PMI Global Insights

"In 2017, a crack expert unit was put together by the PMI for a task so great, that only the best could be called upon. These PMPs promptly got together, started having some fantastic E-Mail banter and collaborating together to prepare for #PMIcon17. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them....maybe you can visit the PMI Ask the Experts Team."

OK....so I may have rewritten the starting intro to one of my all-time favourite TV shows but it’s also very true for the set of experts that are being lined up to be at the PMI Global Conference in Chicago next month. We all have a special set of skills and expertise to be able to support and help you with not only your Project Management issues but also any questions that you might have around being a Project Manager and maybe even career advice.

Why do you need an expert in your life?

It’s an interesting question. Why are experts valuable to you? What value do they add? To me, being an expert isn’t just about knowing the answer to a problem, it’s about coaching you to find the solution that would work best for you and supporting you in your end goal. That’s why I think it’s a great initiative of the PMI to have Experts at the Global Congress because not only can they be a source of information and guidance but also a great source of support for you throughout the investigation and resolution process.

So who am I?

I’m Emily 😊 I’m a Project Manager and Scrum Master and my aim is to help people and project develop and become stronger, leaner and more efficient. I’m a huge advocate for the ‘people’ behind projects and encouraging a strong team to deliver a successful project. My specialties include agile and agile practices, talent management, working and leading virtual teams, communication (both local, international and with cultural sensitivities), professional development and next gen project management.

I've been working in Project Management for over 10 years in various roles and I'm passionate about sharing knowledge and empowering teams with the knowledge for them to be successful.

Come to see me or any of the other experts in Chicago. We’ll be very noticeable in our fabulous polo shirts and enthusiastic smiles. I’m around throughout the conference but you can reserve a slot with me during the following time periods:

Saturday, October 28^th 3:00pm – 4:30pm

Sunday, October 29^th 1:00pm – 3:00pm

Monday, October 30^th 9:00am – 12:00pm

I noticed that there is a bit of a theme happening in these blogs posted by my fellow expert cohort. And that is, "What makes an Expert" and "How Meeting with Experts might Help You Learn!" And so I thought I'd contribute to this chain of thought.

I liked some of the qualifiers my friend Dave had, particularly when he mentioned PM's should have "survived failures" and be "observational." Dave also demonstrated the power of collaboration when it comes to problem solving, from his own experiences at NASA.

Larry wrote a couple of excellent articles both discussing the need to gain an ability to learn, as well as leading us through the way he learned...and learned...and learned -always on the job. I couldn't agree more with continuous learning, and so, if I were to choose qualifiers on becoming an expert PM, I would add having experiences with:

1. facilitation,
2. collaboration, and
3. continuous learning.

For me, all three of these are complementary, particularly when it comes to problem solving - which is essentially what we PM's tend to lead, on every project - hence their importance.

However, when it comes to the last qualifier, I believe that, essential to growth, we should look for every opportunity to learn - and that doesn't always need to come from someone with years of experience in the field you are aiming to grow in.

No, instead, it means learning from multiple perspectives, from every stakeholder who might be involved with your project, or similar projects, during its extended lifecycle - especially from those end-users and operators.

THEY will tell you what went wrong with past systems designs.

THEY will tell you what field conditions are going to kick your project in the behind, and throw it off course.

THEY will tell you when your estimates on time and cost are completely unachievable.

Throughout my career, I have survived many failures. And I have avoided many failures too - because I learned early, and quickly, that I can learn many things from listening to others - other people who are not experts in my field, but experienced in what they do. Maybe they were considered experts by their juniors too, or maybe not.

The point is - they knew a LOT more about that particular aspect of a proposed project than I did. (And sometimes they only knew just a little bit more, or had different views on things - and that all helped too!)

Talk to many different people with that sort of knowledge, and you can quickly see why engaging your stakeholders, and better yet, bringing them together, can bring huge advantages to your projects!

