Strategic Project Management

Last Spring while working in London, my colleagues and I spent one evening exploring the city and found ourselves in the Sunday evening crowds around Piccadilly Square. Wandering around, we came across a Haagen Dazs® ice cream shop and thought we’d order one of their delicious milk shakes. Like every other time we’ve been on the road and thought one of these delicious ice cream confections sounded good, the place was reasonably busy. We took our place in line (or the queue if your in England) and patiently waited our turn.

It wasn’t long before some self-important guy with fancy shoes bust in expecting his order to be taken—however he’d tried to enter at the wrong end of the queue. Upset that he had been ignored (while uttering a number of expletives) he stormed out frustrated that the person behind the counter had the nerve to expect him to take his place at the back of the line.

This is not an uncommon problem in many organizations. All too often it feels like the squeaky wheel gets the most attention while more important work sits patiently in the queue waiting. Sometimes because of the title or authority of the “squeaker,” insignificant work gets top priority—which makes capacity planning problematic at best and impossible in many cases.

In my opinion, before we can accurately capacity plan, we need to effectively manage the queue. This is much easier for project teams that work on the same types of projects on a regular basis; and more challenging for companies that are always doing one-off, special projects—but it can be done.

When I first started managing projects I used a whiteboard to manage the queue. It worked, but it required me to capture email requests, assignments made in meetings and other requests manually. I’d then add them to the queue, prioritize them and begin the project planning process. I liked the fact that the whiteboard was on the wall in front of my desk and that I could keep an eye on my projects and how the team was progressing—but it wasn’t very efficient. I spent a lot of time at the board updating status, re-prioritizing and making notes. Good, but not great.

Although I’m not a certified “Scrum Master” I have led a Sprint or two. I like the idea of the backlog, which is a lot more efficient than my old whiteboard, but it has its limitations.

Managing the queue becomes really important when your team does a lot of ad hoc work like my team does or provides shared services to your organization like many in IT, marketing or HR. Sometimes things fit nicely into a work breakdown structure, but this isn’t always the case. In a recent webinar, I heard Forrester’s Tim Harmon suggest that for most knowledge workers, over fifty percent of their work is what he calls unstructured/ad hoc work. In conversations I’ve had with project leaders over the last year, they all tell the same story: there’s a lot of work done by project teams that are short-duration one-off requests from colleagues, managers from other departments and peers that eat up a lot of team members’ time. Sometimes the project manager might know about these requests so he can accommodate them within his or her capacity plan, but not always.

I use our software to help manage my queue. Some of the most commonly requested project types are templated with the building blocks (established by best practice) already in place so we can apply them as needed to any upcoming plan. Internal customers can enter their request into the queue and I can prioritize, plan and execute as needed. Even one-off task requests come through the queue so I can add them to my work list, prioritize, take care of them myself or assign them to another member of the team. Managing the queue makes it much easier for me to address the likelihood that a new project request can be completed and when it might be executed with the person making the request. The queue informs the discussion about capacity and prioritization—making it easier to say “no” when needed or to “pivot” and change gears when required.

Before we can manage capacity, we need to manage the queue. I know what works for me. What works for you?

"If you're one of those people who chronically checks work e-mail—on the weekends, at night, in the wee morning hours—then STOP," reports the Huffington Post.

I browse through several online newspapers each morning, and the headline, Taking A Break From Work E-mail Could Help Curb Stress: Study, caught my eye. According to a new study from UC Irvine and the U.S. Army, taking a break from work email can lower stress and improve focus.

"We found that when you remove e-mail from workers' lives, they multitask less and experience less stress," said study researcher Gloria Mark, an informatics professor at UC Irvine.

I just heard the collective groan from all of my colleagues who are regularly sending emails and texts to each other after hours—and the cheers from my wife who regularly asks me what is so important every time I glance at my iPhone when it "buzzes" at me.

The researchers attached heart rate monitors to people working at the computer in an office setting and measured their heart rate variability—a signal of low stress (a constant heart rate is linked to higher levels of stress).

