PMI Global Insights

By Benjamin Anyacho, PMP
Strategic Senior Project Manager and Enterprise Knowledge Management Lead 
Texas Department of Transportation

I presented at the PMI Virtual Experience Series 2021 on 6-7 October2021. This was a great event with featured speakers, exhibits and networking activities.

My presentation, The Knowledge Café: Power of Knowledge-Centric Projects, Co-creative Innovation, Curiosity, and Conversation, focused on how to create and manage a knowledge-centric project environment, why it is needed now more than ever, simple tools to optimize project knowledge and explore the indefectible knowledge café-power of co-creative innovation. Key takeaways include how to:

• Create a knowledge-centric project culture
• Utilize the Knowledge Café to stir our knowledge exchange and stewardship curiosity
• Design and implement a knowledge café
• Activate conversational leadership and learn agile
• Turn your meetings into a knowledge café.

Many people will walk out of the door or even to their graves with about 80% of their knowledge. What a travesty! The absence of a knowledge-centric environment means systems and people talk at each other rather than “to each other.”

You cannot force people to share their knowledge. Even the best knowledge management tools are toothless unless people feel motivated to share their knowledge. Therefore, it is important to create an environment of collaboration—conversational knowledge café and trust—so that PMs feel intrinsically motivated to share their knowledge with their colleagues.

During my presentation, I received a lot of great questions that we didn’t get a chance to cover, and my responses are below.

Question 1: In a knowledge-sharing environment, how do you manage misinformation?

This is a great question. There could be misinformation if you debate, but there’s no room for misinformation in a knowledge café dialogue. The Knowledge café is a knowledge exchange mindset and a space to cross-fertilize ideas, test our crazy ideas. It’s the antithesis of a typical social media mud-slinging, a tribal, toxic cesspool of online political debates. Not in my café! Consider the cadence of genuine conversations, the willingness for café goers/participants to acknowledge counterpoints, the aversion to ad hominem attacks, and real knowledge exchange. There’s no place for misinformation. In my research, I found that the most incredible ideas in the world often started as stupid ones. Better ideas always win the day in a café.

Don’t you think that there’s a need for a non-judgmental space where conversations are covenanted? Empathy and understanding replace sympathy or vengeance. Shouldn’t every voice count?

The café is that environment where you can bring any crazy ideas for other caffeinated and curious learners to test them out. Yes, because there’s listenability, respect, civility, and reciprocity. Dialogue replaces debate and arguments.

Data and information are the lowest spectra of the knowledge management continuum. In the knowledge café, we share knowledge. Do you often welcome misinformation in your project space? No. We don’t peddle misinformation in our projects and programs.  If you want team members to unleash their creative geniuses in a project space, you create an environment where learners can share their ideas.

Manage misinformation with knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Use the cafe ground rules (see question 2). We are not in a café for debate but for dialogue. More ideas and conversations equal knowledge innovation.

Question 2: How do you address knowledge cafe participants who act like they are the smartest person in the room or like they know everything?  What do you do about the person who has all the answers?

The Knowledge Café creates room for empathy, understanding, and knowledge rejuvenation. Dig deep into your compassion wells. Yeah, 2020 seems to have sacrificed every sense of dialogue at the alter debate, but knowledge and dialogue are the proper ways. Empathy is not sympathy. Empathize with all knowledge workers. Isn’t it an oxymoron if a champion of tolerance shuts down the know-it-all? All voices should be heard.

If they think they know it all, they probably know something. There is always something—some knowledge—curiosity that is driving a know-it-all. Meet them in a Knowledge Café. Listen, engage, be empathetic. We come to the knowledge café for dialogue, not debate. Pick your battles. Café is not the place for fighting.

The end goal is to learn and exchange knowledge and unleash co-creative innovation. Ask probing questions. Café is about asking and answering knowledge-provoking questions. In the worst-case scenario, take the know-it-all person aside if they are disruptive and offer constructive feedback on their behavior.

This is why I modified Gurteen’s Knowledge Café Ground Rules:

1. “Embraces conversational covenant—David Gurteen and David Creelman
2. Bring our crazy ideas to be tested by others
3. It is driven by a powerful question
4. Promotes dialogue, not debates or argument
5. Preserves conversational flow
6. Everyone has an equal voice
7. Eliminates fear of judgment or rejection
8. Prevents preconceived outcomes
9. It does not allow coercion
10. Stirs your learning agility
11. Voice your “crazy ideas” and let others test it
12. Safe to fail
13. Open and creative conversation
14. Diversity of perspectives
15. Small group conversations
16. Elicits deeper understanding of issues
17. Lively facilitation
18. Develops and evolves thinking
19. Eliminates fear                             
20. We are all in the learning process” (Anyacho, 2021)

  Question 3: Any ideas for virtual knowledge cafe “tables”?  Maybe small MS Teams groups?

