PMO Bytes

There is a fable about “The Cock and the Jewel” that goes like this,

A Cock, scratching the ground for something to eat, turned up a Jewel that had by chance been dropped there. "Ho!" said he, "a fine thing you are, no doubt, and, had your owner found you, great would his joy have been. But for me, give me a single grain of corn before all the jewels in the world."

In short, it says that the cock pays no attention to anything that it perceives of no immediate value. Just like what Marie de France has commented that the cock is like those who, 'if everything does not go as they wish, they do not value good and honor at all but instead take the worst and scorn the best.' Some would reckon the cock as being pragmatic to base its value on what it actually needs. Others would argue that the cock is too myopic and unable to appreciate the value of things beyond its limited knowledge.

I am sure you have bumped into some cocks in your projects big or small, local or global. They questioned you on your purpose of dragging them into the projects. They challenged you on your intent of wasting time and money on projects that they couldn’t see any value. All they ever wanted was you to leave them alone. No matter how hard you have tried to sell your ‘jewel’ to them, they just insisted on their favorite ‘grain of corn’. When you were lucky, they probably just shunned away from you. On your less fortunate days, they might have even jeered you with the most contemptuous comments you have ever heard. Your faith had been shaken in several occasions as you doubted if you were doing the right thing. Perhaps the cocks were right. You should just pack and go…

In most global projects, the grand strategies and audacious goals are usually defined by the top management sitting in the ivory towers. However, when all these are cascaded down, they are repeated verbatim to the folks below without considering issues related to cultural differences, process deviations, legislative requirements, as well as local business priorities. This oversight created a gap in stakeholders’ expectation. It is not that the strategies and goals are too elusive and difficult to understand. In fact, the stakeholders do understand but just that they are not able to appreciate the associated value easily. It is like selling ‘jewel’ to the ‘cock’. People are stuck in their tunnel vision limited by culture, position, job scope, knowledge, experience, responsibility and authority etc. Do you really know what the cocks want? If not, what can you do to close this gap?

The cock, being a cock, may not see the value of the jewel immediately even if it understands that it may be something important to other people. Your job is to help the cock to realize the value of the jewel. Try to explain the value of your project to the stakeholders in a context that they can easily comprehend. Use a local language, watch out for idiosyncrasies, blend it with the culture, tell a story, give some examples or do whatever you can to justify your case. “Perhaps, teaching the cock to sell the jewel in exchange for corn may help.” you thought. Your objective is to package your project in a way that the stakeholders are able to understand its value and benefit from it. If that means that you have to drop the ‘jewel’ and sell the ‘corn’, so be it.

Okay, I know most of you have heard about this parable. But for the sake of those that have not, here is a version of it.

Four blind men encounter an elephant. One grabs the leg and concludes it is a tree trunk. One holds the tail thinking it is a whip. Another touches the elephant's trunk and decides it's a hose and the fourth man pats the side concluding it's a wall. The wise man tells them, "All of you are right."

There are several versions of the parable; three blind men and six blind men etc. Regardless of the number of blind men, all of them tell the same thing – each blind man has his own version of the elephant that is different from the others. None of them is totally right and none is completely wrong, for each of them sees only a facet of truth. This is a classic epistemological relativism problem in that points of view have no absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration usually due to limited information available.

We have seen this happening time and again in projects, especially global projects.

You spoke with stakeholders from different cultural background each with different stakes and priorities in the project. Each presented his ‘idealistic’ view on what the end product of the project should be. All of them were so sure that their version should be the ultimate ‘right’ version. None seemed willing to budge. The debate went on… You were a month late in the project and no sign of progress. You were stuck in the never-ending stakeholders’ debate. Pressure piled up. Frustration and resentment grew. And yes, there you were. ‘The wise man’, that was what they called you. You were expected to see the truth and to lead the blind men out of the blind alley. But wait a minute, “Does the truth exist?” you asked yourself.

What makes you so sure that your version of truth is ‘better’ than those of the stakeholders? Isn’t your version also a perceived version of reality? Are you overestimating yourself and complicating the whole problem? Perhaps, the truth does exist. It could be possible that no one is able to describe it correctly due to lack of information and exposure. It is just like we are aware of god, but each of us has our own definition of what god means to us.

Maybe you should stop wasting time finding the ultimate truth. Not that you will never find it, perhaps with some luck you will, but does it worth the effort? Remember the consequences of analysis paralysis? As a seasoned project manager, you might just want to collate the opinions, ideas and requirements from the stakeholders, prioritize and synthesize them and move on. Now, that’s pragmatism!

