Strategic Project Management

It's no secret that more and more organizations are turning to project management methodologies to help increase efficiencies across the enterprise.  However, the greatest single challenge to successful adoption of project management best practice is a lack of voluntary team member participation in the process.  The traditional command-and-control or top-down management approach just doesn't work with today's workforce, resulting in:

1. Project information that executives don't trust
2. An overly structured management environment that people dislike
3. Frustrated project teams whose accomplishments go unrecognizedI believe taking a more social approach to the project management process in general could provide an answer to the overall lack of team member participation in the project management process.

If we ask ourselves, "What is it about social networking tools that have drawn so much participation?"  I think we can point to a number of things including:

1. Ease of use
2. People receive positive feedback and recognition from their network of friends
3. People can share conversational (qualitative) information about what they are doing with their friends

Regardless of the project management methods used by your organization, a more social approach to project management needs to accomplish the following to fuel greater voluntary team participation:

1. Empower the Front Line:  This is important because the people closer to the work understand it better.  Facilitate greater individual ownership over priorities and commitments by enabling team members to make public commitments, take ownership over deadlines and milestones, and prioritize their own work.
2. Capture the Real Story: The most significant factor to improving data accuracy is to capture more qualitative information.  Providing frequent and more descriptive updates delvers greater visibility and enables a richer understanding of the real story.  Qualitative information flowing upward in organizations gives managers and executives the ability to follow conversations on relevant initiatives.
3. Recognize Accomplishments: People, not technology, ensure project success.  Focusing on people fosters discussion, highlights accomplishments, and keeps everyone engaged.  Make it possible for people to receive recognition for their accomplishments, and comment on other's work and accomplishments, to foster an environment where everyone's work contributions are visible to peers and managers.

In my opinion, it really is people that are the key to project success.  Which is why facilitating an environment where collaboration, innovation, and efficiency requires that the solution address the needs of everyone involved in the work management process—starting at the front lines.

Scanning through a newsletter I periodically receive from OpenView Venture Partners, I came across an article written earlier this month by Skip Weisman titled, The 7 Deadly Sins of Organizational Leadership Communication.  I have to admit that I have a weakness for these types of articles—and thought I would share the seven deadly sins here.

Although the focus of Weismn's article involves the sins of the executive team, I think there are some things here that any leader, particularly project leaders, can learn and have adapted them to project leadership:

1. Lack of Specificity: I like to call this sin the, "I can't read your mind sin."  It's easy to assume that everyone on the project team is coming from the same level of understanding that you are.  If you or your people have to guess about what's being requested, this sin is a problem.  Make sure communications are clear and precise.  When instructions and expectations are expressed properly, projects have a better chance of success.
2. Lack of Focus on Desirable Behaviors: It's easy for some people to complain about what they don't want to do, or what they don't want others to do, but is often more difficult to identify what they would like instead.  "Where your focus goes, grows," says Weisman.  I agree.  On a mountain-bike, if you focus on that big ugly root up ahead of you, you will hit it.  Focusing on positive behavior will encourage positive behavior to grow.  Many project teams struggle with negative behavior because that's what they focus on.
3. Lack of Directness: Project teams embroiled in this sin go behind the back of co-workers, peers, bosses, and subordinates with water cooler gossip.  If team members are throwing people under the bus, or put down other team members to make themselves look better, you have a problem with this sin.
4. Lack of Immediacy: This is really the sin of procrastination.  There are times when it's important to project success for project managers to have the "tough" conversations with team members, putting off the conversation or avoiding it all together define this sin.
5. Lack of Appropriate Tone: I've shared my opinion on this issue in this forum before.  Common courtesy is the very least we should be able to expect from our managers, peers, and subordinates.  Threatening, condescending, sarcastic, or any other rude or demeaning communication just isn't acceptable.  Ever.
6. Lack of Focused Attention:  Have you ever been in a meeting where half the audience is checking email, responding to a text message, or surfing the web?  I have.  This sin fosters disrespect and a lack of trust in organizations and on project teams.
7. Lack of Respectful Rebuttals: Although this sin is closely related to Sin #5, it also includes those conversations that start out positive in the first part of the sentence, only to be followed by the word "but."  "After the 'but' comes the other shoe and you end up feeling misled and unfulfilled," says Weisman.  Organizations that foster an honest and accepting environment where both achievements and challenges are freely discussed, don't have to worry about this sin.

Although the list didn't include anything like greed, lust, or gluttony, ignoring this list of seven sins can be expensive for project teams. That being said, it doesn't require an investment in project management software or other project management tools to solve.  It does require that project leaders pay attention to what's going on within their project teams and work to foster a "sin free" project environment.

Is there anything you would add to our list?

 

Until a rule change in 1989, the U.S. Olympic men's basketball team was traditionally composed of amateur players.  At the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain the first U.S. "Dream Team" took the Gold Medal after wining the final game against Croatia.  I must admit that I'm not really a fan of the "Dream Team" approach to building teams, but the 1992 "Dream Team" has definitely changed the Olympics.

Another team, coached by Herb Brooks about ten years earlier, was the 1980 Gold Medal winning U.S. Hockey Team.  However this team was composed of college hockey players from around the country and certainly didn't start out as a "Dream Team."  Coach Brooks wasn't looking for individual superstars as much as he was looking for a team that could play well and win together.  Which this team did.  They beat an undefeated Soviet team that had dominated Olympic hockey for years. 

"I'm not looking for the best players," said Brooks.  "I'm looking for the right ones."  Brooks understood that building the best team involves knowing the strengths, weaknesses, and aptitude of everyone on the team—regardless of whether or not they are individual superstars.