“Some project teams use visual management tools, rather than written plans and other documents, to capture and oversee critical project elements. Making key project elements visible to the entire team provides a real-time overview of the project status, facilitates knowledge transfer, and empowers team members and other stakeholders to help identify and solve issues.” [PMBOK Guide, Sixth Edition, 4 - Project Integration Management, p. 73.]

In 2020, a poll on Twitter surveyed who was instrumental to their company’s digital transformation: Your CEO, CIP or COVID-19? The majority answered COVID. In the post-COVID project space, a hybrid of face-to-face and virtual café learning and knowledge exchange has become the norm.

I used to have monthly knowledge of café in cafes and meeting places in Austin, Texas. When the pandemic hit, I began to have a virtual café. More people RSVP’d from Africa, Europe, Asia, and outside Texas than in the pre-COVID era. In October 2021, I had a hybrid knowledge café, and there were attendees virtually. The unique thing about the knowledge café is human interaction. Face-to-face is great, but technology has made it possible and easy to café virtually. You can use Zoom, Teams, etc., as your virtual tables. We have 50+ communities of practice in my organization. Most of them have an MS Teams site and knowledge-sharing wikis. Yes, you can have a virtual café.

Question 4: Can time be a restriction when conducting the “Cafe”?

Any restrictions are mutually agreed upon. David Gurteen’s café runs for 60 to 90 minutes. Mine run from one hour to four hours. It depends on your objectives, type of knowledge café, participants, and consensus. 

Question 5: How does one react to a situation whereby a knowledge shared is being used against one in the workplace? For example, you train someone on a job skill, and because of company politics, they are placed above you.

This is real. It does happen. If organizations want knowledge workers to share their knowledge, they should create the right environment where knowledge project managers are excited to share their knowledge and incentivized for doing that. Nonetheless, you can still share your knowledge. If you want to know everything I know, I’ll buy you lunch. When I share my knowledge, it makes me more powerful and smarter. It may be the same with you. Powerful PMs are not afraid of sharing their knowledge.  My retention increases by more than 200% when I share my knowledge. As I give back by sharing my knowledge across the world, it makes me fulfilled and more potent because the hand that gives is always on TOP. I even got a HOT book deal after speaking at a PMI global conference. Please share your knowledge. Be politically savvy, too (that’s for another day). Don’t mind the losers who take advantage of your generosity. 

In my experience, human beings and organizations don’t always gleefully embrace a system of knowledge management. In response to surveys and audience participation at conference presentations, results suggest that employees tend to hoard their intellectual assets. More people in the workplace see their knowledge as their job security. This information hoarding and knowledge silo is a significant challenge to implementing a culture of knowledge sharing.

Participating in knowledge-transfer activities makes employees feel empowered to assume ownership of processes and initiatives of common organizational objectives. A cafe facilitates an interactive and collaborative crossroads for cross-fertilization of ideas.

Creating an intentional knowledge transfer environment and knowledge transfer culture guarantees succession and builds resilience. Therein lies knowledge sustainability. 

Knowledge is power... but how powerful is the knowledge if pigeonholed, not shared, un-transferred, unrejuvenated, and DEAD?

I had a great time presenting, and the full presentation will be on demand through 31 January 2022.  Visit PMI Virtual Experience Series 2021 for more details.

By N. Christine Aykac, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMP
Project Coach/Learning Strategist, Acuna Consulting

I presented at the PMI Virtual Experience Series 2021 on 6-7 October 2021, a global event attracting more than 42,000 attendees. My presentation, “Measuring the Maturity of Your Digital Transformation Efforts,” focused on the key elements of transformational change and a simple way to measure the maturity of your organization’s digital transformation efforts. During the presentation, attendees submitted numerous questions, and I have chosen some of these questions to respond to here.

Question 1: What do you think the top 3 skills will be in 2022 for project managers to be successful?

I find it is easier to learn technical skills than interpersonal or power-skills because artificial intelligence cannot replicate power skills. My top three skills are critical thinking, problem-solving and communication. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF) Future of Jobs report 2020, skills gaps continue to be high as in-demand skills across jobs change in the next five years. They also predict that critical thinking, as well as problem-solving, will be much more important. In addition, WEF lists other skills such as active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility. However, without learning how to communicate better with our teams, stakeholders, having other skills and being a subject matter expert will not be enough.