"The researchers found that when provided access to checking email, the study participants were constantly on 'high alert'—with more constant heart rates—and changed screens 37 times an hour, on average."

The study also showed when cut off from their email for five days, their heart rates became more variable—thus under less stress. They also changed screens about half as many times an hour.

Here's another question for you. Do you ever "think" your smartphone has buzzed to let you know you have an email when it hasn't? My wife laughs at me every time that happens to me. The study also found that this is not uncommon and calls it "phantom alerts".

I'm not sure how much work we'd be able to get done without email. Email is integral to what I'm doing on a daily basis. It's become a critical component to the way most people communicate and collaborate with each other.

Although email may be here to stay, constantly being "on" isn't good for anyone's health. Finding the right balance is an individual thing, but I will probably continue to check my email and my wife will continue to roll her eyes at me. Maybe if I leave it alone while we're conversing at the restaurant I'll be able to reduce stress at two levels.

Is your project data trustworthy? If you answered "no" or "I'm not sure", you aren't alone.

I've observed this to be a pretty universal conundrum. What's more, it compels us to ask the question, "If some of the data associated with project-based work is questionable, is there a way to improve its overall trustworthiness for decision-making?"

I believe there is.

There's been a lot of dialog recently about the impact of social media on the project management process. And, for the most part, we seem to fall into one of two camps. We're either advocates of embracing social media or we are opposed to it. I fall into the former camp. I'm a big fan of embracing the social media metaphor.

The key to whether or not we have trustworthy information to make decisions depends upon how accurately we can capture project information at the source—individual contributors on a project team. Like most of you, I've spent my fair share of time going from cube to cube asking, begging, and cajoling for a status update. I've also watched team members fumble around looking at notes, whiteboards and scraps of paper to pull that information together. Each time I was frustrated at how inaccurate I knew my report was going to be before I even started.

Most team members don't really get the project management process. They look at project managers as one more hindrance to actually getting things done. Of course, this isn't correct, project managers are facilitators  and help get the work done, right?

I'm convinced that engaging the team in the project management process is crucial to collecting accurate and timely project information that can be trusted to inform decisions. What's more, I think the social media metaphor can help us do it.

Why is it that the same folks who chafe at updating their project status in PM tools will spend hours at home "updating status" on Facebook and other social media? I think the answer is pretty straightforward:

Social Media Provides Value to the User

If the only value updating status in your project management software provides is giving you (the project manager) accurate information to push up, it's not enough value for most team members to contribute. In my opinion, social media provides value at a couple of different levels that we can and should be implementing into the project management process:

1. Social media is about collaboration: Post an update, get a response. Make another update, start a conversation. That isn't happening in most project management software. Tasks get pushed down. There's little if any dialog. There's no request for comment. The obligation is on the team member to finish his or her task in the time allotted and that's pretty much it. Not a very collaborative way to collaborate on projects, tasks and issues is it? Incorporating the social media metaphor into the PM process allows team members, project managers and others to collaborate about work in a way that feels natural to the Facebook generation. If the metaphor works and is accepted by the workforce as meaningful, does it really make sense to fight it? Embrace it. Leverage it.
2. Social media is about recognition: One of the things I've noticed over the last few years is the recognition component of social media. When people post an accomplishment, their friends and followers within their network seem to come out of the woodwork to congratulate and praise it. Applying the public nature of the social media metaphor to the PM process allows team members and other colleagues to make comment and acknowledge the accomplishments of their coworkers. Additionally, when everyone's accomplishments (or lack thereof) are visible to managers and their peers, people tend to perform at a higher level. It's more difficult to sit back and pretend to be busy working. Whether or not you are is visible to everyone on the team.
3. Social media isn't very complicated: I must admit, I did have a younger colleague show me how to use Facebook initially. It took her about two minutes to completely explain how it worked. I didn't need to attend a multi-day training program to figure it out. When was the last time you were able to start using a project management tool with that level of ramp up? I know, what project management tools do is a lot more complicated than Facebook. I get it. However, they don't need to be that complex for the individual on a project team.

