Strategic Project Management

Over the last two or three years it seems like everyone's mantra has been, "Do more with less." Business leaders have purchased software, created systems and incorporated a few project management best practices with the hopes of squeezing a little more productivity out of smaller staffs. Basically, it means that teams are working more hours trying to get their work done with fewer resources. Enough already—doing more with less isn't the answer to a diminishing resource pool and the need for profitability.

The real answer is to do less with less, but more of the right things. Robert Half, author and pioneer in the employment field said, "The combination of hard work and smart work is efficient work."

In today's world, this couldn't be more true. There isn't time or resources to waste on initiatives of limited, or suspect, value. Every project needs to provide maximum business value for the resources spent (and I'm talking about both human capital, time and money). That means business leaders need to take a hard look at the work that's being done and make choices about those initiatives that will be pursued, and those that won't.

Prioritizing work seems to be a pretty obvious approach, but it seems to be easier said than done. It requires a real commitment from the top down to be successful, which means that there may be some stakeholders who will need to give up their "pet" projects in favor of something else that has the potential to provide greater value.

How does an organizations ensure that people are working on the right things?

I'm convinced that a grass-roots approach that empowers individual team members is the first step and the most efficient way to manage time-lines and delieverables. However, doing it requires a real commitment from the top. Organizations that rely on project leaders to make resource allocation or priority decisions without the full faith and confidence of the CEO or Executive Team are asking for frustrated team members and demoralized managers.

To make it easier, many organizations have a project review board that critically looks at every potential project. Although there might be project leaders on the review board, it's representation from the C-suite that gives the board its power to say no. When every stakeholder who champions a project needs to gain the approval of the review board, it's less likely dubious projects will be submitted for consideration. Without going into a lengthy discussion of business cases and review criteria, suffice it to say that peer review is an excellent way to weed out the good projects from the bad.

"Enough is as good as a feast," said Marry Poppins. Those are good words to live by. When business leaders understand that once resource limits are met, work requests must stop, it's much easier to make prioritization a priority. This is difficult in a culture where the "git-er done," attitude is prevalent. It's easy to lob a project request over the cube if the attitude from the top is, "I don't care how long it takes, just get it done."

The problem with this mentality is that getting everything done with fewer people requires them to work longer hours to make it happen. What's more, excessive overtime is really an indication of a project in trouble. Too much overtime leads to too much junk food, too little sleep, and over tired and burned-out employees who make too many mistakes.

However, it isn't the project manager who has any real authority to do anything about this. It has to come from the top. Solving resource over-allocation issues requires a commitment from senior leadership.

When organizations focus on those initiatives that provide the most value (that means there might even be some good projects that can't be pursued in favor of better projects), project leaders can spend more time working on the things that will really matter to the business. In other words, they can actually do less with less, but more of the right things.
 

Whether you are a project leader or the CEO, leadership is more about what you do than what you say. I witnessed this first hand yesterday, and have to admit I was pretty surprised by what I saw.

Our department is moving into another building on campus and noticed a rather hostile sign on the exterior door.

At first, I thought it had to be a joke. But after further investigation, I realized I was wrong.

Curious about the savvy tech business-leader who would put such a poor example of leadership and hubris up for public display, I stumbled upon his twitter post celebrating this example of leadership acumen.

It blows my mind that anyone could think this was cool. If you copy and paste the link, it will take you to the above sign.

We've recently been talking about how we Lead by Example or Not at All, and I wonder what type of organization is lead by the author of the pithy message to the parking log anarchists. Regardless of how many polite interactions may have taken place before this point, I have to wonder if this is really the best way to encourage someone to stop parking in his "reserved" spot.

Here's some of what the company website says about Mr. Hanks, it makes me wonder if this is the same guy.
 

In my opinion, this arrogant and self-indulged approach to dealing with people is a great example of what's wrong with the leadership of some organizations. Mr. Hanks as well as his company should be embarrassed by this display of immaturity and sense of entitlement. The reason I mention it here is because his reply to one of his Twitter followers assured me that his personal brand was strong enough that reporting on his childish stunt wouldn't have a negative impact. And besides, if he's not embarrassed by it, why should I be embarrassed to report on it?

I'd like to contrast his parking space preferences to a recent action by our corporate leadership. Every quarter there are a number of people recognized as MVPs within their individual departments. With this quarter's announcement, our executives have relinquished their parking spots as a reward for these folks. Basically, the best employees get to park next to the entrance of our building and the execs park wherever they can find a spot with the rest of us.

You lead by example or not at all.

Thanks Jeremy for a great example of what NOT to do.

 

In a recent blog post, Actions Speak Louder than Words, I talked about the need for leaders to not only "talk the talk," but the need to "walk the walk." I think this is important as we work to promote project management as a leadership discipline. In the book, The Truth About Leadership, by James Kouzes and Barry Posner, they write, "'Actions speak louder than words' is wise counsel to live by. Quite often the greatest distance that leaders have to travel is the distance from their mouths to their feet. Taking that step toward fulfilling a promise, putting the resources behind a pledge, and acting on a verbal commitment may require great courage. But it's the very thing that demonstrates the courage of your convictions."

Of course, this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Leading by example has been a long accepted leadership practice in cultures all over the world for thousands of years. What's more, according to Kouses and Posner, research substantiates its importance. "Cornell professor Tony Simons has investigated the 'behavioral integrity'—his term for doing what you say you will do—of managers and has found that organizations 'where employees strongly believe [that] their managers followed through on promises and demonstrated the values they preached were substantially more profitable than those whose managers score average or lower' on being role models," they write. "Similarly, UCLA professor Donna McNeese-Smith found in her research studies that 'If good managers want productive employees, they must set a good example and practice what they preach.'"