After his first article, Larry asked me to share who I am, and what knowledge I can bring for you. And so I will try to summarize 20 years of varied experiences into a few distinct insights I might offer to support your growth.

My expert profile indicates: risk management, sustainability, program and portfolio management, change management, stakeholder management and talent management. It seems a lot, but honestly it could have included a lot more!

But, really, what is behind all of these knowledge areas of mine, and what particular aspects might be most important?

Let's start with risk and sustainability.

You might say that these two things are ingrained into my psyche. Why?

Because I am a geological engineer who has spent the past 20 years working in the mining sector. 

If you haven't been exposed to either, let me tell you that risk awareness and risk avoidance are drilled into you from day one - on both fronts. As a geological engineer, we are taught about every type of risk that the environment might pose on any construction or development type of project.

It is our JOB to identify these risks and find solutions to prevent the impacts to and/or failure of infrastructure at its foundational level - topography, subsurface rock and soil conditions, influences of water, and any sort of impact that climatic elements might have on any of these are all part of our body of knowledge.

Ever find something buried in the ground that you weren't expecting? Soft or loose soils? Water flowing into your excavations? A geo should have, and still can, help you out. The earlier you engage one, the better off you are!

In mining, we are constantly on the look out for how the ground and environment around it, might impact our projects. AND we are also looking at how our projects might impact said environment! Because there are just so many ways that mining can be detrimental to the environment - a view I'm sure no one would disagree with.

So on this front, being a geo also provides plenty of insight on how projects can be improved on the sustainability front - prevention of impacts, correction of impacts, and ways to go above and beyond "simple" compliance requirements and make things most resource-efficient and safe. And I have plenty of stories to back this up.

Now, I will say that not all geo's are created equal and toot my own horn too - to add to the training and experience that I have in these realms, I have a preferential characteristic of being a holistic, big picture thinker and observer.

For whatever reason, my brain developed with the capacity to be able to rapidly see the interconnections between many different requirements and potential influences as I learn more from different stakeholders, and I will often spot holistic risks and opportunities long before others do. It truly was something that completely frustrated one of my first bosses and mentors - I'd jump to issues that he was not yet thinking about all the time, but that in the long run, he learned to trust and let me go with it.

On the flip side, while I have the knowledge, and can do the detailed process-oriented analyses, it drains my energy and nearly kills me to do so. Blessed? Cursed? I'll let you be the judge, but it forced me to learn how to rapidly develop trust with those who LOVE to deal with this level of detail, and work with them to accomplish those things.

At any rate, I love the ways in which I can help teams out to spot the potential challenges and guide the development of plans to work through solutions to maximize success!

Next, let's explore program, portfolio and change management.

About 9-10 years ago, I began to be recognized for my strategic, holistic thinking and capabilities for spotting risks and opportunities, let alone the internal drive I had for making positive change.

For a company that was kicking off an organizational change initiative focused on sustainability and becoming recognized as a leader in environmental performance, I was selected to join the change management team.

Now, I will say that the role I was offered was not posed in this frame. I joined the team as a specialist to look for opportunities to improve waste management within the organization - to start. This role took me completely out of my geo-box to explore many more challenges than I'd ever been exposed to, as well as the potential technologies and practices that might resolve them. It was an exciting time of learning, diving into the details and performing all kinds of data analyses, field investigations, feasibility studies and more.

As I mentioned already, I quickly realized how much faster it was to get through the front end of projects such as these, if I just engaged the stakeholders involved with those processes I was investigating. My joy of learning flourished - from both the technical exploration I was able to do, as well as through the engagement with so many diverse people.

Over and over again, people would bring up their headaches, and make suggestions of alternatives - sometimes things they'd already investigated - but hadn't the authority or language to show its business case and strategy for implementation. I was happy to be the one to facilitate moving some things along, as well as to find even better solutions addressing multiple challenges in one go, using their combined input.

Within this team, I gradually advanced from specialist to senior specialist, and to manager, assisting the director with strategic process changes, and then taking over when organizational restructuring eliminated his role - I had to train a new director on all of our existing processes and future plans.

