Strategic Project Management

The Swiss philosopher Henri Frederic Amiel said, "The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides."

I have observed that this is true of most project-based work.  The inability (or unwillingness) to make decisions has proven to be the downfall of many projects.  Project management software won't make decisions for you, at best it can only provide you with the information you need to make project decisions.  The ability to absorb information and make decisions is a critical "must have" skill for project managers.

It's been said that good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.  Although I don't entirely agree—oftentimes any kind of decision (even a bad decision) is better than no decision.  I've observed that sometimes in the heat of battle, as circumstances change, some managers procrastinate making decisions for fear that they might make a bad decision.  With that in mind, I think planning for procrastination the same way we plan the allocation of resources, project return, and risk might provide an answer.

By "planning for procrastination" I mean, making as many decisions up front as possible—reducing the need for spontaneous decision-making when it's crunch time.  That doesn't mean there's no room for making decisions as situations change, but it does eliminate the need to make decisions about the things that could easily be made in advance.  Thomas Edison said, "Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets planning."  I think inventing the light-bulb was a pretty successful project.

Another option is to pre-establish the criteria for making decisions in any given circumstance.  Of course you can't anticipate everything, but you can plan ahead for many of the common challenges and situations that might occur.

With that in mind, we need to remember the words of humorist Will Rogers, "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."

With any project-based work, the ramifications of procrastination are serious.  There are project management tools that will make it easier to plan, communicate with team members, and evaluate success, but ultimately someone needs to be responsible for making decisions.

What are you doing to avoid procrastination?
 

Most nine-year-olds I knew, played little league baseball.  Like most teams, we practiced several times a week.  Throwing, hitting, running, and other drills were never the fun part of baseball practice—we wanted to play the game.  I've since come to appreciate how learning the fundamentals is important in any field of endeavor.  In my opinion, managing projects is no different.  Here are some of the fundamental project management best practices I think apply to successful work management:

1. Make sure the project has a clearly defined business objective—and that everyone involved in the project understands what it is: It's important for stakeholders and project teams to understand the business value of what they're doing.  Keeping the project vision visible and accessible enables everyone involved in the project to stay focused on what's important—and that keeps scope creep to a minimum.
2. Make sure the project has executive commitment to see it through:  One of the quickest ways to kill a project is to pull its funding out from under it.  A committed executive can also help promote the merits of the project to others within the organization to build a broader base of stakeholder support.
3. Make sure there is a shared sense of determination to finish the project: If the only member of the team committed to finish the project is the project manager, it's not likely the project will ever be completed.  Individual team members and executive stakeholders need to have the same determination.  Without a shared sense of determination to finish, projects languish and eventually fail.

With anything, mastering the fundamentals isn't very exciting, but is often the difference between someone who is successful and someone who isn't.  With the benefit of hindsight, I certainly would have spent more time working on the fundamentals of baseball if I had little league to do over again.

Project and portfolio management software, and other project management tools offer both experienced and new project managers a number of valuable tools to help them establish work management best practices and methodologies.  That being said, nothing can substitute for establishing a good work management foundation.

What are some of the fundamentals you would add to my list?

 

I am still amazed at how small the world has become since I started my career—the technology that allows me to interact with colleagues instantaneously from around the world continues to blow my mind.  Computers, cell phones, VOIP, and video conferencing allow me to work from almost anywhere in the world.  Although my adult children harass me about growing up when dinosaurs ruled the earth, we did get a lot of work done without cell phones, personal computers, or SKYPE.

As convenient as things are now, there are some unique challenges to working in a global project environment.  Organizations regularly working with teams from around the world need to consider the cultural, language, geographic, and time differences that can sometimes make working with global teams problematic.

• The Challenge of Different Time Zones: Collaborating with teams in South America, China, the UK, and Cincinnati can sometimes be problematic.  For example, as I write this at 7:45 am local time, it's 11:45 pm in Tokyo, 2:45 pm in London, 12:45 pm in Rio, and 10:45 pm in Beijing.  The challenges of putting together a project team meeting with a globally diverse workforce are sometimes as basic as determining what time to hold the meeting.
• A Possible Solution: Nobody on the project team should be asked to regularly stay up until 2:00 am just to make it more convenient for you.  Everyone on the project team should be able to share the burden of an inconvenient meeting time once in a while.  A simple solution is to try to hold team meetings when everyone is at work, which might be early in the workday where you are and later in the workday where part of the team is located—at least everyone should take turns meeting at inconvenient times.

• The Challenge of Bringing the Team Together: Sometimes it's important to bring the team together, which has the potential to be pretty expensive.
• A Possible Solution: At @task, we have global project teams that work out of Europe and Asia.  Although we don't get together often, we do get together.  Online project management tools help organizations collaborate and work together in different countries, timezones, and languages—but the need to get together doesn't completely go away.  Personally meeting together as a team once or twice a year is important for building morale and team esprit de corps.

