Strategic Project Management

As an accidental project manager, I used to think the challenges I faced were the result of my background (or lack of same).  Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that regardless of your level of project management training, there are some common challenges that need to be addressed by every project manager.  It doesn't even really matter the nature of the project or your particular project management methodology, if you neglect the following, the odds are against the success of your project:

1. Unrealistic Deadlines: The success of some projects might depend on a hard deadline, but most projects don't.  Creative and flexible planning can remove the stresses of unrealistic deadlines.
2. Scope Changes: Although I think most of us would agree that you can't always stop change, you can make stakeholders aware of what scope changes cost.  Changes in schedule, cost, and even the quality of the product can add up fast.
3. Failing to Manage Risk: Ignoring risk doesn't make it go away. Acknowledging risk and addressing it early will at least minimize expensive issues later.  Risk and efforts to mitigate risk should be identified before the project has even begun.
4. Poor Team Communication and Collaboration: With all the technology available today, there is almost no excuse for poor project team communication.  The right PPM software makes collaboration easier—and online project management software makes it possible for teams spread throughout the world.
5. Stakeholders Who Aren't Engaged: Keeping stakeholders informed of project status is only a start.  The real challenge involves helping stakeholders see the value of becoming real project advocates.
6. Undefined Project Goals and Objectives: To maximize the value of every project, each project should be tied to some kind of strategic objective.  Once identified, it's critical that everyone know what the strategic value of any particular project in process.  Most people want to be part of something bigger than themselves.  It's always been a puzzle to me why so many organizations neglect to share their vision with the workforce.

What are you doing within your organization to overcome some of these challenges?

There once was a speedy hare who bragged about how fast he could run.  Tired of hearing him boast, Slow and Steady, the tortoise, challenged him to a race.  All the animals in the forest gathered to watch.

Hare ran down the road for a while and then paused to rest.  He looked back at Slow and Steady and cried out, "How do you expect to win this race when you are walking along at your slow, slow pace?"

Hare stretched himself out alongside the road and fell asleep, thinking, "There is plenty of time to relax."

Slow and Steady walked and walked.  He never, ever stopped until he came to the finish line.

The animals who were watching cheered so loudly for Tortoise, they woke up Hare.

Hare stretched and yawned and began to run again, but it was too late.  Tortoise was over the line.

After that, Hare always reminded himself, "Don't brag about your lightening pace, for Slow and Steady won the race!"

It's natural for highly driven business leaders, motivated to succeed, to be unfailingly optimistic about their organizations ability to sprint forward on every initiative (I actually believe this level of confidence in the project team can be a good thing).  Unfortunately, always pushing project teams to rush out the gate like the Hare can sometimes be detrimental to project success.  Over the course of my career, I've noticed that a methodical, steady, and constant pace consistently produces successful results—leaving those who dash about like the Hare in the dust.

In my mind's eye, I don't see the Tortoise as plodding and unimaginative—which could be an argument against him (by those who don't understand him).  What I see is the Hare, unarguably quick out the gate, but unable to finish.

What can organizations do to avoid losing the race?  Here are a couple of suggestions:

1. Keep projects focused on attainable objectives
2. Allow time for organization and planning
3. Avoid, when possible, the random "emergency" projects that are typically the result of poor planning or knee-jerk reactions to changing circumstances
4. Empower the project team with a means to contribute to establishing their own milestones and benchmark time-lines
5. Utilize project and portfolio management tools to contribute to work management success

Are your project teams more like the Tortoise or the Hare?  Just remember that you can't brag about your lightening pace if Slow and Steady wins the race.

 

It's called Occam's razor.  "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity."  In other words, the simplest solution is often the correct solution.

The principle, attributed to the English theologian and Franciscan friar, William of Occam, is considered a rule of thumb today as scientists develop theoretical models.  In the scientific method, Occam's razor might not be considered an irrefutable principle of logic, but is a valuable tool for keeping scientists from over-complicating simple solutions.

