The Money Files

I’m continuing my deep dive into continuous improvement this month as it’s such an important topic for project managers. There’s this expectation that we will use the retro and lessons learned processes to make improvements, and yet there is rarely the time to fully implement lessons. That’s one of the major challenges, and I want to talk more about challenges in making changes to ways of working today.

Resistance to change

The first challenge is resistance to change. Resistance can come about for lots of reasons, not least because people are worried about the extra workload of having to deliver project management process changes on top of their project execution activity.

Also, humans seem programmed to not like change. Having to learn a new way of working is a pain.

We can address this in the same way as you address change resistance to any of your projects: understanding the concern, clear communication, training and support and demonstrating the benefits. Plus a bit of management ‘this is the new way of working and you will follow the process’ can be useful!

Sustaining momentum

Improvement programmes might start out well, but it’s challenging to keep them going. After all, there are only so many improvements that are simple to make and easy to implement, so you might feel your goal of improving continuously is struggling because people have already suggested the easy wins.

Team members might not engage with it any longer. Keep celebrating success, keep recognising good contributors (without making those who cannot suggest improvements for whatever reason feel bad).

Pace out your changes so there is a small strand of work happening throughout the year instead of a big push and then nothing.

Resource constraints

I’ve mentioned this a lot throughout the series because I really do think it is the hardest thing to overcome. We have to balance improvement activities with project deliverables.  In resource-constrained environments (isn’t that everyone’s project environment?), you may find it challenging to allocate time and resources for improvement initiatives. Management might not see the value.

People doing the work might prefer to focus on their project work, which probably already has to be balanced against their business as usual activity. Now you’re asking them to do even more, and even if they are willing, they have to make prioritisation calls, and frankly, changing processes is probably way down the list.

They might be incentivised on other things. Their personal performance metrics or team objectives and KPIs probably don’t include the new improvement that has only just been thought up. So unless you’re going to work with line managers to write in a percentage of their availability to work on improvements, expect to see some up and down commitment throughout the year. People will do what they can, but creating the space for them to do that is important.

I’d love to hear your suggestions for helping teams find the time to overcome resource constraints for project improvements? Do you build it into their personal objectives or make it part of the expected ways of working for the squad? Let me know in the comments below!

That concludes my deep dive into continuous improvement. It’s an important aspect of project management practice, and it helps us create an environment where we can contribute to the business in more ways than simply project delivery. We can be the driver for change as project managers, and help our teams, and our organisations, deliver more in difficult times.

I’ve been looking at continuous improvement in project management this month, covering why it matters and ideas for building a culture where continuous improvement is the norm. Now I’m going to turn to look at what you have available to help, in terms of tools and techniques.

Luckily for us in project management, we have a range of tools available already that you are using across the rest of your project delivery work, and we can put those to use.

Tools for collecting feedback

First off, you have to make sure that you can collect the improvement ideas. We talked a bit about that in my last article (suggestion boxes) and there’s a lot more you can do – with techniques you will already be familiar with.

Surveys and questionnaires

We use Microsoft Forms for sending out lessons learned surveys and you could set up a form (on any platform) to gather feedback at various points in the project or simply have one on your team intranet page for people to suggest improvements when they think of them.

The trouble with ‘fill it in when you want’ forms is that you have to keep constantly reminding people it is there, so when they do have an idea they go to the form instinctively.

Retros

You’re probably (hopefully) already using retrospectives and lessons learned. Add in questions, if you don’t already have them, for the group to reflect on how project management processes could be changed to deliver better results.

Team meetings

Add an agenda point to your regular team meetings where you talk about what’s been improved, what improvements are being worked on and ask for suggestions. It doesn’t have to be every week, but once a quarter or something like that would work well as a reminder for the team.

Techniques for learning

Once you’ve got some ideas, you’ll want to dig into them and see if they stand up to scrutiny – and whether they are worth the effort to change. Luckily, again as project professionals, we have a range of techniques already in our toolboxes that help us do exactly that.

Root cause analysis

Use root cause analysis techniques (like the ‘5 Whys’) to identify the underlying causes of issues. Then you can focus in on what is genuinely going to address the problem.

Lessons learned databases

You’ve got a repository of lessons learned from each project, right? Take a look through that at the types of projects that have struggled in this area and what has already been done to resolve the problem. That should help prevent you from wasting time on solutions that have already been shown not to work.

