Strategic Project Management

For as long as I can remember, I have been a hero-worshiper of the big adventurers of the last two centuries.  Walking to school, I used to cut across a nearby golf course, which served as the frozen wastes of Antarctica all winter long.  Shipwrecked and alone struggling to find shelter on the barren waste kept my imagination occupied many mornings on the way to elementary school.  Adventurers like Ernest Shackleton, Admiral Richard Byrd, and Robert Peary served as the models for my escape from the frozen wastes of Mick Riley golf course.

As I grew older I came to understand the significance of the failed expedition of Shackleton's Endurance.  Recognizing his ability to keep the crew together and accomplish the incredible feat of overland travel to sea and the treacherous crossing in open water to Elephant Island, it's hard not to admire the strength of leadership and character required as his men become progressively weaker and the odds of success seemed to get worse. 

Knowing that the crew's only chance of survival was to make an 800+ mile  rescue attempt from Elephant Island to the distant whaling station of South Georgia Island across some of the most violent seas in the world in a 21' lifeboat, the ship's carpenter, Harry McNish raised the sides, strengthened the keel, and crafted a makeshift deck of wood and canvas for the trek.  Shackleton refused to take more than four weeks worth of supplies because he knew that if they didn't make it safely to South Georgia in that time the boat would be lost.  With five other hand-picked seamen, they boarded the lifeboat James Caird and struck out for rescue.

They miraculously made the fifteen day journey through a hurricane that sunk a 500-ton steamer bound for South Georgia from Argentina.  Upon arrival, Shackleton immediately sent a boat to rescue the rest of his crew waiting on Elephant Island.  Sea ice foiled his first three attempts, but on board the Chilean Navy tug Yelcho, he was finally able to reach Elephant Island and rescue the crew.  Unbelievably, not a man was lost, all 22 were saved.

Many of the same traits that served Shackleton and his crew are those that help ensure successful projects (fortunately without the risk to life and limb):

1. Roles and responsibilities are clearly defined: Successful cooperation depends on clearly defining what you are trying to accomplish.  It's easy to make assignments and hold each other accountable for whether or not specific tasks are completed, but cooperation can only happen if everyone understands the vision of what they are doing "together."
2. There is a determination to finish what is started:  Objectives might not always be easy.  If all you ever hear is, "yes, but," you're team is defeated before they've even begun.  This can make the team adversarial—the opposite of cooperation.  Take time to find out why there is push-back and work together to find a solution.  Cooperation implies working together to overcome obstacles.  Saying, "Just make it happen," doesn't just make it happen.
3. Everyone is accountable to their role and responsibilities: Make expectations clear in the beginning, and regularly evaluate progress against expectations.  The crew of the Endurance counted on their shipmates to do their part.  The team members of successful teams do the same thing.

Although it might be easy to give Shackleton all the credit for the daring rescue, history confirms that the 22 men of the Endeavor worked together to ensure that they all safely made the journey home.  Fortunately for us, creating an atmosphere of collaboration and cooperation doesn't have the same life or death consequences it did for the crew of the Endurance.  However, just as Shackleton and his men leveraged their training and expertise, the right project management tools can help project managers and teams successfully overcome the challenges of project-based work.

What are some of your project management best practices or project management tools that help you manage work successfully?

 

Over the last week or so I've been following a pretty interesting thread on Linkedin's Project Manager Networking Group.  The Question was asked, "What is the difference between a manager and a leader?"  As of this morning, there are about 68 replies.  I thought it might be interesting to offer up a few of them to see what you think:

1. "Why can't a manager be a leader as well?  All strong managers wold lead by example and have a vision for the future.  A manager should always excel themselves by having the qualities of a leader?" —Brad P.
2. "A manager says I, a leader says we." —Muder K.
3. "A manager implements a process or methodology to ensure governance and control.  A leader influences others by personal traits, behaviors, and attitudes." —Ross H.
4. "A manager gets the work done as per requirements, a leader motivates people to think out of the box to find solutions to problems." —Shalini J.
5. "Management is related to process.  Leadership is related to people." —Keith P.
6. "'Manager' is a label that is assigned.  'Leader' is a label that is earned." —Derek P.
7. "Leadership is where management hopes to go." —Slavko L.
8. "The difference to me is irrelevant because a PM has to be both." —Denise C.
9. "Managers manage—leaders inspire." Fred W.
10. "Management is a position.  Leadership is a philosophy.  Direct and do—versus—inspire and do." —Carol D.
11. "Leaders make the 'pie' bigger.  Managers oversee an ever decreasing pie." —Terry C.
12. "Leaders create change." —Nita G.