As project and portfolio management methodologies have become more complex, sometimes it's easy to overlook the simple solutions—which may actually be the best.  A one size fits all approach to work management is not the answer and is a weakness of many project management software tools.  With bubble charts, resource management tools, agile, SCRUM, waterfall, PMOs, interactive Gantt charts, and resource leveling, I sometimes wonder if we have forgotten that project management is really about helping people focus on the activities that provide value and getting work done.

I'm not saying that all of these tools are unimportant.  Like most of you, I work with projects of different duration, complexity, and urgency every day.  Some are very structured and some are very informal.  All of them are considered important to the organization—but does that imply they they all need the same level of formal structure?

I don't think so.  With that in mind, here are three keys to simplify most project-based work:

1. Don't underestimate the power of a checklist: Most of us have had experience working with a checklist since the days when mom wanted us to mow the lawn, weed the flowerbeds, and take out the trash.  A checklist can be a valuable tool for even the most complicated projects.  Regardless of the size or complexity of your project, looking for places to leverage a simple checklist can be very practical.  NASA has been sending astronauts into space for decades with the help of checklists—and those are pretty complicated projects.
2. Team synergy is a powerful tool: I learned a long time ago that two heads are better than one.  Involving everyone in the project plan, where appropriate, does a number of things to streamline team effectiveness and encourage project success.  Not the least of these is to create buy-in and insure greater team participation.
3. Don't throw away the trash can: Over the last couple of years we've heard a lot about doing more with less.  It's something we talk about in our organization.  However, I think many organizations miss the point.  In real terms, we should be talking about doing less with less, but doing more of the right things.  At some point, smaller project teams and smaller organizations can't do more, no matter how much they automate processes with software or other project tools.

Looking for the simplest solutions will help any project team be more effective.  These three suggestions will help you simplify your projects plans regardless of the project.

How do you apply Occam's razor to your project plans?


 

One of my co-workers recently introduced me to a program produced by the BBC called Top Gear.  At his suggestion, I have started watching the three hosts test drive cool cars, interview interesting people, and otherwise do all the things middle-aged guys like myself would enjoy doing on a Saturday afternoon. 

In a recent episode, the three were asked to pretend that they were 17 years old and given a modest budget with which they needed to purchase and insure a used car.  My wife claims that none of the men she knows (including myself and our three sons), matured much past 17, so she thought it was funny that they had to remember what it was like to be 17 again.

All agreed that a 17 year old boy's first car needed to meet some general, if not conflicting, criteria to please both the boy and his parents:

1. It had to be cool
2. It had to be quick and sporty
3. It had to be safe
4. It had to be cheap to insure

In other words, there was no way it could meet the 17 year old's expectations while meeting his parents expectations.  The used cars ultimately picked were, a VW Golf, Hyundai's Scope, and a Volvo 240 Wagon (somebody's mom must have chosen this one). 

While watching this particular episode, I couldn't help but think of the groups within an organization who use project management tools, and what their different requirements were.  In a nutshell, I think you'll agree that the list of "required" project management features is relatively short:

1. The solution should help business leaders sift through project requests and evaluate each request based on business value, alignment with strategic objectives, along with any potential risks and rewards.
2. The solution should help manage "the process" of project implementation and execution to ensure that projects stay on track and are completed on time, on budget, and with the desired functionality.
3. The solution should make it easy for project team members to participate in the process without forcing them to become project managment experts themselves.
4. The solution should give business leaders access to relevant, timely, and qualifiable information that enables them to make better-informed decisions.

In my opinion, for any work management solution to be effective, it must address the needs of:

1. Project Teams: The more difficult it is for project teams to participate in the process, the less likely they are to do it.  It doesn't matter how sophisticated a project management solution's reports and dashboards are, the data will not be accurate or timely if it's challenging for project teams to update task status.
2. Project Managers: Helping project managers "manage" the process doesn't mean forcing them to manually input status information to push up to the executive level.  It means automating those processes that can be automated and creating an environment where team members will voluntarily update project status so managers can spend more time helping team members be effective and successful.
3. Executive Decision Makers: Formalizing the project selection process and providing executives with the information they need to make well-enformed decisions enables business leaders to think strategically.