Question 2: Looking forward to hearing what you have to say about cybersecurity.

First, not just project managers but any professional should have basic cybersecurity knowledge. Cybersecurity knowledge will become must-have knowledge for project managers, especially those working within IT organizations. 

Question 3: How do you manage continuous improvement when the upper managers do not have the desire to move on?

Small steps; doing something is better than doing nothing or giving up. Sometimes, I don't even call it continuous improvement, but I add small activities into the project activities and ensure my team understands the concept and helps me to look at ways to achieve improvements, regardless of how small it is. Also, remember that continuous learning is part of continuous improvement activities. I always arrange lunch-and-learn sessions and invite project managers and experts willing to volunteer their time.  

Question 4: Can you please provide a case study of a company that did digital transformation?

There are companies out there that accomplished their transformation goals for a period of time, like implementing big data strategy and managing their customer data with the help of machine learning tools much better. However, I don't believe anyone of them can say that they completed a digital transformation. As I discussed during my session, digital transformation is a journey. As you reach a certain point, new ideas, innovations will emerge, and you have to adjust your course accordingly. 

Question 5: Would there be specific examples of how you would assess each of the 5 areas of your business?

I do not recommend asking too specific questions in the initial survey, but you can ask if they like to be contacted with the follow-up survey and/or are open to talking to the team. In this survey, I recommend asking the basic questions for each dimension, such as: Based on your knowledge and experience, what do you think is the level of each dimension?

Your result chart should be something like this:

Question 6: What are the differences in collective thinking, high-performing teams?

When we talk about high-performing teams, we look at the result - they completed all the assigned tasks, achieved their goals, etc. You can reach this point with standard team-building activities. Especially if you are working with seasoned professionals, you will reach a high-performing state in a shorter time. However, are you getting the best out of them? Are you able to use their expertise to achieve a better outcome? You may notice that even collaborators have quite different approaches. You need to bring them to a collective thinking state to ensure you get the best results out of them.

Collective thinking is a way of obtaining a comprehensive understanding of problems and issues and coming up with better ways to tackle them. Therefore, I see collective thinking as a tool to help us achieve transformational change for the current and sustainable future.

Collective thinking involves listening to multiple perspectives and embracing multiple points of view to develop a more sophisticated approach to problems. Keep in mind that complex issues require intelligence beyond that of any individual. Yet, in the face of complex, highly conflictual issues, teams typically break down, revert to their rigid positions, and cover up deeper views. The result is watered-down compromises. Collecting thinking, however, is a discipline of collective learning and inquiry. Thus, it can serve as a cornerstone for organizational learning by providing an environment where people can reflect together and transform the ground out of their thinking and acting.

Question 7: What are the tools to get to a collective wisdom state?

Tools, techniques and methods you use to create high-performing teams and solving problems will be quite helpful. Otherwise, it is a slow-moving process.

As I mentioned, it is important to set the principles upfront, such as establishing trust, respect and transparency. It starts with bringing them together because when any group of individuals comes together, each brings a wide range of unexpressed differences in perspectives.

If you have a problem that requires a root cause analysis to resolve, you can apply the steps introduced in the presentation.

Question 8: This maturity looks to me very similar to the Capability Maturity Model. Is this the case?

Yes, it is based on the capability maturity model (CMM); however, it is a simplified version because we want to get a high-level idea of how every user in the organization is feeling/thinking about the digital transformation. CMM is a quite complex model. If you apply the same complex model, you may not be able to measure your transformation efforts, especially from a people's perspective.

You may access this presentation on demand through 31 January 2022. Visit PMI Virtual Experience Series 2021 for further details on accessing this and other presentations.

By Nancie E. Celini, DrPH
President
Think-OCM.org

I had the honor of presenting at the PMI Virtual Experience Series 2021 on 6-7 October, a global event attracting more than 42,000 attendees. My presentation, “Change or Get Left Behind: Why Organizational Change Management Is Imperative Now,” focused on the premise that organizations don’t change, but people change organizations, and examined how there are exciting ways to manage change more efficiently and effectively and to help people adapt. I am responding to a few questions posed during my presentation.

Question 1: Organizations, generally speaking, seem to have good capability to incorporate new trending technologies, but why is it so hard for a majority of organizations to learn from other organizations and learn & implement how to improve operational effectiveness?