Henry Ford once said, "Coming together is a beginning.  Keeping together is progress.  Working together is success."

As more and more organizations turn to project management methodologies to improve productivity in their organizations, the need for project managers to become better leaders is increasingly important.  There were some in the Linkedin group who suggested that the discussion was simply a matter of semantics, while others argued that what made really great project managers were their leadership skills.  I tend to agree with the later.  The truly great project managers I know are all great leaders.  And there is a difference.

What do you think?  Share your thoughts here and let's keep the discussion going.

 

I have often wondered, over the last thirty or so years of my career, why it seems that crude confrontation seems to often trump courtesy within organizations.  I tend to agree with Emerson when he wrote, "There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be only to boil an egg.  Manners are the happy ways of doing things."

In organizations where effective collaboration is critical to project success, how well we interact with our peers, superiors, and subordinates is important—which is why I believe cordial communication is so important to project management success.

In May of 1940, Neville Chamberlain was removed as Great Britain's Prime Minister for failure to respond to the threat of war from Germany.  As the newly appointed Prime Minister, his first address before Parliament is where Winston Churchill famously said, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

However, my point in bringing up Winston Churchill is not to discuss his ability to rally England to repel a potential German invasion, but to acknowledge his graciousness and generosity of spirit to a former rival at his passing.  I believe it would have been easy to bash and otherwise castigate Chamberlain for his inaction, however Churchill realized that doing so would do nothing to advance the cause of freedom and would only tarnish the name of the former Prime Minister and cheapen his own. 

Instead, this is a snippet of what Churchill had to say at Chamberlain's funeral, "It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man.  But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? ... They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart—the love of peace ... Whatever else history may or may not say about these terrible, tremendous years, we can be sure that Neville Chamberlain acted with perfect sincerity according to the lights and strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority ... to save the world from the awful, devastating struggle in which we are now engaged."

We work in an age of instant messaging, email, and other almost-instantaneous communication.  We should not let the immediacy of the medium allow us to become callous and casual in how we approach our co-workers, even when problems arise and mistakes are made.  Even in today's workplace, there is a place for common courtesy.

1. Take time to make communication thoughtful and cordial: When time-lines are truncated and project teams are asked to do more and more, take an extra few seconds when writing an email or other communique to consider that your communication is going to a person.  I like to begin every email with a salutation, which reminds me that I am writing to someone.  The extra two or three seconds it takes me to address the person I'm writing to doesn't negatively impact my productivity, but it does help me foster a productive and cordial working relationship.
2. Take time to be polite: Within the imperfect world of project-based work, sometimes difficult decisions take place—but that doesn't mean that we can throw civility out the window.  In the thirty plus years of my professional career I have watched what used to be considered common courtesy among superiors, subordinates, and coworkers become "quaint" and considered "unnecessary."  There is nothing wrong with considering the feelings of someone needing correcting, regardless of how stupid you think they are or how big a mistake you think they made.  Being polite and considerate of each other is the very least we should be able to expect from our "professional" colleagues.  Anything less is unproductive and immature.
3. Remove the criticism from "constructive" criticism: I was taught early in my career, by friends and colleagues much wiser than myself, that "criticism" was never "constructive."  I don't think I have every worked with a project team that agreed all the time.  Project management involves a lot of creative problem solving, which means that it is seldom done right the first time.  Fostering a creative environment where team members are creatively solving problems and pushing for excellence requires collaboration, not criticism.  Where disagreements arise or a course change is required, "I don't like this," should be followed by, "Here's why, and here's a suggestion as to how you might proceed."

Effective communication doesn't rely on tricks or gimmicks.  In my opinion, it's important to remember that effective communication is personal.  It doesn't matter if it's face-to-face, via email, or even in a blog, it's one person interacting with another.  Project management tools can help facilitate communication and collaboration, but the type of communication is up to you.

