Strategic Project Management

As a kid I loved the Jetsons TV show.  I wanted to live in a world with flying cars, jet-tubes that whisked you from room to room, a robotic housekeeper like Rosie to clean up after me, and a dog like Astro.  Since then I've grown up a little (although my wife would suggest that it might be debatable).  Although we don't have flying cars or robot housekeepers, I live with many of the futuristic conveniences that the writers of the Jetsons only fantasized about.

As organizations look into the future to set goals and establish corporate objectives, many are turning to project management best practices to help them streamline processes and increase the efficiency of their workforce.  (There may even be someone trying to build my flying car—although I'm doubtful they will ever get dogs to talk.)

Whenever my colleagues and I talk about the future of work management methodologies, we often discuss the importance of doing the right projects, not just doing projects right.  Doing the right projects is the key to helping organizations get to where they want to go—their desired future state.  Success depends upon rethinking what we are doing and how we are doing it.

That being said, it doesn't mean we can wish ourselves into our desired future state.  It requires creating a structure around two important concepts:

1. The work being accomplished by project teams needs to reflect the strategic goals of the organization.  For many companies, this is easier said than done.  It requires a game plan (strategy) for getting organizations from where they are to where they want to go.  Without a strategy, in the heat of battle it's easy for executives and managers to make knee-jerk reactions to current circumstances.  Successful organizations understand that workforce execution must reflect the organization's strategic vision.  Otherwise, it's like being tossed about on the sea in a boat with no rudder.
2. Optimizing projects and team communication is critical.  This is where project and portfolio management solutions can help.  A good work management solution will help your organization evaluate potential projects to ensure they are a reflection of corporate strategy, enable project managers to optimize current resources to execute projects that provide the most business value, and facilitate top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top communication and visibility.  Virtually ensuring that executives, managers, and project teams are all focused on the right projects, not just doing them right.

Over the course of my career, I've noticed that there really is no secret sauce that makes one organization successful and another fail.  Usually, it's applying common-sense principles with the available technology.  I'm sure you'd agree that the pyramids' master builder was an incredible project manager, he just didn't have a computer or an online project management solution.

Project management expert and author Harvey Levine talks about the means to implement corporate strategy and achieving the desired future state in a recent video interview.  To view the video, click HERE.

Managing  project-based work requires, among other things, a particularly strong attention to detail.  Some project managers are better able to coordinate the dozens, if not hundreds, of individual details associated with tasks, issues, and projects better than others.  Although this is an important skill for project managers, I think it's easy for those required to spend the majority of their time in the minutia of things to loose site of the forest for the trees.

Like most people, I sometimes find myself so wrapped up in the details of what I'm doing that I forget about the big picture.  Regardless of how detailed your work management plans are, it's important to step back every once in a while to see things from a broader perspective.  Here are a couple of suggestions that might help you do that:

1. Keep the business goals and objectives of the project front and center.  Post on the team white board, or someplace where the team will regularly see it, the business goal associated with the project.  I know one PMO that created templates in their PPM software with the business goal embedded on every task, issue, and project page to remind the team why they are doing the project.  This keeps everyone focused on the big picture, while working on the details.
2. As needed, meet with the project team to make sure everyone is still focused on the goal.  We may not like it, but there will always be the "drive-by" or "ad hoc" initiatives that come up to pull team members away from focusing on the project goal.  Meeting with the team on a regular basis allows managers to help resolve impediments and keep the team focused.  Often, the regular reminder of the project objective is all it takes to keep everyone on target.
3. Step back and look at the big picture.  Project management software can help automate the management of many of the details associated with a project, so managers have time to step back and see the big picture.  It's important to look at project progress from a broader perspective.  Make sure your project software helps free you from the minutia and doesn't force you to keep your head down, buried in the weeds that keep you from seeing the forest from the trees.

What do you do to keep your project teams focused on the big picture?  Does your project and portfolio management software help or hinder?

Benjamin Franklin said, "In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes."  Although Franklin wasn't talking about project-based work, he could have been.  As organizations' project management processes mature, change happens.  Whether unintentional or by design, it's never easy implementing new work management methodologies.  That being said, some of the most common implementation problems are excuses, not roadblocks.

