Strategic Project Management

It didn't really matter what it was about, if the only reason my father could give me was, "because I said so," I automatically didn't like his decision.  However, as a father myself, I must admit there were times when I pulled the "because I said so" card.

Fortunately, my wife was always good at explaining why we made the kinds of decisions we did.

Last week we briefly talked about some decision-making techniques used by the 2002 Winter Olympic Games COO Fraser Bullock.  Among other things, we started to talk about his "start slow to go fast" approach to making decisions.

The technique really resonated with me.  Bullock described the challenge of making decisions in a vacuum and the implementation challenges associated with the surprise announcement of any single decision.  Particularly with decisions that initiate change.  Bullock suggested that involving others in the organization in the decision-making process enables better buy-in by those who will be impacted by the change.  Although there are some CEOs who believe that involving others as decisions are being made, slows down the process and costs time, Mr. Bullock argues that the time lost by "starting slow" and engaging those impacted by the decision, ultimately allows the organization to "go fast" during the implementation phase.

Although I might be able to convince my wife to help CEOs (or any project decision maker) explain what they are doing when they make abrupt and surprising decisions, it might not be too practical.  However, Fraser Bullock described the 37,000 tasks associated with pulling of a successful Olympic Games as a decision-making challenge of Herculean proportions.  His "start slow to go fast" decision-making approach made it possible to make a lot of very smart decisions.

I once worked with a man who practiced what Bullock preaches.  He used to say, "It's easy for me to make a mistake, but it's unlikely that we will collectively make big mistakes."  He fostered an environment where ideas were freely exchanged, differences of opinion were discussed, and consensus was reached.  His was a very successful organization where everyone on the team felt empowered to positively impact the enterprise.  Unfortunately, some entrepreneurs look down their nose at the word "consensus."

The 2002 Winter Olympic Games have been recognized as one of the most successful Games in the history of the Olympics, and makes a powerful arguement for starting slow to go fast.

What does you organization do to foster good decision-making practices?
 

I don't typically talk too much about what @task is doing specifically to impact project management, but we're making an announcement today at our User Conference that I believe is a real game changing event for project management, and felt it needed to be shared in this forum.

Over the last couple of months, there has been a lot of discussion in this blog, and others, about the value of social networking tools and the role they should or shouldn't play in the project management process.  It's no secret that I believe we are facing a paradigm shift regarding the traditional methods of communication used by project teams and the proliferation of social media networking tools.  Traditional software methods for capturing project information are so inherently complex, they alienate team members and force managers to beg, cajole, and nag for status updates—while providing an incomplete story of what's happening within the project.

A survey conducted by Elizabeth Harrin of the Girls Guide to Project Management blog titled Social Media in a Project Environment validated many of my assertions regarding the proliferation of social networking tools and their adoption within the project environment.  62% of the respondents to Harrin's survey said that applying social networking tools to the project management process improved communication, while another 56% indicated it improved collaboration.

As PPM methodologies spread departmentally throughout the organization, one of the greatest challenges facing business leaders is a lack of voluntary team member participation in the project management process.  The traditional top-down work management approach doesn't work with today's workforce, resulting in 1) project information that executives don't trust, 2) an overly structured work environment that nobody likes, 3) frustrated project teams whose accomplishments often go unrecognized.

We've taken a step back and tried to take an objective look at the PPM process with fresh eyes.  By considering the project management process anew, we've discovered that people are the key to project management success and are more willing to interact with the process and provide the valuable, accurate, and timely information business leaders need to lead their organizations when the following is addressed:

1. Empowerment: People want empowerment, with ownership and flexibility regarding their deliverables and deadlines.  A more team-centric task assignment model enables team members to contribute to the establishment of benchmarks and time-lines while creating a greater sense of responsibility among team members.
2. Confidence: Managers and executives consume conversational information about projects, which provide deeper insight into real project status.  Business leaders who leverage solutions that facilitate free-form conversations around assignments capture better information to help them keep an accurate pulse on their business and make more proactive decisions.
3. Recognition: 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 participate and provide the information needed by executives to make informed decisions.

@task Stream™—The First Social Project Management Platform

@task provides a totally new PPM approach—building on an integrated social project management platform that addresses the demands of project-based work traditional PPM solutions can't accommodate.  We've recognized a number of benefits that draw people into social networking tools that include ease of use, the positive nature of feedback from their network, and the ability to share conversational information about what they are doing.

Combining the power of social networking with the structure of project management to deliver more relevant information and clearer visibility into business initiatives.  @task Stream facilitates well-informed and proactive decision making by:

1. Empower the front lines, getting teams more involved in project plans and promoting greater individual ownership over priorities and commitments
2. Capturing the real story with a constant flow of conversational information, that delivers greater visibility and a richer representation of what's really happening within a project
3. Recognizing accomplishments by fostering discussion, highlighting accomplishments and keeping everyone engaged—people receive recognition for accomplishments and comment on other's work and accomplishments

Social project management success is all about people—and starts with the people on the front line.