In organizations where project leaders move from project to project, your reputation as someone who "walks the walk" could make the difference between a project team that rallies behind you and the initiative, and a team that marginalizes and ignores you. Building that reputation might just be a little more difficult than it is for those of us who tend to work with the same team project after project. That being said, word gets around.

The fact of the matter is simple, you either lead by example or you don't lead at all. As far as project teams are concerned, seeing is believing. "Your statements and actions are visible reminders to others about what is or is not important," write the authors. "Admitting your mistakes and shortcomings goes a long way toward building up people's confidence in your integrity. It gives them one more important reason to put their trust in you."

What are you doing to lead by example? Can your project team see your values demonstrated not only in what you say, but in what you do?
 

While speaking with a colleague the other day, he made the statement that he believed one of his responsibilities as a manager was to provide opportunities for his team to improve their skills and advance their careers. I have always felt that way myself. Unfortunately, I have worked for a number of people over the years who took the "looking out for number one" approach—which is not only bad for the team, it is ultimately bad for the manager.

As you know, I'm a big fan of Seth Godin's book Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?, which has won a prominent place on my bookshelf this year. "Robert Ringer wrote Looking Out for Number One, one of the most dangerous business books I've ever read," writes Godin. "His salute to selfishness was a product of its time, and it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way."

He continued, "Becoming a linchpin is not an act of selfishness. I see it as an act of generosity, because it gives you a platform for expending emotional labor and giving gifts. There are plenty of bosses who fear the idea of indispensable employees and would instead encourage you to focus on teamwork. 'Teamwork' is the word bosses and coaches and teachers use when they actually mean, 'Do what I say.'"

As project leaders, I believe it's important to foster and environment where team members can develop or improve their leadership skills. It goes without saying that doing this requires us to abandon the "looking out for number one" mentality. My colleague, who feels it's his obligation as a leader to create opportunities for his team to advance their careers has the right attitude, in my opinion. It kind of reminds me of the old saw about how everyone in the boat rises with the tide.

What do you do to help your teammates grow their skills? Do you give them opportunities to work outside of their comfort zones to participate in project decision-making or other leadership activities? Are you sharing your knowledge and giving gifts to your team—making yourself indispensable?
 

I was reading the Voices on Project Management blog earlier today written by Jim De Piante and he seems to lament, "I have a feeling the nature of project management—which has sustained my career for more than 20 years—is changing radically."

He describes the forces that led him into a project management career in the late 1980s and suggests that "tectonic shifts" in the business climate made project management an obvious career choice back then. However, "Now, I see three things happening that give me pause," he says. "they're clearly things I need to react to, but unlike last time, I don't know how."

1. "Lower-level IT jobs continue to go to emerging markets." Unless you've lived in a cave or a shack in Montana for the last few years, you already know this. Of course this is challenging from a project management perspective—managing remote teams can sometimes be problematic. However, it is being done by skilled and capable project managers all over the world with software that accommodates it. That being said, don't assume that it's only "lower-level" knowledge work going overseas either, it's not. I know of organizations who work "round-the-clock" with needs identified in China being assigned to project managers in Poland who in turn assign teams in other parts of Europe and the US to work on projects 24/7. As project leaders, we need to do more (a lot more) than build a WBS and assign tasks to team members. We need to create an atmosphere where creativity can thrive and project teams can invent and create, making our teams and ourselves indispensable—or we will become irrelevant and replaceable.
2. "The way project work gets done, particularly in the IT industry, seems to be undergoing an important shift." De Piante is referring to how more and more organizations are turning to Agile methods and how even the PMI is now offering an Agile certification. I can't tell whether he's lamenting it or not, but I do know that much of the governance overhead of traditional project management methods is too cumbersome for most projects, the failure rate of projects according to sources like the Standish Group's Chaos Survey are far too high and the PMO failure rate is bad enough that if you're organization is starting a PMO and you flip a coin, you have about the same odds of winning as your new PMO has of success in the first 18 months. We need to be more flexible in how we manage projects. Plugging everything into the same model just doesn't work. We need to use the right methods for the right projects, and for many projects that's an Agile approach. That being said, I don't think there's one silver bullet for everything—we should embrace any method that enables us to accomplish our objectives in the simplest way possible (sometimes that might be even be a "to do" list).
3. "We keep hearing of a new normal." If the current economic crisis has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that business as usual isn't anymore. Your CEO doesn't care about your project plan, he or she cares about the value those projects produce for his or her organization. The "new normal" (if there really is such a thing) is that we need to make sure that everything we do is providing some kind of value to our organization and that we aren't doing anything that doesn't provide value. Now that doesn't mean that process isn't important or that governance is inconsequential. It does mean that process for the sake of process or unnecessary requirements should be eliminated. "Any idiot can make things more complicated," said Einstein, "it takes real genius to make things simple." Our focus should be on keeping the process as simple and un-encumbering as possible. "As possible" are the operative words. Whether you call it the "new normal" or not is up to you. In my opinion, it should have been our focus all along—and has been the focus of the most successful project managers I know.

"To me, these three things spell change," writes De Piante, "and it seems to me I ought to be making some changes as well, but I'm not sure what they are yet."

Project management is changing. What we call projects is being redefined by the market, how we manage teams (people) is changing, what is expected of projects and project leaders is changing and if we don't change the way WE look at these things, we will become irrelevant.

Ghandi said, "Be the change that you want to see in the world." If we want to survive with our profession in the future, we need to be the change—or someone else will.