Peer reviews and feedback

You’ve got experienced people on the team. They’ve come from different corporate backgrounds and industries, so make use of their knowledge and find out what has worked in their previous roles.

Project management tools

Don’t forget that we also have access to project management tools. Collaboration tools can help people communicate and work together to sort out issues. Planning and scheduling can be done for your improvements, using the tools you already have. Use your knowledge management systems to capture, store and share the ideas, improvements and lessons, so that everyone can benefit from any information created.

With all the resources available to us, it should be easy to make improvements to ways of working. So let’s say you’ve made the improvements, and you want to track how things are going and whether your improvements are having the impact you expected. That’s what I’ll be talking about next time.

Have you ever made a bad decision? I’m sure I have but I don’t think I’ll be owning up to them here! The point I’m making is that people who make decisions aren’t always making the best decisions. And part of that reason is bias. No one is immune to it; the best we can do is call it out and be aware that it is happening.

I was asked to talk about bias in decision making at a university recently so I thought I’d summarise some of my key thoughts on the topic here to share with you.

Biases are cognitive shortcuts, often subconscious, that impact decision-making. And research has shown that there are lots of them. I read a few papers in Project Management Journal that pointed to many biases being identified. The key ones that I wanted to call out are these.

Confirmation Bias

This is where you seeking information that supports pre-existing beliefs. For example, only looking at data that supports your conclusions, or data from successful projects and ignoring data sets from unsuccessful projects. In daily life, this might be looking out for a particular type of car and then seeing it everywhere.

Anchoring Bias

This is where your future thoughts and opinions are anchored around a particular number. For example, if you’re talking about pricing a product and someone says it should retail for £50, you might get suggestions of setting the price at £40 or £60 but it’s unlikely that anyone is going to suggest £300 as the group has been anchored around the first number they heard.

Sunk Cost Fallacy

Bent Flyvbjerg calls this escalation of commitment, which is where you justify increased cost in a project even though it isn’t performing to plan. In other words, people talk themselves into continuing a failing project because of the investment that will be ‘wasted’ if they stop now.

Optimism Bias

Haven’t we all been guilty of this? It’s where you underestimate risks and overestimate project success. We all think our estimates are realistic even when past experience shows that we need to add buffer time.

Groupthink

When a group agrees with something, dissenting voices aren’t heard with the same volume. There is pressure to conform to collective opinions, even if you don’t truly agree. Diverse groups tend to make better decisions because they bring diverse experience and opinions.

Status Quo Bias

This is where people prefer familiar approaches over innovative solutions. I think there is also an opposite to this that I have – I’d rather use new tech and explore options and learn a different tool than use the old boring tool I’ve used before. Although this is not a good thing and means I have to spend a lot more time preparing for presentations because I’m trying out new gadgets or software that I haven’t used previously!

Bias contributing to project outcomes

You don’t have to look far to see examples of the sunk cost fallacy or optimism bias in public sector projects.

But there are examples of where bias has contributed to positive outcomes – or rather, structured decision making processes let people regularly challenge assumptions to avoid getting stuck with inappropriate solutions. I asked ChatGPT for examples of bias leading to project success and it could only come up with Toyota’s lean production system actively combating bias through data drive decision making. Maybe you have other examples from your experience – if so, leave them in the chat below please!

Overcoming bias

So what can we do about it?

• Encourage diverse perspectives: keep a focus on structured debate and let the dissenting voices be heard!
• Use data: seek out evidence that will provide impartial inputs
• Externally validate data and solutions: can you use external data reference sets or focus groups to confirm (or reject) your position?
• Consider failure: what does failure look like and what might lead you there? Pre-mortems are worth a go to discuss all that before you get started.
• Reassess the business case: keep the business case under review so you avoid throwing good money after bad.

Bias is inherent in how humans navigate decision making, but it’s manageable if you are open to talking about it and thinking about ways to reduce it. What’s one bias you’ll watch out for in your own decision-making?

I’ve been thinking recently about the role of intuition in project management. We often rely on the data, processes and logical structure of project management, but if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably spent more than one afternoon feeling that something just isn’t quite right and wondering how you can define the problem when you just can’t put your finger on it.

It’s a sense that something’s off. Maybe a project is veering off track, or a team member isn’t quite clicking with the rest of the group, but there’s nothing tangible to fully explain why. Maybe a stakeholder seems hesitant to commit, or you sense the team’s morale is low, even if the status reporting is telling you everything is on track. These things might not be much today, but they might cause bigger problems in the future.

