Voices on Project Management

By Lynda Bourne

PMI is at the forefront of the push to have project management recognized as a profession. But what does professional project management look like?

The first challenge in understanding the profession of project management and the difference between project and general management is recognizing that the group of people involved in the project from a temporary and dynamic organization.

The temporary organization being managed by the project manager may include full-time and part-time people in many different configurations.

The temporary organization for each project builds in the early stages, may change character completely in the middle (e.g., as the project transitions from “design” to “build”) and dissipates in the later stages. Each of these temporary organizations is unique and ever-changing.

What is a project?

The challenge of defining project management as a profession faces another issue: The decision that creates a project in one organization may create several in another. For example, to implement a process upgrade affecting manufacturing plants in several states, one organization may choose to set up a single large project. Another may opt for a series of smaller projects each focused on one state, and yet another may set up a program to manage the work and let the program run coordinated projects in each separate plant. All of these options will create projects, but they are very different entities to manage.

To further challenge the concept of a project, the same deliverable may be at the center of two quite different projects! When a project like building a new facility is being delivered by a contracting company to a client organization, it is common to see both a delivery project manager working to create the deliverable and a client-side project manager running a project to acquire the deliverable.

To be successful, the delivery project manager has to build the new facility so that it meets the specified contract scope and quality, and do so within the contracted price and timeframe.

The role of the client-side project manager is quite different and not so well-documented. Among many other things, client-side project managers should work to ensure the delivery organization and project are aligned to the needs of the client. They have the authority to represent the client organization, and maintain the link between the project and the strategy of the client organization.

These client-side functions are essential for overall project success but represent a very different type of project manager. 

The PM common core

Then there is the degree of authority granted to a project manager, which can vary enormously. Some project managers are responsible for budgets of millions and hiring the people they need; others have far less authority and autonomy. And finally, there are the various classifications of project: by size, industry, complexity and project management methodology being deployed (e.g., agile versus waterfall).

Despite the diversity outlined above, there are important commonalities. First, each of these endeavours is seen as a project by the project manager and stakeholders. And every project manager aims to deliver his or her project successfully.

So where does this leave the concept of a project management profession? We have established that the concept of project management covers a very diverse range of management positions and a range of equally diverse temporary organizations. However, many people actively choose to define themselves as project managers and treat the work they are managing as a project, and most people recognize a project manager when they meet one. For this to occur, there has to be a common core that defines the practice of managing projects, and this common core can be used to build a profession.

If we are going to be successful in creating the profession of project management and having it generally accepted as a profession, the elements of professional practice will need to be based on these core practices and defined in a way that covers a very broad discipline.

My next post will look at how to apply the concept of professionalism to a practice that is as diverse as project management.

By Marian Haus

Looking for the appropriate template to help set up your project team?

Well, the bad news is that regardless of the project’s size or complexity, industry or business area, project organization, geographical location, applied project management methodology, etc., there is no single team-setup template that will match all your project needs.

On the contrary, there are many traps or patterns that lead to dysfunctional team setups. These include teams with no structure or governance, teams with unclear project roles, teams with no leaders or multiple leaders, teams with fragmented member assignment across too many projects and topics, etc.

The good news, though, is that there are a few sound principles that can help project leaders and organizations set up their project teams:

Size. Go with smaller teams—the bare minimum necessary to get the work done. The typical project team size is five to nine members. If you assign more people than needed, just to be safe, you might experience Parkinson’s law: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Instead, try to enhance the team later if needed.

Purpose. Foster ownership and team cohesion by grouping the team around a common goal, such as a successful product launch. Project teams without clear goals or with multiple small goals won’t work as well together on attaining the ultimate project goal.

Skills. Aim for self-sufficient teams, meaning you have all the skills needed within the team for getting the job done. Being dependent on skills external to your project team could delay the project.

Roles and responsibilities. Clarify and assign project roles upfront, and define clear responsibilities for each project role. If you have team members sharing project roles, make sure you define who does what.

Stand-ins. While setting up the project team, establish stand-in pairs among members with similar skills, roles or responsibilities. This will help you manage problems and avoid unexpected reassignments when team members are sick or on holidays.

Accountability. Although each project team needs someone who is responsible for the overall work getting done (often the project manager), I encourage delegating accountability to team members for each of their assigned responsibilities. This inevitably will lead to increased commitment and empowerment across the project team.

Leadership. Assign the project team with a project leader instead of a project administrator. The difference between the two is that the project leader will also lead, coach, advise and inspire team members, on top of carrying out project planning and execution and administering project parameters (scope, time, budget, resources, risk, etc.).

How exactly do you set up your project teams? What’s your experience with project team structures?

By Conrado Morlan

The project you led is complete! You are celebrating with your stakeholders and other project managers. The company is right on track to achieve its strategic goals based on the benefits delivered by your project.

After handing over the project to the business functions, you are now ready for your next move. You are nervous and excited about discovering your new assignment, so you don’t worry about your recently completed project. Somebody else will be following up on the project’s contributions to the organization. You’re done, right? Well, let’s find out.