Life science organizations have few forums to share internal information safely, legally, and compliantly. That’s the short answer but let me provide some additional detail.

The industry has limited ways to discuss their inner workings of their organizations as openly as they may like with our sponsor organizations. There are legal restrictions of what employees can say and conference presentation content is screened carefully by legal, compliance and other functions within the organization. This makes the work of PMI valuable to allow organizations to share work that has been implemented and to hear from other organizations comparatively. But there was a time when organizations shared more openly and actually sought answers to common challenges. Let me share one that worked really well.

Years back, I was very active in special area interest groups through several professional associations. With pre-screening from their organizations, participants drove what seemed like a less restrictive setting to exchange insights between organizations. Some of these groups were highly successful. As a chair of one group, collective work resulted in producing a free, open, technology-agnostic model for how bio/pharma organizations could establish an industry-driven taxonomy for electronic document management systems (EDMS). This work was done with the understanding that this would result in a model that all were welcome to leverage. In a non-completive manner, organizations were eager to share their pain and lessons learned of configuring their repositories. This work grew and a second industry group would leverage this work into the TMF reference model.

Given the complications that organizations are facing now in 2021 post-pandemic, we might discover a renewed interest to collaborate more vigorously so that everyone can share best practices for resolving some of the new challenges confronting our industry for what may be years to come. And this open exchange can be done without violating corporate policies if the rules are clear about what can be shared and boundaries are established about intellectual property.

Question 2: Execs sometimes even believe they are “open.” How do we convince someone who does not know that he does not know!?

Changing “beliefs” can be very complicated, so this question needs to be deciphered a bit more, but let me suggest one idea.

A character on a television show in the 1950s, Sergeant Joe Friday, would remind people undergoing interrogation to provide “just the facts”. This is a good reminder about having your facts and figures before changing minds and influencing outcomes.  

Putting aside pure ego, when you are trying to convince someone to change their mind or, in the case of executive leadership, organizational direction, compelling insight is required. All too often, passionate project leaders mistake presenting “soft issues” or a limited set of generic benefits to executives and key stakeholders as compelling facts. This doesn’t work. And the real hardship comes when solid data is required, and none exists.

So, let’s be sure that we are not talking about being egotistical or rigid in thought in this question. When asking someone to change their thinking, a strong business case is imperative. Consider the data points or “metrics” that will be needed. This takes a lot of lead time and good planning as well as the resources who have the data you need.

Leverage relationships with other professionals who collect data, for example, finance and regulatory. If you are building a case for lower costs, you will need cost data and determine how you will use the data to influence a change. If you are, however, creating a case for greater efficiency in a specific business process, you need a before or “as is” business case that may include direct as well as indirect costs along with other business metrics such as number of resources, time and opportunity costs.

Building influential business cases is no easy task, but there are resources likely right within your organization who have the data and know-how to provide the case! And while an organizational change management (OCM) professional can help with the key messages, OCM is not the source of this type of data; however, a new era for OCM is starting to unfold.

OCM to date has not been a data-intensive discipline, and while interviews are a key aspect of OCM methodologies, they fall way short of gathering the types of data that can be used for a compelling business case. And often, the change impacts that are collected are not assessed correctly so they can be converted into the metrics and data needed.

Fortunately, “data-driven OCM” is underway with emerging platforms and tools coming onto the market. While still nascent, in my humble opinion, technology will facilitate OCM efforts to gather data that decision-makers will value. The lack of technology to conduct data-driven assessments has been a drawback as new tools evolve; this will allow OCM to provide more compelling insights about the impacts of not changing.

Question 3: Are you saying that we should be both the PM and the OCM? Or that there should be two different people for these roles?

This is a clear NO! I believe that project managers, and their team members can all be powerful agents for change; however, being qualified as an OCM professional, skilled in methodology and the deliverables required for complex projects is another matter.

Project managers (PMs) spend years mastering both the art and science of how to manage projects end-to-end. I see them as the “conductors” of the orchestra. But the team typically has many players on the stage, especially in complex projects. Each role must “play their part” clearly and in harmony with the others. Given the sheer amount of work that a PM must navigate, placing additional burdens on them for communications, stakeholder management, resistance interventions, change impact analysis and executive engagements, weakens the PM’s ability to manage the project and puts it at great risk.

Let’s be clear that OCM is a complex discipline that is often misunderstood. The very notion that a PM can also perform the OCM role underscores this misconception. OCM professionals require certification and training, years of hands-on practice and behavioral insight that is not typical of a PM’s skillset.

