10 PM Frustrations…and How to Solve Them

 

by Dave Wakeman

In writing for Voices on Project Management, I like to tie everything back to a business outcome like business growth, innovation, or cost savings.

This month, I wanted to combine my focus on business growth with the new kid on the block, ChatGPT, to do some market research using a prompt to see what I came up with.

Here’s the prompt in case you’d like to steal it:

I want you to do customer research for me. Tell me 10 dreams, 10 frustrations, 10 wants, and 10 fears that my audience experiences related to business growth and innovation through the lens of project managers.

Format the 10 dreams, 10 frustrations, 10 wants, and 10 fears in a structured table. The x-axis should be numbered 1-10 and the y-axis should include frustration, want, fear, and dream.

This month, let’s look at the 10 frustrations:

1. Lack of clear vision or buy-in from leadership for growth initiatives
2. Scope creep due to shifting priorities during growth phases
3. Difficulty finding and retaining skilled team members for innovative projects
4. Siloed departments hindering collaboration and information flow
5. Unrealistic timelines imposed by leadership for innovation projects
6. Difficulty measuring the ROI of innovative projects with long-term impact
7. Lack of risk tolerance from leadership, hindering bold innovative ideas
8. Constant firefighting due to reactive decision-making instead of proactive planning
9. Difficulty adapting existing processes and workflows for innovative projects
10. Lack of recognition and appreciation for the challenges of managing innovative projects

Do we see any patterns?

I do.

These all seem consistent with a lack of strategy, especially a challenge around defining the ultimate strategic question: “What does success look like?” These also fit into the idea of business acumen, a topic I often cover.

Let’s think about what we can do to deal with these frustrations.

1. Make sure you are clear on your direction. In my strategy work, the essential question is, “What does success look like?” You must know the answer to this question because you can’t be successful without it.

A lack of vision around growth will be present because you lack direction. You can’t properly measure ROI without knowing what success look like.

All of us have likely been involved in too much firefighting. The root cause typically being decisions that are pushed off or left unmade because of a lack of direction.

2. Invest in your communications efforts. Buy in! Buy in! Buy in!

Am I right?

The time you invest in communicating the project’s scope, the place the project has in your business’s success, and the things you need to meet your timeline will help you set yourself up for success.

Poor communication is frustration’s foundation. You can only defeat this frustration by being clear, concise, and easily understood in your communications.

Your ability to achieve this is built from the answer to the ultimate question: “What does success look like?”

3. Manage up and down. Project managers have to manage in both directions to cut down on frustrations.

• Managing down will help you hire and retain key team members.
• Managing up will help you fight scope creep, gain buy-in, and fight unrealistic timelines.

Looking at ChatGPT’s list, the frustration of silos points to the importance of managing across the organization as well.

Your ability to manage up, down and around the organization is built on your direction and your ability to communicate effectively. Granted, you still aren’t guaranteed success.

My questions to you are: Do these frustrations track with your experience? Is there a frustration that you don’t see on the list? Or, is this list totally crazy?

Let me know below!

Then, next month we can look at one of the other columns.