The Money Files

It’s very easy to talk about continuous improvement, but if you’re anything like me, it’s a lot harder to build the actions into the workflows and processes you use to ensure that the improvement actually happens.

OK, perhaps that is an exaggeration. There are some simple activities that, once you realise, are easy to change and within your sphere of influence. Those are the improvements we can make simply and with minimal effort, and that everyone appreciates.

But the world of work is increasingly more complex, more VUCA, more intertwined, and changing one thing has an impact on other things. We’re not talking about updating a document template to add a new section, but rewriting workflows within project management tools, or changing how benefits are owned, tracked and reported on across the company. Those types of continuous improvements warrant projects of their own. Projects that often we don’t have the time put aside to deliver on.

Continuous improvement in project teams

What do we actually mean by continuous improvement? In my experience, when people talk about it in a project management environment, they mean the ongoing effort to enhance processes, increase efficiency, and drive better results. Whatever that takes. Like I said, it could be small tweaks or organisation-wide transformation of how projects are run in the business. And frankly, that makes it kind of hard for the average project team to effect any major change.

Still, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. So, if you want to create an environment where people have the opportunity to raise their voices when they see things that can be improved, here are some suggestions.

Set the right example

If we want to foster the right culture, people have to believe they are already in a culture where their suggestions will be listened to. So we want to demonstrate:

Leadership commitment: That’s leading by example, speaking up and suggesting improvements, pointing out where things could be better and encouraging others to do the same whenever we hear them mention a good idea.

Communication: Unsurprisingly, communication needs to be taken seriously and you need to create the time for it. If everything is rushed, they won’t feel that they can share feedback and lessons learned (outside of structured conversations or retros). Create feedback loops or ask about improvement ideas in regular check ins.

Recognise the wins: Celebrate improvements and suggestions, even if they don’t turn out to be implementable – you’re recognising the fact that an idea was brought to the group. Hopefully this will encourage others to do the same and to feel that their ideas are valued.

Make it easy to suggest improvements

People need to feel empowered to suggest improvements and to act on them. Granted, most organisations don’t have dedicated ‘innovation’ time or slack in the calendar where people can work on their own projects. But you can remove the barriers to making suggestions.

Let people work their own way: Encourage ownership on the project and let people run their area of the project the way they feel best. If they find ways to improve or change the process, let them.

Suggestion schemes: In the olden days we used to have a box at work for suggestions. These days there are forms online where we can submit ideas. If you think people would be more open to suggesting ideas anonymously, make sure these systems are in place.

Incentivise innovation: In my very first corporate job we had a scheme where we sent in suggestions and got cards back. If you matched the cards to make a picture, you got a prize. Or something like that. It was a long time ago, but there was an incentive scheme for pointing things out. What could you do that’s similar?

Build in creativity training

Building problem-solving and creativity skills is a… skill. And we can train people on skills. Find some time for training on problem solving techniques, process improvement methods, creative thinking and so on. The Six Sigma training I did in my early career was so influential in how I approach problems today. But let’s just say I’m not naturally someone who would whip out a control chart.

Something else that’s easy to do and within your control is cross-skilling team members. Cross-functional learning and an appreciation of what other people do in their job helps people see the project from different perspectives and find improvement opportunities that way.

This is an interesting topic for me and I think there’s more we can cover, so next time I’ll look at tools and techniques for continuous improvement. Watch this space!

I’ve been looking at my professional development goals for the year and while I’m not quite ready to put them out there for everyone to see, one of things I am reflecting on is continuous improvement in project management and what that means for me and my teams.

If you’ve been around project management for any length of time you will have come across continuous improvement as a concept.

For me, it means an ongoing process where teams evaluate their performance, identify areas for improvement, and implement changes that lead to better project outcomes. Sounds simple, right? The challenge I have is that even if we have the headspace to come up with the improvement ideas, we rarely have the time or the authority to make the changes.

So, what can we do? First, focus on what we can change. It’s about creating a mindset of constant reflection, learning, and evolving. And second, encourage the team to focus in on the ‘why’ of continuous improvement so the ideas we are coming up with are small enough to implement in the time and boundaries we have.

So why does it matter?

Beyond the obvious (we’re all trying to do more with less, because somehow the appetite to deliver change is just as big if not bigger than it always was, but with less staff), here are some formal reasons we are reflecting on:

Efficiency gains: How can we deliver projects more efficiently, reduce waste, and optimise resources? While working within the processes we have.