While some skills may overlap, PMs and OCMs also need to have clear-cut roles (i.e., project governance), so they can work closely to integrate their expertise. This may mean talking things out and writing things down in the absence of clear guidance. We’ve all heard that old expression of too many cooks in the kitchen….in this case, it will indeed spoil the meal!

Bottom-line is that OCM attempting to manage the project is equally as dangerous as PMs attempting to manage the requirements of OCM.

Question 4: Does OCM include planning for training and training environments or is that PM role?

In full disclosure, I draw a very clear line on this topic from my vast experience in both training and professional education and OCM, and seeing too many failures. Failures may range from training left to last-minute attempts, not included in the project early on, inadequate training, and content not accessible for go-live.

The simple answer is OCM should always have an oversight role as part of change readiness. Training is a substantial aspect of this assessment that should be conducted by OCM. But the role of OCM in relation to training must focus on priorities such as key messages to end-users (early and often), the timing of the training deliverables and events, expectations and required outcomes (i.e., completion of training to get system access). The OCM lead should be a facilitating role, not authoritarian. Like the relationship between the OCM and PM, the training lead needs to be included early and have a seat at the table.  This is where projects get into trouble when they lack clear-cut roles and responsibilities, so RACI, or whatever method is used, is critical to delineate who does what and when.

Failing to consider training as a change readiness requirement is planning a failure. Don’t wait until you have training that is inadequate or not ready for “prime time” when the system must go live.

Presentations will be on demand through 31 January 2022. Visit PMI Virtual Experience Series 2021 for more details.

By Yoram Solomon

I had the opportunity to present at the PMI Virtual Experience Series 2021 on 6-7 October. This global event had over 42,000 attendees and included excellent speakers, virtual exhibits, and networking activities.

My presentation, “Tools to Identify and Fix Trust Breakdowns in Project Teams,” focused on the extreme impact that trust has on the performance of projects. Here are a few questions that I received from attendees, along with my responses.

Question 1: Trust is a fundamental property ? How do you measure it, based on which parameters?

Trust is made of two groups of components: who you are, and what you do. The who you are group includes three components. Competence is a professional, technical component. It essentially measures how good you are in what you do. You measure it by education, experience, track record on previous projects, etc. Personality Compatibility is an emotional one. It measures how compatible our personalities are, for me to trust you (or for you to trust me - those are two completely different things).

Having compatible personalities doesn’t mean we have to be the same. Often, having opposite personalities makes us compatible (you can’t have everyone on the team being inventors who don’t follow through, or have everyone on the team being great at execution, without anyone creative enough to come up with out-of-box ideas). Symmetry is the situational and topological component. For example, do we contribute to the project at the same level? Are we being treated similarly by the organization? Are we facing a common enemy (such as a tight schedule and budget), or are we in a position to compete with each other over promotions and/or bonuses?

The other group of components is the what you do group. We build (or destroy) trust in every interaction. We measure that through the other three components. The first is positivity. How positive (or negative) is what you bring into an interaction with me? How much BS do you bring? How much empathy? Do you behave as if the world revolves around you? Positivity is accelerated through the other two components: time and intimacy. The more time we spend together, the more frequently we interact, and the more timely those interactions are, the faster we build trust (or destroy it, depending on the positivity component). The higher the intimacy of our interactions is (more face-to-face rather than email), the faster we build (or destroy) trust. Your ability to see the consistency between what I say and what I mean determines (among all the other components) whether you should trust me or not.

Question 2: How do you trust others when they don’t trust you?

Of the eight laws of trust, the fourth is that trust is asymmetrical. We often say that “trust is a two-way street.” It is a two-way street, but not asymmetrical one. Think about this: does the pilot of your flight need to trust you to land the plane as much as you need them to land it? Does your surgeon need to trust you to perform surgery as much as you need to trust them to do it? Not so much, right? Trust is relative, and contextual, too. Do members of your project team need to trust you to do their job, be it programming, interior design, pouring concrete, or anything else? Not really. First, as a project manager, you need to be trusted to do exactly that: manage the project effectively and efficiently. Plan and manage it to finish on time, on budget, and according to the specifications. But the trust they have in you depends on six components: your competence, personality compatibility, symmetry (those are the “who you are” components), and what you do during interactions with them: your positivity, accelerated by the time you spend with them and the intimacy of those interactions (from email to face-to-face). If you feel that you are not trusted by others as much as you want to be, first find out why.