The real linchpin to whether or not we have trustworthy data to make decisions is the individual contributor on a project team. I think it's past time we started looking at him or her, and how we can best engage them in the process, to make sure that the information we rely on to make smart decisions is timely and trustworthy. Let's give them some value so they'll become willing participants in the process.

What are  you doing to engage the team? Does your software help you do it?

Several months ago I read an article published by Liz Ryan in Businessweek. I've unashamedly ripped off her headline, but I've been sitting on this one for a long time because, although I think she's right, it isn't the way most project leaders and other business leaders look at their roles.

She talks about the volume of mail she receives from retired CEOs whenever she talks about leadership principles. She may be talking to CEOs, but I think the same ideas apply to how we interact with people and lead teams. The opinions of the CEOs she hears from seem split down the middle.

"A great deal of my retired-CEO mail floods in when I write about leadership," writes Ryan. "The retired-CEO population (or at least the subset of it that writes to me) is split roughly down the middle in its views on the employer-employee relationship. When I write something like, 'An employee’s job is to give 100 percent at the job every day, and an employer’s job is to give the employee a reason to come back to work tomorrow,' half of my retired-CEO correspondents say, 'Hear, hear!' The other half write, 'That’s horrible of you. What’s happened to the American work ethic? You should be telling people to knuckle down and make money for their employers.'

This is nothing new. Bosses have been having this discussion for the last 30 years that I'm aware of. The conversation usually starts with someone asking, "What's happened to the American work ethic?"

The same people who are asking that question today don't know it, but their bosses were asking that same thing about them 20 years ago.

"My dad had that true-blue work ethic, and I don’t blame him," says Ryan. "It’s part of who he was, but he also had every good reason to believe his employer would do the right thing by him year in and year out, and it did. It was a different time. Who would take an entry-level sales job out of college and go on to have eight kids under the assumption that more and more responsible and lucrative work would emerge in time to sustain the growing family? That wasn’t a bad bet in 1950. It would be financial folly today."

I agree when Ryan suggests that it's my job to give 100 percent each day and it's my employer's job to give me a reason to come back to work tomorrow. Unfortunately for a lot of teams, challenging economic times have made everyone lazy. Companies haven't had to make the workplace any better, so they haven't. The whole "do more with less" mentality has helped American corporations survive the last few years, but they're doing it with employees suffering from burn-out or worse, paycheck employees who are just there because it's a job and it pays the bills.

"The old saw, 'It’s not supposed to be fun—that’s why they call it work,' is one of my grumpy former-CEO pen pals’ favorite rants," says Ryan. "The crazy part is, I don’t believe for one second any one of those guys (all guys, so far, in my retired-CEO fan club) actually managed that way during his corner-office days."

She argues, and I agree, do we really want team members who are only here because it's a job and a paycheck? Don't we want team members who are here because they want to contribute to something meaningful—make a difference? "If it isn't fun, the CEO so quick to say, 'That's why they call it work,' is screwing himself over," writes Ryan.

I'm not suggesting that the workplace needs to be filled with silly games, artificial team-building exercises or the like. What makes the work fun is the challenge of doing exciting things, contributing to something meaningful and doing the work that you're the best at. All the things we typically talk about when discussing team member engagement.

By the way, I'm fortunate enough to work with people who are incredibly engaged and work very hard to contribute to something meaningful and valuable to our customers.

Over the years I've worked for and with a number of people who "watched the clock." Employers who expected their staff to put in more than 40 hours each week and colleagues who refused to put in any more than that. I think both views are shortsighted. I think it's time we worried less about the assumed hours-for-dollars contract and focused on the value people bring to the table (and granted, some of that value is the time they spend on the job), but the lines between work and personal life have become so blurred over the last few years that many times employees who leave the office at 5:00 or 6:00 pm may be headed home and off the clock, but they are still thinking about and solving problems that make a positive difference at the job. I know my colleagues and I often share emails, text messages or phone calls over the weekend, while on vacation or other times when we're not at work.