You can come and hear more about the transitions I helped teams moved through over the years that I was in this team at my talk on October 29th. What I won't be covering, however, is the fact that I engaged and coached teams, and facilitated the integration of sustainability measures and the requirements of environmental assessment and community engagement processes into organizational and departmental strategic planning, as well as the PMO planning, stage-gate and decision-making processes.

To give a gauge on time and effort, I spent nearly 6 years with this team before all these changes were implemented and I decided to move on. These weren't quick initiatives, and they required ongoing and extended stakeholder engagement of internal personnel at many different levels of the organization. They required learning how best to connect with people, and with trialling and testing what might work for gaining buy-in to change, for rapid implementation - without authority.

Which leads into my ties with stakeholder management and talent management.

I hope that you can already and clearly see why stakeholder engagement is on my list. What I will add is that I have played the role of nearly every type of stakeholder throughout my career, at least for the types of things I was influencing. 

I've been the field tech, the engineer, the environmental specialist and performance monitor, and the liaison with the environmental regulators (and regulatory report author). I've been the quality control and construction manager for large-scale earthen construction projects, the project manager, and the business analyst collecting all the requirements, and justifying the business case for organizational change projects. And I've been the formal manager and coach of technical teams, and informal leader of change with absolutely no formal authority to make things happen. 

Oh, and did I mention that much of this engagement had to be done remotely? I'll remind that mining operations tend NOT to be located anywhere near the head-quartering corporate teams.

I've been on both sides of the fence - in the field with not even access to a cell phone or the ability to "send" pictures of critical, impossible situations we were dealing with (aka, before that time...), AND working from those cushy HQ offices hoping to relate to those in the field who think corporate folks have no idea of what they are dealing with... ; )

So, aside from my engagement with people at all levels and disciplines within the organization to facilitate change, I also have my own perspectives gained through these varied experiences. All of these things guide me when it comes to reviewing projects, processes and just general issues presented to me.

They guide me to ask a lot of questions, to help people such as yourselves, think about what you might not yet have thought of. To point you towards asking your own questions, and to engaging the right people to make your own initiatives stronger. To help you find the right solutions. 

Not on your own, but with the help and through collaboration with others.

If you can't yet tell, I'm all about engagement and collaboration. And bringing silo'd people together to realize the best outcomes for ANY type of project or initiative we might be working on.

If you think that any of this might help you along your journey, please come find me at the conference. Book a time to begin to work through your challenges, or to just connect with me to investigate more in-depth options for later.

I believe you can book your time along with your conference registration, actually. And I recommend booking early - to make sure you get a spot that works for you! (And if you miss this chance, or won't be there? Book a time with me anyways...)

The times I will be formally available at PMI Global, are:

Saturday, Oct 28th: 3:00 to 4:30

Sunday, Oct 29th: 10:00 to 12:00

Monday, Oct 30th: 9:00 to 12:00

Looking forward to meeting you there!

Before you officially begin your next project, consider whether you can answer the following questions:

• Are you aware of why the project is being launched? If not, find out! Ask the project sponsor why this particular project is being launched? What is the goal of the project? To what strategic organizational goal is the project aligned? This information enables you to understand the priority level of the project as well as have information that enables for securing resources and “selling” the project to team members and stakeholders.
   
• Do you have the knowledge to run the project? What are your strengths and weaknesses regarding the project? When you understand areas that you are not as knowledgeable as you might be or may have limited skills, you can use that knowledge to ensure you recruit team members who can help fill in the gaps. You don’t need to be an expert in every area of the project, others will have expertise you do not. Rely on their expertise to ensure a successful project.
   
• How do stakeholders feel about the project? Are they champions of the project? Are they against it? How do you know? If you don’t know, find out! Ask stakeholders their opinion about the project. Are they excited about it or worried? If worried, dive deeper to understand why so that you can address those concerns and get stakeholders on board with the project.
• Can the project be implemented as is? If it is a large, complex initiative, you might consider breaking down the project into smaller components to be more easily managed and to enable for quicker successes.
   