Feel free to share your thoughts about social project management and what @task is doing to encourage a more social approach to the process.  If you'd like to learn more about @task's announcement today or how Stream might benefit your organization, click HERE.

 

When considering the tightrope walk between risk and return is it better to be safe than sorry?

Maybe not.

Some risks might be positive opportunities to be pursued, while others aren't worth worrying about.  And some risks are associated with any project.  The first step to evaluating the viability of any project is to determine the project's value based upon pre-determined criteria:

1. The project goals
2. The project costs
3. The project's alignment to the mission and vision of the organization
4. The associated risks and mitigation plans

Regardless of how you manage your project-based work, project management software that includes risk management tools can make it easier to validate that every project aligns with your companies risk tolerance by walking each project through a series of risk questions.  Financial planners have been doing this for years.  To determine your companies risk tolerance, it might make sense to do what they do and identify a few risk factors to get the discussion started:

1. Name of the risk
2. Scope of the risk: including a qualitative description of the potential risk
3. Nature of the risk: strategic, financial, knowledge, or compliance
4. Stakeholders: what are their expectations?
5. Qualify the risk: the significance and probability
6. Identify risk tolerance: including the financial impact of the risk, the value of the resources at risk, probability and size of the potential losses or gains, and any mitigation plans
7. Risk treatment and control: how is the risk currently being managed along with the level of confidence in existing controls
8. Potential action for improvement: recommendations to reduce risk

The best way to make well-informed decisions is to make sure that business leaders have access to the most reliable and up-to-date information available.  This includes information concerning risk.  It's easy to become so wrapped up in the potential benefits a project might provide that we forget to evaluate the risks.  By establishing a pre-determined risk tolerance and metrics for evaluating the potential risk and reward, business leaders can make smart decisions about which projects to work on and which to abandon.

Does your organization have a formalized process for evaluating risk? What are some of the questions you ask of every project, before it's begun.

 

Learning project management best practices doesn't just happen.

Because there is so much project-based work accomplished by managers who have had no formal project management education, and the trend of organizations turning to projects for increasing productivity and profitability continues to grow, the need for education is important.  Unfortunately, those responsible for managing projects are often "accidental" project managers—and are left to figure out for themselves the best way to manage projects, motivate teams, and get work done.  That being said, many of those "accidental" project managers turn out to be incredibly effective and some of the most intuitive and successful managers.

In previous posts we've talked about many of the ways that we can learn about project management methodologies including social media and communities of best practice.  I'm amazed at the wealth of information available to anyone willing to spend the time to find it.  Blog posts, webinars, user groups, conferences, tradeshows, and seminars all provide great opportunities to learn from our peers and share information.

This week I'll be posting from the 2nd Annual @task User Conference, A Better Way to Get Work Done.  Customers, industry leaders, and @task experts will be sharing tips, hints, and best practices to help establish sound project management methodologies and successfully implement project management tools.  Fraser Bullock, COO of the 2002 Winter Olympics and Jonny Mosely, Olympic Gold Medalist will be the keynote speakers along with some exciting announcements from @task, the sponsor of this blog.

I know that I enjoy the time I get to spend with my peers.  I think it helps me be better at what I do and inspires me to share with the rest of the community.  While the conference will provide a lot of information about successfully implementing @task's project software, the conversations usually end up centering on implementing sound methodology and best practices.  For those who are unable to attend this years conference, I hope you'll enjoy what I'll be posting here.
 

At the risk of revealing my age, I am going to admit that when I entered the workforce there were no personal computers, PDAs, or cell phones.  My IBM Selectric typewriter was "the bomb," but the most technologically sophisticated thing I had in those days was the Univox amp for my electric guitar.

Technologically speaking, my life has really changed a lot in the last 30 years.  Can the same be said for work management best practices?

Some might argue that project management software has made an impact, which I will agree it has, to a degree.  However, has the role of project managers or project management itself evolved?  Thankfully project teams aren't comprised of slaves under the lash building monuments to the Pharaohs—but can we really say project management itself has changed that much?

How many Egyptians did it take to scratch status updates onto tablets for the Pharaoh to validate the progress of his Giza Plateau building project?  I wonder how many project managers feel they have become slaves to manually inputting project data into the portfolio management software, knowing the information will be out of date by the time their CEO gets to see it?

Although the technology has advanced from stylus and tablet to multi-core processors and smart-phones, maybe we should take a good hard look at project failure rates and ask ourselves if we've really advanced that far.  Or should we step back and consider if there might be a better way to get work done?

I don't think the limitations of project software are entirely to blame.  Organizations need to reconsider the role of project managers and empower them to facilitate efficiency among project teams by providing work management tools that make it easy for team members to update status and get their work done.  "Management" implies working with people.  When project managers can throw off the shackles that prohibit them from working with individual project team members, maybe then we'll see something really new in project management software.