Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
The Synergy of a Well-Run Program
| In my last post, I used The Lord of the Rings to help explain the difference between a program and a project. And I also revealed the magical prize of a well-managed program: synergy. Let's discuss an example in Taiwan: The country has been pursuing a series of e-government initiatives for some time, including an "e-Business" smart card. Users insert the card into a reader, which then provides access to more than 30 different online government services. The options include business information, marketing and tax databases, tax return calculation, patent applications -- to name a few. Business people no longer have to go to government offices, spend time telephoning officials or advisers, or print, collect or post physical documents. The bottom-line savings are substantial. Over one year, a single business might save US$100. Multiply that by 5 million businesses, and the cost savings are around US$500 million. More importantly, it means businesses have access to information and their government whenever they want it. This is the "synergy" I'm talking about. But why does such an initiative have to be run as a program, instead of as multiple projects that need coordination? In this case, more than 30 projects across different application areas are involved and they share a group of IT and telecom resources. With the need to exchange resources, and communicate both vertically and horizontally, a higher level of governance is needed. Program managers and project managers have different focuses and see things differently. Program managers are primarily concerned with the coordination among projects, while project managers are primarily concerned with the management of their own projects. But working together, they can create that magical synergy. |
PMBOK®Guide for the Trenches, Part 7: Procurement and Human Resources
| I'm linking the procurement and human resources chapters of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) together for the simple reason that I have absolutely no idea why they're in there in the first place. I have never been in or encountered an organization of any size that lumps human resources and procurement departments under the head of project management. |
Put the Pen Down and Trust Your Team
| In one of my last posts, "How Much Proofreading Is Too Much?" I wrote about another hypothetical situation involving Sebastian and his habit of correcting everything written. As a number of commentators correctly suggested, the appropriate quality for the documentation depends on its intended use. Certainly information sent outside the organization should be as close to perfect as possible and "two sets of eyes are better than one." This wasn't the core issue, though. Sebastian is proofreading and correcting minutes, notes and other internal, short-lived documents to the same high standard. The purpose of technical documentation within a project is to get ideas across in a way the concerned audience can understand. Sebastian's team may need training and support to create effective documentation, but striving toward perfection doesn't add value. The key to solving this problem is helping Sebastian understand that continually criticizing people for not achieving perfection can be extremely debilitating and will reduce his team's effectiveness. This is not his intention, but is the perception of people who receive Sebastian's heavily corrected documents. The ideal solution is to get Sebastian to understand how detrimental his behavior is. Achieving this may require people who Sebastian sees as experts and advisers to coach him to improve his team-management skills. Alternatively, effectively "advising upwards" by focusing on Sebastian's real interests, such as product delivery, may be a solution. Neither of these options, however, is likely to provide a quick solution. Changing habitual behaviors can take years and requires the person making the change to want to change. A more practical alternative may be to reframe the problem. Written communication is only one way of conveying information. Alternative approaches may include scheduling brief discussions to resolve issues, using web portals to make documents shared resources where everyone contributes or changing the media to something where grammatical structures are less important. Unfortunately there are no easy answers to this problem. For those on the receiving end of Sebastian's corrections, recognize that a criticism of a document you have written is not a criticism of you and use the opportunity to improve. (You should see what the editors do to our posts...LOL) |
One Program To Rule Them All
| Program management refers to the process of integrated governance of several related projects to achieve an aggregate result that cannot be delivered by conducting these projects separately. It may not seem like it, but you can learn a lot about the synergy available through effective program management from The Lord of the Rings. In the novels and films, the characters of Gandalf, Theoden and Aragorn inspire and command others to be courageous and achieve great feats. Even before a battle starts, these mythical leaders inspire confidence in their men, carefully positioning them in accordance with their skills. Each man has tasks for each stage of the upcoming battle. But they are only effective when coordinated with an understanding of their individual strengths and weaknesses, and knowledge of how they can be used to support and protect each other. Under a wise leader -- acting as a program manager -- the power of these warriors can be multiplied when coordinated properly. This synergy ensures that every battle they engage in, and every war they fight, victory is at hand. Yet if badly coordinated, the strength and courage of these bands of cavalry, archers, spearmen or swordsmen -- the leader's resources -- is wasted, despite whatever heroic skills they possess individually. Program management is mainly concerned with managing stakeholders, which in the case of an entire program is a larger, more diverse and more complicated group of than is involved in an individual project. Their interests are different, sometimes contradictory, and their individual impacts -- whether big or small, for good or bad -- may be very significant to the success or failure of the entire program. The daunting scale of such programs are often not fantasy -- but may appear to demand wizards and heroes to manage them, let alone manage them so that a proper synergy takes place from the different projects involved. What kind of projects can be managed through a program?
|
Project Management in Action at the Shanghai World Expo
Categories:
Innovation
Categories: Innovation
| There's big -- and then there's mind-blowingly big! Everything about the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China defies easy definition. Covering a total area of 5.28 square kilometers (2.04 square miles), the site is divided into five zones spread along both sides of the Huangpu River in downtown Shanghai. The CNY18 billion extravaganza includes gardens, wetlands, paved walkways and hundreds of buildings. The expo is not only a triumph for project managers from the Shanghai region and the Chinese construction industry, but also from all of the nations that built and fitted out their pavilions. The design, construction and management of the Shanghai 2010 World Expo projects went beyond the traditional iron triangle of "time, cost and quality" to include sustainability and safety. The projects represented a true integration of Western and Eastern cultures, demonstrating project management as a truly global profession crossing all sectors. There are more than 200 countries and international organizations represented, ranging from Tuvalu to the United States; the World Bank to the International Council of Museums, as well as numerous corporations and Chinese provinces. In one long day, I only managed to see a small section of the total experience, but could start to appreciate the overarching purpose of this great festival. The remarkable British Pavilion's "dandelion" is made up of 60,686 acrylic rods, each 7.5 meters (25 feet) long, to allow light into the inside of a 20-meter (66-foot) cube. Embedded in the end of each rod are one to 10 seeds representing Chinese plant species growing in the United Kingdom. Project managed by Mace Construction Group, the remarkable "seed cathedral," is already winning awards. In the two months since opening, the Expo has hosted more than 25 million visitors. And organizers expect 70 million will get a glimpse of the urban vision before the Expo closes in October. My visit was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see project management on such on a grand and global scale. If you can't make the trip personally, you can be a virtual tourist online at http://en.expo.cn/. It's well-worth the visit. |