I entered the workforce many moons ago (when dinosaurs roamed the earth according to my kids) sweeping the floor of my fathers warehouse. He would hate this post—he was a "clock watcher." However, like Ryan, I think it's time we change the way we think about how we lead the team and the type of environment we create. Work should be fun.

What are  you doing to create a "fun" environment on your project team?

Robert Half recently asked executives about the biggest roadblocks to organizational breakthroughs. 35 percent of chief financial officers said "a lack of new ideas" is the most difficult barrier to innovation. 24 percent cited bureaucracy as the top killer of creativity with 20 percent blaming being bogged down with daily tasks or putting out fires.

Responses from 1,400 some odd CFOs from a random sample of U.S. companies all answered the following question: "What is the greatest barrier to your company being more innovative?" Here are the responses:

1. Lack of new ideas—35%
2. Too much bureaucracy—24%
3. Being bogged down in daily tasks or putting out fires—20%
4. Ineffective leadership—9%
5. Other—1%
6. Don't know/no answer—11%

I don't think anyone would disagree that innovation is what helps keep companies growing and profitable. Environments that foster innovation also keep employees engaged and excited about coming to work every day. Robert Half suggests six tips for creating an environment that inspires innovation among teams. I like the list:

1. Engage the entire team: If we can't engage the team in what we're doing, we've lost before we've even begun. This should be no surprise to anyone who leads a project team—particularly those who work with matrixed teams cobbled together throughout the organization. Although I'm fortunate enough to work with the same team on almost every project, many project managers aren't so lucky. Facilitating an environment where team members feel engaged isn't brain surgery, but it does require some effort. Is your team engaged? Here's a brief quiz that should give you an idea.
2. Remove the red tape: This often manifests itself in lengthy approval processes that force work to a standstill. I once heard a colleague lament, "I want to produce. I don't want to sit around all day thinking about producing." Sometimes it's a matter of empowering people to make decisions about their specific role. A few years back I learned of three keys to smart decision making, I've tried to embrace them because nobody wants to be forced into asking "Mother, may I?" every time they need to make a decision.
3. Keep it collaborative: Collaboration is more important than competition. It's critical to create environments where people can effectively collaborate and work together. I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't agree that a collaborative work environment is more productive, yet far too many organizations don't create environments that encourage collaboration. Not long ago I wrote about four key elements that should be part of a collaborative environment, collaboration can sometimes be messy because we all have divergent opinions, but it's well worth the efforts.
4. Build a better brainstorm: We've all been in brainstorming sessions that felt like a waste of time bouncing ideas around that all sounded stupid—until we landed on that one really great idea. I've discovered that you've got to go through a lot of really bad ideas before you identify the good ones. I've also noticed that this gets easier the more you do it.
5. Give 'em a break: I've discovered that mistakes increase for every hour over nine or ten hours people work in a day. Burnout is a serious problem and in reality, when teams are putting in a lot of overtime, it's an indication of a project in trouble—not a successful initiative. I grew up in an era when the amount of time you spent on the job was a badge of honor. I'm not sure I feel that way anymore. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's COO leaves the office at 5:30 pm every evening, "Are you putting in the hours?" might not be the right question anymore.
6. Seek inspiration: As the project leader, its important that you have the skills you'll need to inspire the team. That also implies that you are inspired yourself. Make sure you set aside time to do whatever it is you do to unwind and clear your head. For me, there's nothing like sitting on the saddle of my motorcycle or in a comfortable chair with a good book. I recently discovered that reading a novel is actually considered a great way to help master interpersonal relationships (as well as unwind). Whatever it is, make sure you spend time recharging your own batteries.

What are the barriers to innovation within your organization? Among your project team members? What are you doing about it?