That’s where intuition often comes into play. It’s often said that project management is part art and part science, and the intuition part is definitely not science! But the art is where we navigate the complex, human part of the job.

Managing uncertainty

So much of what we do as project managers is working in an uncertain environment. It’s juggling all the facts and then applying what feels right, while sticking to the boundaries and governance structure – just writing that out makes me feel it’s a balancing act. And one we don’t always get right!

A lot of what we do as project managers is solving problems, or helping teams solve problems, and the kinds of problems my teams are faced with today feel stickier and more intertwined than the projects of 10 years ago. No matter how careful the planning, there are unforeseen challenges. And that’s where intuition steps in. It helps connect the dots between facts, previous experience and what we know will work, which is handy if you don’t have lots of time to solutionise.

Experience shapes intuition

How much do gut feelings play when you are faced with an uncertain situation? And how much are those gut feelings influenced by the years of experience and knowledge of corporate strategy and conversations with your sponsor? Probably more than we acknowledge.

We must internalise all the things to do with project context, plus all our lessons learned experience on the way, and so while it feels like we’re making a decision based on gut feeling or intuition, isn’t it really a decision shaped by professional practice and experience? (Or is that the same thing?)

Experience feeds our intuition and guides us when the situation is high-pressure or the decision is woolly. The more experience you have, the better your instincts tend to be – and not just in project management but across all facets of life generally. It’s a deep understanding of your environment and how people and processes play together. You’ve seen it happen before, either on your own project or someone else’s, or you’ve read about it or heard a conference presentation. All these things contribute to your ability to act instinctively. They inform your decision-making, creating a kind of ‘mental database’ that helps you respond more quickly and effectively when things don’t go as planned. Which is quite often, on projects!

Let process lead

We can’t manage everything on feelings, the project management process is there for a reason. However, we can’t help but manage a little bit on instinct and experience as well. The more experience you have, the easier it is to trust your gut. But as we say at work, trust but verify. Once you’ve got a sense of where you feel you should be going, check in with that reluctant stakeholder, or ask the team about how they are feeling. Get tangible data where you can to back up what you instinctively know, and go from there.

If you didn’t do it at the end of last year, now is definitely the time to acknowledge and celebrate project successes – things you did really well last year as a team. And it doesn’t matter how big they are, every small step in the right direction should be marked if you can!

Why celebrating wins is important

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that when a senior leader recognises the work you’ve done, it has a positive impact on morale and motivation. I can’t be the only one who thinks, “Ooh, I’ll file that email away for my end of year review.” That’s what you want to create: a sense of, “they think I’ve done a good job.”

Not everyone needs to be praised all the time, but celebrating wins also helps reinforce behaviours that are positive and shows that people are watching!

The biggest challenges I hear from project managers is that there isn’t enough time to celebrate success, and they don’t know what’s worth celebrating – is it just project completion? Well, it doesn’t have to be.

Here are some examples of project-related wins:

• Finishing a project (obviously)
• Meeting key milestones
• Signing a contract with a vendor
• Overcoming a major challenge, hurdle or issue
• Taking delivery of part of the equipment required
• Starting the work (good if you are literally breaking ground or clearing out a space – take before and after photos!)

Those are all tangible achievements but there are intangible ones too, such as resolving a problem with creative thinking, innovation, collaboration (especially if you can bring virtual colleagues into this one), and so on.

You can also think of wins that are specific to a particular person, for example, marking their one year anniversary on a project, or starting or completing a relevant training course.

How to do the celebrating

This is another area where people get stuck, because (surprise, surprise) there often isn’t any budget for marking celebrations during the project (and often not a project completion either, to be honest).

If you can, put some budget aside to allow for employee recognition. If that isn’t possible, tap into any employee recognition schemes that exist within the organisation and lean on those. Call out colleagues for recognition within team meetings, send digital cards or simply an email of thanks.

Record the successes

One thing you can do is create a ‘wins report’ which will sit alongside your lessons learned report at the end of a project as a reflection of all the cool stuff you achieved and how that work was acknowledged throughout the project.

If you’re in the kind of organisation where you want to share success stories with clients when you are pitching for work, you could also use your wins report as input to those.

Starting out 2025 with a reflection on what you achieved in 2024 is a good way to generate some momentum for the first few months and help people feel good about coming back to work after the festive break! How are you going to take this idea and bring it into your meetings over the coming weeks?