No, I am not going to talk about Bananarama’s eponymous chart topper in the 1980s. I am more interested in the day-to-day rumors that you eat, sleep and dream with. Rumor is like a giant octopus; it sucks up all your energy as you wrestle with it. Unfortunately, it is something that you have to deal with in all projects even though you hate it down to your bones. Like it or not, you probably have, unintentionally, become part of the conduit that has helped rumor to propagate. Yet in other occasions, you might even have played the victim role yourself. Dealing with rumor in projects is a waste of time. It not only affects the team’s productivity, it also dampens morale, destroys bonding, creates anxiety, ruins reputations and crushes the confidence of stakeholders. However, you can’t just ignore it. Failure to manage rumor properly will bring your project down in no time. How can you fight back against rumor? Below are some rumor management tips that may help you in your projects.

• Prevention: Obviously, the best way to stop something is to prevent it from even happening. You have to do the same to prevent rumors from spreading and festering in your project team or organization. Build a strong immunity system in your environment by fostering trust and an open culture in the team. Do not try to hide things and think that people are ignorant enough to be fooled. Information leaks. It is better for your team to hear the first hand truth from you than for them to get it through the twisted grapevines. Bobby Clarke, as a general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers, once said "I've discovered that the less I say, the more rumors I start." Rumors breed on uncertainties and lack of trust. The idle minds start to go wild when you leave them with too many blanks to fill. Share information openly with people so that they do not need to waste time making up a fake one for you.
• Confrontation: There is a saying – “Who brings a tale takes two away.” Sometimes, prevention is just insufficient to stop one or two rumors from popping up occasionally. In order to minimize the potential damage done by the rumor, the most effective way is to nip it in the bud and attack it at the source. Rumor grows as it goes. The sooner you react, the lesser effort you need to address it. Hunt down the source of rumor, challenge the person directly and prevent him or her from inflicting more damages. Direct confrontation works well if you have the right authority and facts to back you up as that will increase your chance of stopping the rumor at its source. It is suitable when the circle of impact of the rumor is still relatively small.
• Extermination: When it is too late to nip the rumor in the bud, you will need to face it directly and respond constructively. Trying to control a rumor that has already been circulated widely is almost impossible. A wiser approach is to acknowledge the existence of the rumor, and address it formally. Hold a meeting with the entire team and everyone who is involved or interested in the rumor and deal with their concerns one by one openly. After that, exterminate the rumor once and for all by warning them that all talking on the rumor should be stopped. Handle it like what Horace once said “Buy the rumor, sell the fact.” Let the facts do the talking. People will start to lose interest in the rumor when it dropped its mysterious veil.
• Evasion: Sometimes, trying to squash a rumor is like trying to compress a spring. The harder you press, the stronger it will bounce back at you. People may get more excited and interested in the rumor if you reacted strongly on it. In other words, you are actually helping the rumor to bloom. In such situations, it may be wiser to take a step back and leave the rumor alone to fade away. As Will Rogers once said “A mind conscious of innocence laughs at the lies of rumor.” Ungrounded rumors will not stand the test of time.
• Diversion: When all else fails, try to divert the attention of the team to other more meaningful things (e.g. sharing some good news with them). Alternatively, you may also brush the rumor aside positively with a sense of humor and have the team to focus back on the actual project tasks. Keep the idle minds busy so that they will not have time to catch up with rumor.

I came across an interesting article “CHAOS Summary 2009” published by The Standish Group in year 2009. The 10 laws of CHAOS mentioned in the article are both quintessential and thought provoking. They highlight the key factors that constitute to the success of a project. I have included a snapshot of the 10 laws below.