American author and playwright Jean Kerr said, "Man is the only animal that learns by being hypocritical.  He pretends to be polite and then, eventually, he becomes polite."

What are you doing in your organization to encourage considerate and courteous interaction among your colleagues?

 

Colin Powell, retired four-star general in the U.S. Army, former U.S. Secretary of State, National Security Adviser, Commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, believed in eighteen rules for effective leadership.  Today, I'd like to talk about rule number fourteen:

I agree.  Keeping things simple does a number of things that contribute to project success:

1. It makes the high-level project objectives accessible to project teams
2. It keeps everyone focused on the things that are most important
3. It protects everyone on the team (including stakeholders and team members)  from getting bogged down in the minutia, and focused on those things that are important

I believe most successful projects have one thing in common, the objectives are straightforward and simple to identify.  In the military, sports, or any endeavor for that matter, successful leaders share a consistent vision of exactly what the project objectives are.  Project leaders should take the same approach.  If your work management methodologies and project management tools help facilitate a simple approach to getting work done, your project teams are more likely to achieve success.

Do you think keeping the process simple is important?  What do you to follow the KISS principle?

Regardless of the industry, most companies loudly proclaim that their workforce is their most valuable asset.  I wonder if this is really true as I consider how many organizations tend to manage those precious assets.  (Education, healthcare, media, professional services, and technology workers in particular.)

I believe that the workforce is indeed an organization's most valuable asset.  I also believe that they are a companies biggest investment.  Which is why business leaders need to give the same attention to their people as they do other assets.  As project leaders, can you answer these questions about your project team?

1. What is the value of each team members' contribution to the team?  On most teams every member contributes to the success of a project with different skills.  Although there may be team members who share the same job description, their contribution and skill-sets are not always the same.  Can you identify the value of each member of your team?
2. Are there members of your team that feel undervalued?  I read an interesting statistic once that suggested most people don't tend to leave a job for financial reasons, it's usually working conditions and a bad relationship with the boss.  In an economy that has cut budgets and the workforce to the bone, one would think that a highly-skilled and technical workforce would be more valued than ever.  If that's not the case with your project teams, you run the risk of losing high-quality people as the economic situation improves.  Good people by the way, are not easy or inexpensive to replace.
3. Do the members of your project teams understand the business value of what they do and how it contributes to the success of the organization?  I believe that most people want to contribute to something bigger than themselves.  Do your project teams understand the value of their contribution, and what's more, do you?  Surprisingly, most organizations are chasing around the wheel that squeaks the loudest instead of focusing on those activities that provide business value.  And many of those that are focused on the right things, fail to share it with the team.  We can't expect individual project team members to pull together if they don't know what they're all pulling together for.
4. Do you have a clear understanding of what each member of your project team does?  If you answered yes, you might be in the minority.  I recently read a study that suggested the majority of managers and knowledge workers believe that missing or inaccurate information about team member activities was a significant contributor to financial waste in their organizations.  The traditional top-down project management approach makes it difficult to capture accurate information at the source, and makes managing valuable human resources problematic.

In my opinion, the solution to these issues is really very simple.  You've got to walk the talk if you expect the workforce to believe the claim that their contributions are valued.  How does an organization do this?  If people really are the most valued resource on your project teams, the answer is really very simple and it's less about project management methodology than it is about project leadership.  Let me suggest a good place to start:

1. Empower the team! People want empowerment, with ownership and flexibility regarding what they do.  Nobody wants to ask "Mother, may I?" for everything.  Most likely, you hired these people because you thought they were smart.  Allowing team members to make appropriate decisions for themselves gives them a sense of ownership in what they're doing—and that equates to better performance.
2. Recognize accomplishment.  People take pride in their work and they care about what their managers and peers think of them and their accomplishments.  Organizations that facilitate the recognition of individual team member accomplishments and contributions foster an environment where team members are more inclined to work hard and surpass expectations.

In my opinion, the above suggestions are just a start, but they validate the contribution of the workforce and give managers more confidence in the team and the information that percolates up from the workforce.  After all, regardless of your organization's particular work management methodology, business leaders rely on accurate information to help them make good decisions.  Project management tools that help facilitate that are what most project managers are looking for.

What do you do to ensure that every member of your project teams feels like their contributions are valued and essential to achieving business goals?