• How will the project “stick” when complete? What reinforcements will be put in place to ensure the project end result “sticks?” Will training be needed? What incentives are necessary? What processes will need to change? Consider what will need to happen to ensure the project sticks so that you can prepare early.

What else do you do to get ready for your projects?

Engaging employees in change projects is essential to ensure that the change initiative is accepted and “sticks.” Consider these five ways to engage employees in your next change initiative.

1. Get employees involved in shaping the change early on. Ask their opinions via a survey or in focus groups. This enables employees to provide their thoughts, concerns and feedback. When employees are involved in shaping the change they are more committed to the change overall.
2. Ensure a cross representative group of employees who will actually work on the tasks associated with the change project. Since employees will be working with the change, it is important that they serve on the team who is working on the change project.
3. Ask for feedback throughout the change initiative. As the change project progresses, ask employees to provide their thoughts through participation in pilot group testing, surveys, an internal website, focus group sessions or in one-on-one conversations. Enabling for continuous feedback enables for shaping a change initiative that will work for employees.
4. Consider creating a stakeholder support committee. This group, comprised of employees from throughout the organization, enables for regular engagement in the change initiative. For complex change initiatives in particular, a stakeholder support committee are your champions on the project and keep others engaged in the initiative through sharing information about the change project.
5. Once the change initiative is launched, be sure to check in with employees after they have had time to work with the change. This may be through surveys, focus groups, department meetings or in other forums. Use this check in time to determine improvements that may be made to ensure the next change initiative is even better.

Increase the number of people who contribute to improving a process

Often, when we are trying to improve upon a business process, we want to gather ideas from as many users of that process as possible. This is not always easy to do, especially when we have a larger group of users. Consider using brainstorming as a great way to gather input from a large number of users. Brainstorming works well even when the users are in different locations and it is not practical or feasible to get them together in one location.

Consider these best practice steps to brainstorm with a variety of individuals, across a variety of locations, to gather as many thoughts and ideas as possible:

1. Put flip charts in a variety of locations in each of the offices impacted by the process improvement initiative. For example, you might put them in a cafeteria, in hallways around departments, in a conference room or any other location that is accessible by employees only. (For one of my clients, we utilize a room that has white board walls and post questions related to the process improvement initiative on each wall in the room.)
2. At the top of each flip chart page – ask the question or state the problem. For example, The current process of paying vendor invoices is creating delays in meeting our goal of paying vendors within 30 days. What improvements might be made in the process to ensure we pay all vendors within a 30 day timeline?
3. Hold a number of virtual meetings and send an email around and let people know about the process improvement project and state that you need and want their ideas! Let them know about the flip charts in each office and where those flip charts are located. Ask them to take some time throughout the day over a specific period of time (say one or two weeks to gather ideas) and write down an idea, suggestion, thought, concern or question on a flipchart in a location near them.
4. Be sure to designate a point of contact or two in each office location who can: check in and tape filled up flips to rooms and ensure that there is always flip chart paper handy for participants to write on as well as markers to write with. This person may also serve as a point of contact if any participant from their office location has questions.

For a two week time period to respond to the question(s) asked, send at least one reminder after the first week. This keeps the initiative fresh in people’s minds and encourages further participation.

At the end of the time period for participation, ask the point of contact at each site to gather up the flip charts, compile the information and share with the business process improvement project team. One central point of contact designated by the project manager should then compile all flip chart data and sort and categorize as appropriate. 

This information will then be used to craft an initial draft (or two) of a new process in order to share back with the individuals impacted to get their thoughts on a potential “to be” process.

I have used this best practice at a number of clients as part of business process improvement (BPI) initiatives and have seen great success in getting significant participation in the BPI initiative.

Remember, we don’t want to limit the number of individuals contributing to improving a process. The more individuals we can get involved, the more likely that we have champions of our BPI initiative who are, therefore, more likely to actually utilize that new process.