Mitigate risk: What have we learned from past projects that helps us identify and act on risks on future projects?

Collaborate: Generally, the conversations about improvements help teams build relationships and work together effectively. Any time spent together helps us understand more about how colleagues work and what ways of working are the most effective.

And what are we looking for?

Project professionals should be looking for ways to:

Deliver change incrementally: What are the small, iterative changes we can put in place that won’t overwhelm the team and that feel we are taking steps towards more effective ways of working? If it’s a big (potential) improvement, how can you break it down and make it into smaller steps so it can be phased in over time.

OK, if you have the time and capacity to do the change all in one go, and are confident that it’s the right thing, by all means go for it. But if you feel like doing things at a slower pace would be beneficial – and I think that’s the right approach – then go at that pace.

Empower people to take ownership: How do we encourage individuals to take responsibility for identifying and implementing changes? And the big challenge here for me is making sure that I have the time available to do the implementing!

Use data to make decisions: Let’s not dive in and make changes without having a real understanding of what that would affect. For example, in one project a good few years ago, a process was changed but it impacted teams downstream. Without an understanding of what that team did, I think we inadvertently made their lives harder until we did a proper process mapping exercise to understand how work flowed through the organisation.

You could also use data points from your project management software, feedback or databases and statistics, dashboards or reporting. Just don’t guess at what would be an improvement.

That’s the what and the why. Next time, I’ll look at how you can start building a culture of continuous improvement in project teams because it’s important to have some practical strategies as well. See you then!

Carrying on from my last article about career development opportunities for the coming year, let’s talk about something else you can build into your development plans: enhancing your competencies and key skills.

The first challenge when you come to work on skill development is to work out which ones are worthy of your time. Well, the good news is that many skills overlap. I did a survey recently on important skills for project managers and shared the results on LinkedIn. The comments pointed out that the ‘leadership’ skill was actually a collection of other skills. Other commentators said that it shouldn’t be a skill by itself at all. So truly for project managers, there are so many skills we use every day that it really doesn’t matter which ones you choose to work on. You will get benefit from developing any of them. As long as you aren’t already a super expert in that field with nothing to learn!

Here are some I think that it’s worth leaning into this year.

Problem-solving

Had any problems recently? It seems to be never-ending problems right now, am I right? I don’t know if it’s the time of year or whether it’s simply a sign that work is getting more complex, but there is never a shortage of problems to sort out.

Build your problem solving skills by learning different techniques for group facilitation, conflict resolution, root cause analysis and group decision making. Then you’ll have a toolbox of tactics to draw from whenever you hit a snag in the project.

Prompt engineering

Prompt engineering is the art of being able to ask AI for something and getting back a good quality result. When it comes to generative AI, it’s really important to be able to get the right kind of output, otherwise the exercise is not worth it – the results are too generic.

Use the PMI course in prompt engineering as a starting point and then if you want to take it further look into other resources and courses to help you develop good skills. Be aware that the AI field is developing really quickly so I would tend to rely on training videos, webinars and online materials over books simply due to the pace of change (and I say that as an author myself).

Communication

Communication is an old favourite skill, but it’s certainly one we can all do more to improve. The type of communication we use these days is also different. For example, it’s a lot more online, asynchronous communication, mediated through technology like messaging apps and collaboration tools. Which is not necessarily a bad thing in itself, but it is a skill. And if you want to make yourself understood, then this is where I would be putting my time and effort, especially if you work virtually a lot of the time.

These are just three of the many skills you could focus on this year, and of course you could focus on all of them. If you are serious about professional development, you could choose several, or even one a month to give you a broad boost across many areas. Maybe brainstorm a few topics that you’d like to learn more about this year and plan some time across the months to make sure you have focus development time set aside.

We’re project managers, it shouldn’t be too difficult to block out time in the diary for development! However, I know that real life and projects get in the way, which is all the more reason to block out time now so you have it ready when you need it.

Last time I wrote about managing the project and the team during the end of year countdown and the holiday period – today I’m thinking about managing stakeholder expectations.

Let’s face it, our stakeholders are also distracted by holidays, year-end processes, and vacations, and we still need to keep them engaged and informed about project work. Here are four practical strategies to keep everything on track at this time of year.

1. Understand their availability

Are they taking time off? You can ask – even senior leaders are likely to be scheduling a break! Their availability (or lack of it) might mean rescheduling project board or steering group meetings, and it’s better to know about that early.

