Voices on Project Management

by Cyndee Miller

The “T” word is getting thrown around a lot. So I might have been skeptical walking into Anthony Gayter’s symposium keynote on a “real-world transformation.”

Once he started laying out the details, it was clear this was the real deal.

It all started when HP went on an acquisition extravaganza, gobbling up 60 companies from 2002 to 2015. All that wheeling and dealing made HP one of the biggest conglomerates in the world.

“Then reality hit,” said Anthony Gayter, vice president, enterprise services, global transformation service, DXC Technology, a division of HP. “We were behind the times.”

In 2015, HP made the strategic decision to split the company in two —and then eight months into the split, they decided to cut the company into several more parts. “We had three splits and two mergers going on top of normal day-to-day work.”

The transformation was not just complex, it was happening on an epic scale: The team had 4,300 project milestones — and only 10 months to complete the initiative. “We were putting everything on the line,” said Mr. Gayter.

Where did the organization turn to for support to seamlessly separate the entities? “Project management is the unsung hero.”

Throughout it all, the meetings and endless milestone mapping, the project management team led the charge. And execs took notice, maybe not in overt proclamations, but in one very powerful way.

“Any companies that are merging, one reason is to cut costs,” Mr. Gayter said. “Project management has been kept whole.

While more than 40 percent of vice presidents have exited — no project managers have been fired. Instead, the organization hired more and continues to invest in project management training, certifications and development. “It was a recognition of their skillset and capability,” Mr. Gayter said.

But after playing such a powerful part in the transformation, the pressure is on. “It’s a double-edge sword. The expectation is that perfection is the standard now.”

Is project management an “unsung hero” at your company? Or does it get the credit it deserves?

By Cyndee Miller

Buckle up: The new world of transient advantage is upon us, according to symposium keynoter Rita McGrath, PhD. The days when a company could sit back on the glory of a competitive edge they’d diligently honed? Done.

“If the world around you is changing quickly, you can’t be the kind of leader who says, ‘This is our goal and we’re going to follow it relentlessly,’” she said.

Leaders high on their own success — and too attached to a goal — are laying the seeds of their organization’s demise. This is the time for “healthy disengagement,” the ability to shut a project down when it no longer makes sense and reallocate resources in a better direction when the project landscape shifts — as it inevitably will.

“We have to get away from thinking about stability as the normal thing and change as the weird thing,” she said.

The ultra-fast pace of change can make it hard to see a clear direction forward. But smart leaders know they must build project portfolios that cover more than just business as usual. They craft opportunities for future growth when the path forward becomes less foggy.

“You want to create options for yourself to make more substantial investments when you know more,” Dr. McGrath.

PMOs have a role to play in this whole transient advantage adventure. They’re like the sherpas guiding organizations up the mountain. They know the landscape of budgets and power, and how to implement the right kinds of change at the right time.

Are you and your PMO ready for the era of the transient advantage?

By Cyndee Miller

Who’s a cool kid?

If organizations really want their tech transformations to take hold, the answer should be everyone.

That’s especially true in an era of digital disruption. Whether the source of change is a new cybersecurity threat or opportunities arising from nascent 5G networks, engaging all internal stakeholders and not just a select cadre will vastly increase enthusiasm and the likelihood of project success, said Tony Scott, CEO, TonyScottGroup LLC. He was the lead-off keynoter at PMO Symposium this week.

This fellow knows a thing or two about transformations, having served as CIO in transitional periods for major organizations including Microsoft, Disney and the U.S. federal government. “One of the most important functions of project managers and PMOs is to get people aligned and get people moving in the same direction,” he says. If a new direction is afloat, “make change a priority — and communicate it.”

Take his time in the White House. A massive data breach necessitated that teams across government departments update their security practices. But engagement with the government’s previous efforts to increase digital security was tepid at best. Whatever. That was before his time. His call? Make the transformation a contest and take the results public — which meant department leaders faced the prospect of a public reprimand.

“In 30 days, we made as much progress as they did in 10 years,” Mr. Scott said.

With change happening at such a head-spinning, mind-boggling pace, those people adept at handling such rapid shifts — i.e., project, program and portfolio professionals — are in a prime spot to reap some serious rewards. Anyone tasked with recruiting those people should get ready for a true battle royal for talent.