Knowing (and then educating everyone involved with the change) upfront what to expect can make the culture shock a little easier to deal with.  I've found that "fear of change" in most cases is a fear of the unknown.  Here are some of the most common fears that organizations face as they try to change or implement new project management methodologies:

1. It's different.  Realizing that there are some people who thrive on change, but most people don't, is important.  You may get some push-back simply because it's a change.
2. Some managers are uncomfortable with additional scrutiny.  Projects that might be important to one senior manager may not be as important to others.  This could make some managers a little nervous that their projects might not stand up to peer review.
3. Some projects are more important than others.  Implementing a sound work management methodology will mean that only those projects that provide the most business value will get pushed forward—not the "pet" projects of influential stakeholders.  Because this might negatively impact some projects, those stakeholders may try to block the process.
4. There are tough decisions to be made.  Best practice requires that some projects will get funded and others will not.  It's important that senior managers understand that they have a responsibility to the organization—not just their individual departments.  There will be managers who don't like this fact.
5. Implementation takes time.  Implementing a new methodology for project-based work takes time.  Because it doesn't happen overnight, there will be those who will say they don't have time for this—but it's necessary to take the time to be successful.

Like any organizational culture change, there will be those who embrace the change and others who don't.  Be prepared for both, and your efforts will be a success.  What are some of the challenges you have successfully faced when implementing project management methodologies?

On September 4, 1957, the Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel to directly compete with GM's Oldsmobile brand.  It didn't take long before Ford recognized it had made a costly mistake.  On November 19, 1959, Ford decided to pull the plug on it $350 million ($1.55 billion in today's dollars) good idea gone bad.

Regardless of the project management tools you use, successfully managing project-based work sometimes requires that project managers recognize when good projects have gone bad and pull the plug before too many resources are needlessly wasted.  Thankfully, most project managers aren't staring at $1.5 billion project that needs to be terminated—but I know of one organization that saved an estimated $8-10 million by pulling the plug on an Edsel of a project.

Ideally, the criteria for putting a DOA project out of its misery should be determined prior to the project beginning.  What's more, project management best practice suggests that the "firing squad" should be identified before the project begins too.  Sometimes in the heat of battle, it's difficult to dispassionately consider discontinuing a troubled project.

There was no single reason why the Edsel failed.  Styling, quality, and a lack of internal support at Ford have all been cited as possible reasons.  However the Edsel was manufactured in the same factories as its more successful siblings, Ford and Mercury.  The same can be said for most projects that struggle—there's seldom a single reason why a project fails.  Regardless of the reasons, scrapping a doomed project is difficult for most project managers.  That being said, I often think of Henry Ford and how he killed the car he named after his son.

How do you determine when to scrap a lagging project?
 

Albert Einstein said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." 

I sometimes wonder if he was talking about project managers.  The increasing pace of change in the workplace causes me to wonder, do we take enough time to learn from experience as processes and personnel are constantly changing.  In my opinion, to successfully learn from experience requires a regular and consistent approach that can be incorporated into any work management methodology.

Here are a few suggestions to help any project team learn from experience:

1. Establish a venue for sharing lessons learned: It doesn't matter whether you call it a post-mortem, a project review, or a project retrospective, most organizations don't do them—but they should.
2. Share what has been learned: Although most organizations don't bother with a project retrospective, those that do don't always create an environment that encourages real learning—and even fewer share what was learned.
3. Don't make learning the next corporate initiative: It's natural for organizations to try to formalize the learning process into the next corporate project.  Although the natural learning process should be encouraged, "corporate" is all too often the same as "bureaucratic," which employees will be more likely to avoid.
4. Don't make learning a one-time activity: Project learning should be ongoing and interactive—don't let it become an isolated activity that happens rarely.

No two organizations are exactly the same.  There are some that rely on project management software to facilitate project learning.  I think that's good, but even organizations that don't use a specific project management tool can create an environment where project learning can take place.  What does your company do to capture best practices and learn from experience?