Discuss realistic expectations for responses and turnaround times during December – if you’ve got key members of the project team out of the office, you might need a little longer to get back to them, or they might need to deal with someone else on the team. Pass along any contact details or make introductions beforehand so they know who to talk to – and so that person is aware that senior leaders may be reaching out while they are covering for a colleague.  

2. Prioritise critical deliverables

Make sure you and your stakeholders have a shared view of what deliverables are critical for this period. Define what must be completed before year-end and what can wait. That might already be clear from your project plan, but if you are working in an agile way or in an environment of high uncertainty, it would be worth reiterating what is possible before the end of December.

If you can, think about how you can build flexibility into timelines and make those suggestions. The stakeholders might not understand what goes into completing a task, so they might see something as do-able when in fact it is not. If your office has a mandatory closure or an IT change freeze, that might also eat into the time available to complete work.

A clear list of urgent deliverables and non-urgent tasks can help everyone prioritise, and it’s likely to look different from the last time you created one, because that’s life!

3. Communicate early and often

This is not going to come as a surprise, as communicating early and often is something you’ll be doing all year round. However, at this time of year, there can be a lot of communications, a lot of deadlines and messages can get lost.

Check in to see how they would like to be updated and if that is different from the rest of the year, update your comms plan so you don’t have to ask again next year.

4. Think about stakeholder fatigue

We all need a break, right? Stakeholders are no different. If you’ve been powering on waiting for the holidays, so have they. Think about how you can keep stakeholders engaged during a busy time, maybe cutting the length of meetings, sharing papers earlier so they can read them before a meeting or sending out weekly email updates instead of having status update calls.

Don’t forget to say thank you! We tend to schedule time with the team to celebrate achievements, but our senior leaders were also part of that, so recognise their contribution too. You might be the only one who does…

Good planning and communication can help manage stakeholder expectations even when times are busy – and the run up to year end is definitely busy!

As a project manager, there are two types of self-management I have to do.

Proactive management is looking ahead, making sure I know what is coming up.

Reactive management is addressing the challenges of the day, fire-fighting and being asked to do something on top of my existing workload.

Proactive management

I think proactive management is where most of us should be spending most of our time. We should be looking forward, using risk management, horizon scanning or whatever you want to call it to get a good idea about what’s coming.

For example:

• Future projects that your manager is going to assign to you.
• Upcoming milestones that you need to check in on and make sure are on track.
• Risks that have a close proximity that need active management.
• Engaging stakeholders so they know what is coming (with the goal of reducing ad hoc queries or report requests).
• Big meetings or meetings where you have to prepare documentation or submit proposals/presentations/papers in advance.

These are all things that we should know are happening or about to happen and then we can plan our time appropriately around that.

We find out about these things by staying curious, asking management, putting time aside to review the project schedule alone and with the team, and listening out for things that might be a problem. The more you spot coming, the more you can work around it, or into it so it can be handled at a time that suits you – not at the last minute creating a fire you have to run around and put out.

Reactive management

It’s much harder to manage time when you have to spend it reactively responding to whatever is dumped on your desk that day. It could be a project task that someone else was supposed to do but hasn’t, and just needs to be done, it could be new work to do with your project (like setting up a meeting with 10 attendees that has to be at a particular time but no one has calendar availability at that time… don’t ask me how I know!).

Other examples would be things like:

• A supplier letting you down and not delivering goods on the specified day.
• Someone being off sick and not being available to complete a task that’s on the critical path.
• A senior executive asks for an ad hoc report on project progress for a committee meeting that is tomorrow.

Building resilience in yourself and the team is a good way to manage the short-notice requests and feel more capable of responding in the moment.

In my experience, the better I am at proactively managing upcoming situations on my projects, the less reactive management I have to do – but I know it does not always work that way. Generally, though, the more you can anticipate senior leaders’ needs, complete your risk management actions, identify problems before they become a ‘real’ problem and so on, the less reactive fire-fighting you have to do.

Admittedly, you can’t necessarily foresee that the weather is going to cause problems, or that a supplier might have difficulties fulfilling orders, but if you have identified these are risks, you will at least have (hopefully) spent some time thinking about how they might be mitigated or addressed if they do happen.

Do you spend your time between proactive and reactive management – and is this distinction a helpful way to frame your work? It really works for me, but I don’t know if it’s a common way of thinking for other project managers. Let me know in the comments!