• The Challenges of Different Languages: The nuances of different languages beg for miss-communication.  Even where your particular language is spoken as a second language, it's critical that communication be clear.  We need to be cautious, particularly where the lion's share of communication is written, where body language and facial expression are not available to aid understanding.
• A Possible Solution: Video conferencing is a good option, but at the very least, make sure emails contain all the information necessary to communicate your ideas clearly.  I try to address all my emails with a salutation and a name to remind me that I am actually communicating with a real person.  Even amongst my co-workers, where English is our native language, we sometimes misunderstand and misinterpret an abrupt email.

• The Challenges of Cultural Differences: If part of what defines us is our shared experiences, taking time for global team members to become better acquainted, and share experiences to create a team culture is important.  This is true even if your team only spreads across your own country.
• A Possible Solution: Take the time for global project teams to become familiar with each others varied customs and cultures.  It might be as simple as sharing a regional dish for lunch.  In this regard, a little effort goes a long way.

Managing project-based work with global project teams might be a little more complicated, but keeping expectations realistic among team members and stakeholders can lead to success.

If you work with global project teams, what are some of the things you are doing to facilitate collaboration and successful project management best practices?

 

I remember watching this video of the 1964 Alaska earthquake as an elementary school student.  At 5:30 pm on Friday March 27, 1964 the 9.2 magnitude quake that pummeled Alaska was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in North American history and the second largest earthquake ever recorded in the history of the world.

In Prince William Sound, a 27-foot tsunami destroyed the village of Chenega, killing 23 of the 68 residents.  Post-earthquake tsunamis severely hit Veldez, Whittier, Seward, Kodiak, and other Alaskan Communities.  The video includes live footage captured by a couple of sailors on board a freighter being unloaded at the dock.

Unfortunately, there isn't a reliable way to scientifically predict (with any accuracy) a coming earthquake. 

Luckily, there are early warning signs when a project is in trouble.  I think everyone would agree that missing deadlines or exceeding budgets is evidence that a project is probably in trouble.  However, those symptoms are often recognized after it's too late to do anything about it.  Anyone doing project-based work knows how important it is to recognize a project in trouble before it's too late to do anything about it.  Not long ago I came across this list of early warning signs that every project manager should watch for:

1. Direction from management is either missing or inconsistent: The only thing worse than project leadership that is missing in action, is direction that contradicts itself and changes frequently.
2. Business management and project management aren't on the same page: If the project gets consistent direction, but it's at odds with the company business objectives, there is more than likely a problem.
3. Project goals are not clearly articulated and understood by the project team: Although every project usually has a business goal or two—projects without a business objective should probably be reconsidered, right?  Often, project goals are not clearly articulated or understood by the project team.  Occasionally the business objective is thought to be so obvious it's never clearly stated.  (It reminds me of when my wife asks me if I noticed anything different when I get home.  I'm a guy.  Of course I didn't notice.)  Assuming that the objectives are obvious could lead to misunderstanding and inconsistent presumptions about priorities.
4. Team members don't communicate with each other: Sometimes, even teams that get along well don't communicate well.  Communication and collaboration are essential to any successful project.

Recognizing problems before it's too late to do anything about them is critical to work management success.  Addressing issues early is the best way to save a lagging project, as well as a project manager's career.  What early warning signs do you look for to insure project management success?

A couple of years ago I stumbled across what Mark Lilly and Tim Rahshulte called the 10 Unbreakable Rules for Project Success.  Lilly and Rahshulte ask, "Why do so few projects succeed?  Despite the decades of increasingly complex attempts to manage projects, far too many managers overlook the 10 unbreakable rules for project success ... these common sense guidelines hold the key to increasing your success rate and delivering greater consistency across your project's life-cycle."

I tend to agree with Lilly and Rashulte, as technology advances and makes it easier for project managers to streamline processes and address challenges, I think it's important to occasionally remind ourselves about the basic rules for successful projects.  When I need that reminder, I usually look at this list:

1. Know what you are doing: Make sure there is a project plan.
2. Know why you are doing it: Make sure the objective is clearly defined.
3. Be prudent, honest, and prepared: Few organizations have limitless budgets, prudence, honesty and common sense are critical.
4. Plan to your strenghts: Make sure you have the right team for the project.
5. Know how to navigate: Understand how to get things accomplished within your organization.
6. Know how to communicate: Good communication skills are critical.  Project managers must communicate with team members, end users, and stakeholders.
7. Know how to succeed: Project success should be clearly defined and understood.
8. Know how to fail: There should also be a definition of what constitutes failure.
9. Know when the project is over: Don't let scope creep turn the project into the never ending story.
10. Know how to learn: As the philosopher Santayana suggested, if we aren't willing to learn from history, we are destined to repeat it.  I believe the ability to learn from experience is one of the most critical project management skills.

Regardless of how sophisticated your work management methodologies are, don't forget the 10 unbreakable rules for project management success.  Are there any rules you think we should add?