Are there some things we can learn from Coach Brooks as we work to build effective project teams?

Pick the right team: Just because someone is available, doesn't always mean they are the best to work on your project.  Whenever I'm tasked to build a project team, here are some of the things I look for:

1. Do they have the skills I need to make the project successful?  Because I will be relying on them to do their job (so I can do mine), I always look for individuals who have demonstrated that they know what they are doing.
2. Do they have the ability to learn and stretch?  I always look for people who are not afraid to try new things and think "outside the box."  I learned a long time ago that collaboration with people of different skills can be very productive.
3. Will they play and work well together?  In my opinion, a superstar who is a jerk doesn't help the team.  He or she might be highly-skilled, or even the best at what they do, but if they don't get along with anyone—I won't add them to my team.
4. Are they willing to take constructive feedback?  I don't call it criticism for a reason.  Criticism doesn't help anyone, but feedback and honest critique can help a willing learner improve and increase their skills.  That includes team leads and project managers.  If a potential team member "never does anything wrong," they will more than likely have to be "perfect" on someone else's team.
5. Can I count on them at "crunch time?"  Every project seems to run into times when people need to put forth a little extra to make things happen.  It seems like no matter how well you plan, there are always things that "crop up" to cause trouble.  It's important that we can count on each other to pitch in with a little effort during crunch time.

Brooks was famous for saying, "Legs feed the wolf."  In other words, wolves eat if they are better able to chase down their prey—success just doesn't drop in their lap.  Referring to an easy way to get cut from the team, Brooks once said, "If you give me 99 percent, you will make my job very easy."  Successful teams share a willingness to work hard and give their very best.

What do you do to make sure you have the right people on your project team?

Some time ago I read an article by David Hillson for Projects@Work on risk prioritization. Organizations often spend a lot of time laboring over different risk scenarios to determine the risk-to-reward ratio of potential projects.  "But perhaps we are tying too hard?  Maybe a simpler approach to ranking risks would work just as well," suggests Hillson.

In another life, I had the opportunity to contribute to a project for the U.S. Airforce.  The base I was working with did landing gear maintenance for a number of aircraft from around the world.  They wanted a quick and easy way to review individual landing gear parts and determine if they could be safely refurbished.  Basically it was an established measuring process to ensure that after machining, the parts would still fall within specifications.  After taking a number of very specific measurements to determine whether or not there was a possibility of successfully re-machining the part—if the part didn't meet pre-determined success criteria, it was scraped.  The Airforce didn't want to waste time refurbishing a part that didn't offer a reasonable possibility of being usable upon completion.  It was a very simple go-no-go method of measuring potential risk vs reward.  Hospital emergency rooms use the same kind of triage procedure when evaluating which patients are seen first and who can wait.

I agree with Hillson when he suggests that the importance of prioritizing risk is not to obtain a precise estimate of the exact likelihood of a particular risk, but to focus on those that require urgent management, then deal with other important risks, and monitor others.  A complex risk assessment isn't necessary to accomplish that.  Successful project management doesn't require us to seek for more detail than what we need for this purpose.

Successful work management methodologies identify and prioritize risk, but don't necessarily dwell on whether or not a particular risk has a 10 percent, 12 percent, or even a 15 percent probability of occurring.  "Even when generic scales are used," says Hillson, "people can spend a lot of time disputing between rating a risk as Low or Medium."

Project management software can help organizations evaluate risks, create mitigation plans, and successfully plan projects that fall into a predetermined success criteria.

Leonardo da Vinci wrote, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

When it comes to project prioritization maybe that is good advice.

A balanced investment strategy has proven to be the most successful approach for maximizing return while reducing risk in an investment portfolio.  Does the same approach apply to the successful management of an organizations project portfolio?

An experienced financial adviser will tell you that a balanced investment strategy is the most successful approach for maximizing return while reducing risk in your investment portfolio.  The investor works to balance return and risk by diversifying investments in both high risk/high return and low risk/low return opportunities.  Understanding each investor's overall risk tolerance is crucial to crafting a meaningful investment strategy.

Successfully managing an organization's project portfolio to maximize return while reducing risk requires the same approach—an understanding of the organization's risk tolerance, and investment strategy that takes that tolerance into account, and an execution that aligns with the organization's strategic and financial goals.

Although there are many organizations that believe it's better to be safe than sorry, that might not be the case.  Value-driven risk management acknowledges that some risks are positive opportunities to be pursued, while others aren't worth worrying too much about, given the likelihood of occurring.

The first step to evaluating the viability of any project is to determine it's potential value, based upon pre-determined metrics that reflect:

1. The project goals
2. The project costs
3. Th project's alignment to the mission and vision of the organization
4. The organization's risk tolerance
5. The project risks and any mitigation plans

Pre-determined metrics for evaluating project objectives, risks, business value, and alignment to organizational strategic and financial goals enable project decision-makers to manage technology and implement systems in a disciplined way that balances the need for positive return from investments with the costs associated with maintaining an innovative and productive line of business.

Maximizing project investments from the ground up depends on how successfully we can manage and lead project teams.  I don't believe that keeping people busy is the challenge—however, choosing the right projects is sometimes problematic for business leaders.

Poor decision-making leads to bad project investments.  Much like how a skilled investment adviser makes decisions, the key to making good project decisions lies with pre-determined metrics for evaluating potential projects to validate initiatives from the ground up.

Project portfolio management software and work management methodologies that facilitate and encourage this type of evaluation before a project even starts will make the process easier to implement—however balancing risk and return is more than plugging numbers into a software program.  It requires an organizational commitment to not only doing projects right, but doing the right projects.

How do you balance risk and reward?

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