Strategic Project Management

For a group of highly technical people in a very technical discipline, the message of this years Gartner PPM Summit was, "It's all about people." It's all about the people who work on project teams and how we interact with them.

These few quotes are from my notes and represent only a taste of what was said over the last three days. I hope you'll forgive any slight inaccuracies:

"Build a culture where you can have hearts and minds, not reports." —Donna Fitzgerald, Gartner

"Social tools allow us to capture all our intellectual property and share it throughout the organization." —David Held, Yum! Brands

"We wanted to share ideas more organically..." Michael Stratton, Boeing

"Those closest to the work should be allowed to make decisions." —Matt Light, Gartner

"All the employees need to know their priorities and how their contributions contribute to the strategy." —Matt Light, Gartner

"All projects are not the same and all work is not a project." —Audrey Apfel, Gartner

"The younger generation doesn't use email—it's all about texting and mobile technology." —Mark Langley, PMI

"All project management is people management." —Tom Peters

I have come home with an even greater appreciation for the importance of the role people play within our project teams. As important as process and method is to ensuring that projects are successful, it's the people who do the work—it isn't the process. As project leaders, our role is to successfully lead the members of our project teams as we manage the process. Quoting Lou Gerstner, Tom Peters suggests that the culture we create on our teams "isn't just part of the game, it is the game." And he takes it one step further and suggests, if you don't like it, you need to find something else to do.

When leading people, he suggests "...personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all success comes."

I have to agree. I imagine as I go through my notes and think about the things I have learned over the last couple of weeks in London and San Diego I will write more about these concepts.

What are you doing to improve your ability to work with the people on your project teams?
 

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 Gardner 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.

Over the last several months, we've talked a lot about the decisions project leaders can and can't make. There are many who shy away from making decisions because they don't believe it's part of their roll. I understand. However, the fact that I might understand does not negate the reality that the ability to make decisions is part of what organizations are looking for in the people they promote.

Last week, at the Gartner Summit in London, Tina Nunno suggested that the primary reason that CIOs are replaced is because they can't "lead with the leaders." She further suggested that, "What got you here isn't going to keep you here."

When Nunno argues that the difference between a leader and a follower is the ability to make decisions, I agree with her. That being said, I recognize that in many organizations, the project management role is not typically a "decision-making" role. Most of the time they look to project managers to execute on strategic decisions that have already been made. However, that doesn't mean we don't make decisions or that we shouldn't. In fact, if we want the profession and our personal careers to advance, I think it's important that we demonstrate that we are able to think strategically and make smart decisions.

Within the limitations of our role, how do we do this? Let me make a couple of suggestions:

1. Never present a problem without a proposed solution or two. Once you've identified a situation that requires a solution, even if you don't have any mandate to make a decision, offer a proposed solution to the person who does. Sure, he or she might ignore you, but they will also recognize that you are willing to do more than what you're told.
2. Sometimes making decisions as a group is a smart idea, however according to Nunno, "Together we are [sometimes] dumber than one of us."
3. When guidance is lacking, it's a good time to lead. When the opportunity to provide some leadership presents itself, seize the moment, step out of your comfort zone and take the opportunity to lead.

Within a profession that is working to take a bigger role within the organization, I must admit that I have been surprised at the number of project managers who push back when I suggest that there is a bigger role, but we need to change the way we think about what we do. I don't think it matters what the size of your organization is, it is looking for leaders--people who can make decisions and effectively lead people. What better place to foster those skills than within the project environment?

 

After a long travel day yesterday, I'm home from a wonderful visit to London. It was a great experience presenting at the Gartner event about the value of democratizing the way we manage work.

After attending the conference, one thing is very clear: the workplace is changing, and that includes the workforce. The way we lead project teams needs to change along with it. Most of the methodologies we have chosen for managing work are 50 to 100 years old. Next to accounting software, project management software is the oldest software product (and unfortunately, most of it feels that way).

It's time to take a fresh look at what we do and how we do it. We need to fully engage individual team members in the process (I think that's our greatest  challenge). We have the most technically savvy and empowered generation to ever join the workforce. I think we should be asking ourselves, "How do organizations work with the Facebook generation?" Taking a strong handed command-and-control approach isn't going to work.

In my opinion, there are two keys to engaging the individuals on a project team:

1. Empower them to do something more than simply show up. Give them the opportunity to do something truly great. Give them a voice in what they do, how they do it and when they're going to have it done. You might be surprised at the result.
2. Acknowledge what they do. When asked (in a survey sponsored by AtTask and conducted by Forrester), 40 percent of knowledge workers say their manager doesn't understand what they do. The number swells to 60 percent when asked about their executives. So, even if you feel like you have a handle on what's going on within your project team, the truth is that you team doesn't think so. Have you ever felt that way?

I can't help but come away from these types of events excited for the future. Sure, the times are changing and the way we do our jobs is changing, but isn't that great? Isn't that exciting? For those of us able to make the transition to the needs of the coming years, there will be energized and exciting careers full or challenges and rewards. Those who can't or won't, will find themselves becoming increasingly irrelevant.

Embrace the new paradigm. Re-evaluate how you lead your project teams. Empower them to do something great and recognize that greatness when it happens. You might just be surprised at how well they do and how smart you'll look in the end.

 

The Keynote presentation I attended this morning 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?