1. The Law of the Two Faces supports the first CHAOS Success Factor of User Involvement, and states that users are both your best friend and worst enemy. Successful projects include business-knowledgeable users with good communication skills that can explain business process in detail. A weak user is a liability to the project and will create a communication void between the business and the project team.
2. The Cheetah’s Law supports the second CHAOS Success Factor of Executive Support, and states that swift decisions are typically better than long, drawn-out analysis. Projects that have an active and responsive executive sponsor fare better than those left to hang alone without a champion. Project success depends a lot on swift and decisive decisions. Try to avoid analysis paralysis.
3. The Law of the Roads supports the third CHAOS Success Factor of Clear Business Objectives, and states that it does not matter which road everyone comes from as long as they end up in the same place. Clarity and focus are essential to a successful project. Ambiguity leads to confusions and conflicts that may jeopardize the project.
4. The Law of the Five Deadly Sins supports the fourth CHAOS Success Factor of Emotional Maturity, and states you will encounter the Five Deadly Sins in all projects. The Five Deadly Sins are part of all project ecosystems, healthy and unhealthy. It is how you deal with each of these sins that will determine the success or failure of a project.
5. The Law of the Long-Tailed Monster supports the fifth CHAOS Success Factor of Optimization, and states you will always build too much of what you don’t need and not enough of what you do need. Over- and under-building applications represent the biggest form of software development waste. It is essential to prioritize your requirements through tools like Kano Analysis and Quality Function Deployment.
6. The Law of the Edible Elephant supports the sixth CHAOS Success Factor of Agile Process, and states that software should be built in small, iterative steps with small, focused teams (or, the only way to eat the elephant is one bite at a time). When a big chunk is hard to swallow, try to break it down into smaller bites. Go with agile or iterative processes that allow for rapid feedback, creation of feature velocity, and accelerated user training and acceptance.
7. The Law of the Mad Hatter supports the seventh CHAOS Success Factor of Project Management Expertise, and states that complexity causes confusion and cost. Projects by their very nature are complex; it takes an empathetic organizational environment to understand the project management process in order for the team to simplify the project management practice. Try to make your process so simple that even the lavatory cleaner is able to understand.
8. The Law of the Empty Chair supports the eighth CHAOS Success Factor of Skilled Resources, and states that your best person will leave at the worst possible time. The best method to combat such an event is to keep the project cycles short with continuous deliverables. Foster a good work environment to fight talent retention problems.
9. The Panda’s Law supports the ninth CHAOS Success Factor of Execution, and states that inaction is the purest form of failure. Risk is part of every project, but unnecessary risk should be avoided. Being too risk averse is not helpful and might counterproductive where everyone is spending too much time managing risks unnecessarily.
10. The Law of the Fools supports the tenth CHAOS Success Factor of Tools and Infrastructure, and states that a fool with a tool is still a fool. It is not just having the right tools, but the skill to use them that makes all the difference in success and failure. Focus on trainings, both users and team, is key to success.

I have just survived through a social networking mayhem. I woke up the other day with hundreds of mails jammed in my mailbox and it took me half an hour or so to clean them up. As I was going through the mails, I realized that it was started by someone accidentally posted a private message to a public group and that message was mass-mailed to everyone in that group. A few people replied to that mail after that and the whole chain of conversation could have just stopped. Unfortunately, an impatient group member blasted off a reply requesting to be removed from the mail chain and thereafter, setting off the first crack that led to a torrent of mails flooding in with similar requests. Helluva mistake! In just a few minutes, my mailbox was choked with tons of mails starting with – “Please remove me…”

It is amazing how people are using social media these days. We have seen how the notorious hacker group LulzSec has harnessed social media in a new and unique way to narrate its hacking activities on Twitter. We have also witnessed how Twitter and Facebook were used to spread and coordinate London’s recent riots. There is no doubt on the speed and power of using social media for communication and collaboration. The problem then is not so much on how to use it but how to use it correctly. Without proper regulation and governance, any mistake in social media could be fatal as in the case of congressman, Anthony Weiner, who fell from grace by mistakenly releasing X-rated photo of himself in Twitter.

With all the touted benefits, it is very tempting to link up social media with project management. In fact, there are a few project management tools (e.g. Wrike and Vantage) in the market that have already done so. However, just like any other usages of social media, it is important that we have proper governance in place to administer its usages. It is a double-edged sword. An efficient tool with a wrong usage simply implies that things will be done in the wrong ways more efficiently. Think about how rumors, once commonly spread through pantry talks, can be spread like wildfire through social media. It will become the favorite tool for the naysayers and gossipmongers to bring down your project. Even if you are lucky enough to escape the rumor wildfire, there is no guarantee that you will not end up like Anthony Weiner accidentally sharing or leaking out some confidential project information through the social media. Such a mistake will pronounce the end of your career as a project manager prematurely.

However, don’t get me wrong. I am not a hermit that hates social networking. On the contrary, I love social media and also an avid user of it. I just don’t like the idea of waking up one day with hundreds of emails in my mailbox requesting to be removed from my project social group. Call me a paranoid. I believe I do have good reasons to be paranoid.