What is it that’s holding you back from being trusted by them? Once you find out—fix it if you can. One of the components that is hard to fix is personality incompatibility. Regardless, trust is asymmetrical, and the level of trust you have in a person has almost nothing to do with the level of trust they have in you. You can only do something about the latter.

Question 3: What do you mean by “Make tough decisions” when trust cannot be fixed?

Every now and then, you will find that trust cannot exist between two members of the team (you might be one of them) that depend on each other. It is important to note that where trust matters is mostly where such dependency exists. If member A of the team depends on a deliverable from member B (for the success of the project, not any other reason), then the trusting relationship that matters is whether member A can trust member B to deliver that deliverable. The level of trust that member B has in member A doesn’t matter that much, for this purpose. The level of trust that member A has in member B is more important the more critical that dependency is.

The level of trust that member A has in member B may be low for several reasons. One of the most common reasons is because they don’t have enough experience working with each other. This could easily be fixed by having them spend more time together, both professionally and personally. Another reason could be due to low intimacy in their interactions. This could be fixed by encouraging them to spend more face-to-face time than communicating over email. Another reason could be a possible low competence that member B exhibits. This is a little harder to fix, but it could be fixed as member B continues to acquire knowledge and experience relevant to their role on the team.

However, the reason for the low level of trust could be personality incompatibility. Compatible personalities don’t necessarily mean that both members have to be identical or share exactly the same values. Sometimes, being the opposite makes for good compatibility (“opposites attract”). The problem occurs when the personalities are incompatible in an area, or a value, that is important to both members, and neither one is willing (or capable) of changing. This is a recipe for a low level of trust that cannot be fixed. If it cannot be fixed, you have a simple yet tough decision to make: either you accept the consequences of a low level of trust (miss schedule, go over budget, or not meet specifications), or you remove a member from the team.

I enjoyed being a part of this event, and the full presentation will be on demand through 31 January 2022. Visit PMI Virtual Experience Series 2021 for more details. 

By Donna D. Gregorio

During my presentation on “The 3 Most Challenging Moments That Can Make or Break Any Project” at the PMI Virtual Experience Series 2021 on 6-7 October, the audience posed several questions in the chat that are worthy of a blog post response.  Here are a few of those questions and my answers, based on what was discussed in my presentation.

Question 1: Do you think the key to PM irreplaceable vs. irrelevant is the level of influence and trust built with the stakeholders?

The key to a PM being irreplaceable is to ensure you are actively driving the project’s success and ensuring a positive mission outcome. The world of IT project management can indeed be shaky ground if the project managers are not critical to project delivery. You need to have confidence in your role, knowing the key processes and how you are adding value. Be a critical team player by getting deep enough into the project to understand the outcomes such that you can quantify them using metrics for program success measures. There are other ways to be a critical team member, including managing cross-coordination issues across multiple efforts, identifying and driving data integration issues, and communicating cross-functional impacts with stakeholders. Be less administrative and more attentive to project goals and deliverables to make yourself irreplaceable.

Question 2: Very nice presentation, Donna. You’ve touched on scope creep. How have you managed to balance avoiding scope creep with the requirements of incremental/iterative projects?

Scope creep can be the biggest threat to your project regarding lengthening the schedule, increasing cost, and lowering your chances of success. It happens when features are added that were not in the original plan and unaccounted for in cost and schedule. When an incremental/iterative project begins to learn more and adds new features, negotiation with stakeholders is key to ensure comparable original requirements are removed. In other words, only add new features if you can remove some items to keep your work balanced. Capacity planning and understanding how much work your team can accomplish is another significant factor to ensuring proper estimating. Remember that negotiating is key to staying within budget/schedule as the scope is shifting.

Question 3: Do you have any advice, if you were not responsible for project initiation and experience massive problems now with the project? A risk management is already implemented, but all communication with stakeholders is very difficult.

One approach would be to develop a “get well” plan for your troubled project and take action to set things right. Start out by ensuring you have As Is documentation to review the schedule, work breakdown structure, recent status reports and user acceptance testing results. Identify what was the expected plan and where are you now. Provide recommendations, including adjusting any diagramming, changing workflows, modifying execution plans or Kanban boards, conduct a change-readiness review. The team can decide whether there is time in the schedule to proceed with these recommendations. Finally, the task force can develop an organizational change management plan, collect metrics for proof of success, conduct lessons learned, and finalize any wrap-up tasks, such as budget finalization.

This and other presentations are available on demand through 31 January 2022. Visit PMI Virtual Experience Series 2021 for more details.