“Project management skills are more in demand today — and that need will only intensify,” Mr. Scott said.

How does your organization handle tech changes? Does it get the word out across the company — or does it just let a very special group of cool kids engage? 

Monday's executive panel at the PMO Symposium in Houston, Texas, USA. From left: moderator Ed Hoffman, Mario Arlt, Anne Sparrenberger and Gordon Gaenzle.

By Cyndee Miller

It’s the great divide. More than 90 percent of executives get it: Organizational agility is table stakes for surviving in a disruption-laden world. Yet only 27 percent of them consider their organizations highly agile, according to Achieving Greater Agility, the latest in PMI’s latest Thought Leadership Series.

Closing that gap will take more than changing processes or delivery approaches, PMI President and CEO Mark A. Langley told leaders at the PMO Symposium in Houston, Texas, USA. It requires shifting mindsets and culture.

So move past the old agile versus waterfall debate. Leaders should be worrying about bigger things. Like staying relevant.

“The role of the PMO is changing just as rapidly as the world around it,” Mr. Langley said.

Reinforcing a common refrain across the morning’s discussions, Anne Sparrenberger of FedEx said organizational agility is about listening to — and incorporating — the voice of the customer.

But here’s a wakeup call: Barely more than a quarter of executives say they can leverage PMOs to be more agile.

Therein lies the opportunity.

PMO leaders need to step up and foster a culture of agility across their organizations, Bruce Rogers of Forbes Insights told attendees.

And they’re in a prime spot to do so.

“The PMO can play an important role in partnering with the C-suite to drive change,” IBM’s Gordon Gaenzle told the audience.

It’s been said that change is hard—people don’t always want to get on the bus, so to speak. Indeed, some people don’t even want to acknowledge there is a bus. For ABB’s Mario Arlt, PMOs prove their strategic value by convincing people affected by the change that the it’s necessary to the organization’s future.

“Ultimately, cultural change happens at the individual level,” he said.

Mr. Arlt also acknowledged that with agility — inevitably — comes some failure. The big question: Are you learning from those mistakes?

Howard Bagg from KPMG ticked off the four biggest transformation missteps: a dearth of exec sponsorship, lack of the enterprise view, failure to recognize the sheer amount of organizational change and the transition time required for that change.

What’s happening in your PMOs? Do executives at your organization see the PMO as a partner for change? Share your thoughts below. 

By Cyndee Miller

There are a slew of training courses, business books, and, yes, even blog posts about situational awareness. It’s a fairly straightforward theory: Pay attention to what’s going on around you.

Mercedes Ramirez-Johnson added a new depth to the topic in her closing keynote at PMI Global Conference. She shared her story of surviving a 1995 commercial plan crash over the mountains of Colombia that killed 160, including her parents.

A multiyear investigation into the crash revealed the pilots made two fatal mistakes. First, they entered the wrong airport code into the flight computer and veered 130 miles (209 kilometers) off course. And second, when the alert started to sound that they were getting too close to land at too fast a speed — it was a mountain — they pulled up, but forgot to release the speed breaks.

Had the pilots released those breaks, experts said they had a 95 percent chance of clearing the mountain and not crashing. It’s a perfect example of knowing what to do and not putting it into practice, says Ms. Ramirez-Johnson.

It’s a loss of situational awareness. And it can easily happen to business leaders and project leaders of every ilk. When people are busy trying to survive project to project, deadline to deadline, they won’t thrive, Ms. Ramirez-Johnson

The physical recovery of the ordeal included a prolonged stay in the intensive-care unit and weeks in bed, not moving, not eating. For a while, she was bitter and entered a “why me” tailspin (and let’s be honest, who wouldn’t?).

To pull herself up, Ms. Ramirez-Johnson says she started plotting the life she wanted to live with her second chance. “Even though I didn’t have control of what happened to me, I had 100 percent control of how I was going to move on,” she said.

Ms. Ramirez-Johnson made the choice to live with intention, to reset her perspective and to persevere. And she says project and program managers can — and should — do the same. "When we put projects on autopilot, we lose situational awareness and we don’t have the sense of what dangers are around the corner or what opportunities exist," Ms. Ramirez-Johnson said.

How are you using situational awareness in on your projects?