Unlike a teenager trying to buy a reasonably-priced car that will meet with parental approval, you can meet the needs of project teams, project managers, and executives when you are looking for a project management solution. 

How does your project management solution address the needs of executives, project managers, and project teams?

 

The other day while channel surfing, I stumbled upon an old episode of the highly successful television series M*A*S*H.  In my opinion,  the M*A*S*H TV series eclipsed the success of the movie.  I loved watching the characters develop and grow over the 11 years the series ran, culminating in the most watched TV episode ever, for the series finale.

The particular episode I stumbled upon dealt with a general whose cavalier attitude about the lives he lost in battle made him the bane of doctors Pierce and Honeycut.  The General, focused on overcoming the enemy to take an unnamed hill, and considered the projected casualties nothing more than an acceptable number of resources lost to win the battle.

While I don't believe the casualties of project-based work are the same as the lives of those lost in battle, I do believe they exist.  And, I would never want to minimize the loss to families who have lost a loved one in armed conflict anywhere in the world, so I am treading carefully here.  That being said, regardless of the situation, when any organization forgets that their human resources are actually people—there will be casualties.

Unfortunately, most project management software tends to treat people like raw materials managers can push around a time-line like pawns on a chess board.  Although I'm a real believer in the value of project software, I believe that it's the people that work on project teams that are actually responsible for getting work done.

For example, if your definition of resource management or capacity planning stops at dropping names or job roles on the time-line of an interactive Gantt chart, maybe you should take a step back and reconsider.  The "manager" in project manager implies something more than managing process in my mind.

"Resource management" and "capacity planning" might not be the best words to use, but to be fair, project management has evolved into a highly-technical discipline and therefore employs impersonal and technical language.  In fact, not too long ago, a coworker was reading something I had written and asked, What does resource management really mean?  Are you talking about human resources, raw materials, or something else?"

His point was well taken.  I spent a few extra minutes and more clearly defined what I was talking about.  (Although I haven't been able to come up with a better name for it yet either.)

Although some of the casualties of project-based work (or rather forgetting the project team is made up of people) are considered soft-costs—not all are.  Here are four casualties to name a few—feel free to add to the list anything I've left out:

1. Morale: Morale is the biggest casualty, and the foundation for many of the other casualties
2. Employee turnover: Where there is poor morale, there is high employee turnover and the associated hard costs of training new employees to replace those lost
3. A drop in productivity: This is another hard cost to organizations with poor morale—unmotivated employees just don't get as much done
4. A drop in revenue: The cost of turnover and poor productivity at some point start to cost real money—which is where many organizations start to take project casualties seriously

How does an organization avoid casualties?  It starts by remembering that the resources being moved around the resource grid are people.  It also involves spending time engaging the workforce in the project management process.  Today's workforce expects more from a career than a mindless job.  The rules have changed, an engaged workforce is the key to project success, and facilitating that really doesn't take that much:

1. Empowerment: The workforce (people) want to be empowered with ownership and the ability to contribute to the benchmarks and time-lines associated with what they are doing.
2. Recognition: People take pride in their work and they care about what their managers and peers think of them and their accomplishments.  We all crave recognition for a job well done (even if we don't publicly admit it).  Organizations that are able to successfully accomplish this are more likely to have a happy and engaged workforce.

In the M*A*S*H episode I described earlier, Hawkeye poisoned the general so he could do an emergency appendectomy and take him out of commission for a few weeks—ultimately forcing I-Corp to replace the general with someone else.  Hopefully, reducing the number of casualties in your organizations won't rely on morally suspect methods—just common sense and the Golden Rule.

Please share what you do within your project teams to keep casualties to a minimum.