During the first six months of your new assignment, you overhear that the benefits of the project you recently completed are not at the expected level. In parallel with your current assignment, you start looking for clues about what’s gone wrong.

Your findings reveal that related processes supporting the product or service delivered by your project are not aligned and are producing damage and losses, resulting in the erosion of benefits. Examples may include:

• Regulatory fines—The project’s support processes did not provide regulatory reports on time or were missing data requested by federal and/or local authorities. The lack of compliance results in fines.
• Overtime—The lack of clarity about the process and the changes brought by your project led the operational areas of the business to continue to do work as usual, producing incorrect results that had to be redone.
• Overlooked tax deductions—The finance department was not notified of the new process, and the organization continued to pay taxes that were supposed to be exempted after the project was completed.
• Union disputes—The implementation of the new project impacted union workers’ duties that weren’t contemplated in the current contract. New contract negotiations tend to be long and have a large impact to the organization.

So what should you do? Focus on your current project assignment and ignore the benefits erosion? Or work on a solution with the project’s stakeholders?

Whatever your answer, one thing you will need to do for sure is update the project’s lessons learned. The project may be over, but benefits didn’t reach the expected levels. So as the former project manager, you’re obligated to document what went wrong to support efforts at establishing a solution.

Have you ever learned of benefits erosion after completing one of your projects? If so, how did you react?

by Dave Wakeman

Care to do a little thought experiment with me? Let’s imagine what the new and improved next-gen project leader should look like. And let’s come up with a few key attributes that would make this new and improved project leader successful.

Here are a few of my ideas about how to achieve success in the future of project management:

1. Emphasize strategic ownership of your projects and your role in the organization.

I know that I’ve been hitting a constant drumbeat over the last few months about the need for project managers to become more strategic in their thinking and their actions. For good reason: As our businesses and organizations become more project-focused, the need to think and act strategically becomes a key factor in our success or failure.

One way you can jump on this before everyone else does is by always taking the initiative to frame your projects in a strategic manner when dealing with your sponsors and key stakeholders. Work with sponsors on ways that you can manipulate and focus your projects strategically.

2. Less domain knowledge and more business acumen.

The project management role in an organization has changed. Even in industries that have long embraced project management principles and the job title (e.g., IT), technical knowledge aspects have become less important because of specialization.

What has replaced the emphasis on specialization in the project manager’s role? An emphasis on strategic thinking and business acumen. This is likely to accelerate to become the new normal.

You can take advantage of this trend by working to think about your projects as tools to increase the value of your company and its products and services to your customers and prospects.

3. Communicate or die.

This last point shouldn’t be a surprise. Being a good communicator has been the differentiator between successful and unsuccessful project managers as long as project management has been a thing.

But as our world becomes more interconnected through technology, with teams dispersed across continents instead of floors, the ability to effectively communicate is going to be more and more important. And the ability to be that communicator is going to have a bigger and more meaningful impact on your career and your success in your organization.

What qualities do you think next-gen project leaders require? Please post your comments below! 

By the way, I write a weekly newsletter that focuses on strategy, value, and performance. If you enjoyed this piece, you will really enjoy the weekly newsletter. Make sure you never miss it! Sign up here or send me an email at [email protected]! 

By Christian Bisson, PMP

Whether for workshops, stakeholder interviews, a requirements gathering session or some other activity, sometimes you have to plan a full day of meetings (or multiple days). These meetings might be with various people throughout the day or with the same stakeholders throughout. Regardless, it’s important to plan them appropriately to get the most out of everyone’s time.

Here are a few steps to ensure meeting attendees don’t head out of the office feeling like they wasted a day.

1) Have a detailed agenda

Although this applies to every meeting, it’s especially important when planning a whole day (or days). This means breaking the days into the different relevant sessions, specifying who will attend and when, and detailing the purpose of each session.

2) Plan enough time

Just like with a project schedule, if the duration only looks good on paper, you will regret it later. Make sure to have enough time for each session. Don’t think “we’ll have to make it fit”—it most likely will not. Then you’ll have to cut short a session at the last minute to accommodate.

3) Don’t skimp on breaks

If you don’t include time for any breaks, thinking this will allow more to get done, you‘ll be wrong. People will likely take breaks anyway because they are tired, thirsty or need to go to the bathroom. If they don’t take breaks, attendees will be severely tired or uncomfortable. As the day progresses, sessions will become less and less efficient. Plan either five minutes of break per hour or 10 minutes per two hours.

4) Plan a meet-and-greet or introduction

Always plan 15 minutes at the beginning of the day for various ad hoc elements, including: people presenting themselves, introducing the day’s agenda or a session starting a few minutes late. If everyone is on time, and everyone knows each other, you might need just five minutes.

5) Limit the number of attendees

The more attendees in a meeting, the more chance the agenda goes off track. Obviously it’s important to try to avoid this, but if 20 people are attending the meeting, that can be a seriously tall order. Short of being very strict (which you might not want to be with a client), the meeting will most run over its allotted time.

So scheduler beware: some, if not most, meetings with too many attendees will bring no added value and will be wasting people’s time (and money!). Ideally, a meeting should be limited to about six people.

Have any more tips to share?