.