The Double Paycheck
| Organizations always seem to be looking for ways to keep major talent engaged and loyal. Simple as it sounds, they need look no further than making sure that they have created a culture of appreciation. I have heard acknowledgments referred to as "the double paycheck," which I think is very fitting. Even people who earn less than they feel they should, will dig in and engage fully if that other "paycheck" comes regularly. After a presentation I made to the PMI Information Systems Specific Interest Group last year at its Professional Development Day, a woman came up to me and told me that she had just left a high-paying, senior-level job, with no other job lined up. She left it, she said, because she hadn't realized that her former job at Booz Allen Hamilton was really a dream job. Although it probably wasn't the best job in the world, there was a culture of appreciation at that company that made it a pleasure to come to work each day. "I am going back there," she said emphatically. "Even if the job pays less and the level is lower, I don't care. I didn't realize what a difference the atmosphere of a company makes. At the job [after Booz Allen Hamilton], I didn't know my worth or my value and I didn't feel appreciated for anything that I did. I'm going back to Booz Allen Hamilton, no matter what." I later discussed this example with a Booz Allen Hamilton partner. "Oh," she laughed. "We call those the 'come-back kids' and we welcome them back once they realize what they were missing." And yes, it is a part of the company's philosophy and its mission to have a culture of appreciation. They most certainly seem to be doing something right. So what is that double paycheck worth? Everything! |
Practitioners Versus Accountants on Earned Value
Categories:
ROI
Categories: ROI
| Most of my regular readers know I like to take accountants to task for pretending to be able to deliver cost performance or estimate-at-completion information to decision-makers based on generally accepted accounting principles. But that door swings both ways: Earned value practitioners are also guilty of trying to further their technical agenda using the resource managers' arguments and analysis, which, in my opinion, is profoundly flawed. The most prominent of these tactics is to try to justify the cost--or even the existence--of the project management office by running some sort of ROI analysis. This is simply illogical if for no other reason than the ROI calculation pertains to assets, not capabilities. Less notorious but every bit as pernicious is the tendency of earned value practitioners and accountants to compare the time-phased budget's basis of estimate document with its associated actual costs at the line-item level. In the earned value world, comparing budgets to actuals is worse than useless: It's actually misleading. And yet, some practitioners seem to think that if such an analysis were simply done at a very detailed level, it would suddenly become relevant. It doesn't. Oh, they may try to make some lame argument about the need to benchmark the estimators' work, but this assertion lacks validity that can be demonstrated in the following scenario: A US$100,000 task is estimated to require US$25,000 in heavy equipment and US$75,000 in labor. At task end, US$74,000 was spent in heavy equipment and US$25,000 was spent in labor. An earned value management system correctly--would not raise the red flag for cost performance, but the system that compares budgets to actuals would erroneously report a severe problem--never mind that the task came in under budget. Any management information system that reports a phantom cost performance problem isn't good for very much. Next up: The absurdity of maintaining milestone lists in lieu of real schedules. |
Communicating Up and Down
Categories:
Communications Management
Categories: Communications Management
| In most organizations project managers need to be skilled in both communicating downward to motivate their project teams and communicating upward to influence their managers. Yet while inefficient communication with team members comes with its own set of issues, ineffective communication with senior management may put the whole project at risk. Senior managers today generally operate in "command and control" mode, and most organizational processes support this view. Despite theories of team motivation based on empowerment, delegation and job enrichment, control is still the favorite with most senior management. Project managers need to develop the skills needed to advise upward effectively. In so doing, they must align the project's objectives with the organization's strategic objectives and, more importantly, ensure the key senior managers appreciate this fact and contribute to the project's success. The key is helping your boss look good. This can be achieved by providing good information and analysis for decision-making; never escalating a problem or issue without options and recommendations for a resolution; and always communicating in business language with an understanding of the manager's business drivers. A cooperative, supportive relationship is a two-way street. Project managers need to earn the respect and support of senior managers by adopting a positive approach to communicating up the ladder. Some positive options include providing helpful notes to assist the manager deal with difficult situations, and providing a full analysis of the recommendations and options for resolving issues or making decisions. Advising upward or helping your manager help you requires a long-term view. There is no silver bullet! You must build credibility over time by developing and maintaining a reputation for being ethical, efficient and open. And above all you must be an effective project manager in your space and a supportive team player in your manager's space. |
Creating an Acknowledgment Culture
| I recently presented a keynote session on the power of acknowledgment to 800 attendees at a global project management conference in Helsinki, Finland. Before my presentation, I kept hearing project managers say things like: "In Finland you know you are being acknowledged when your boss says, 'That wasn't too bad a job that you did.'" They told me repeatedly that acknowledgment was just not done in Finland. I'd heard a similar trend in Germany--being acknowledged is when your boss doesn't say anything to you, I was told. Now, I'm a perpetually optimistic person who always tells people they can single-handedly be agents for dramatic and powerful change--that it only takes one person to start the process. If someone acknowledges others in a heartfelt and authentic way, it will start to catch on. But an entire culture? Could 800 project managers turn a whole culture around? Even I had my doubts. During my presentation, I invited everyone to think of one person in their professional life that wanted, needed and deserved their acknowledgment but to whom they had never fully delivered it. Two brave people stood up and shared their profound and heartfelt acknowledgments of their Finnish bosses--who just happened to be in the audience! Each time I asked both the acknowledger and the acknowledgee to stand. People in the audience were deeply moved and said this kind of exchange never occurs in Finland. Well, it did. Just because something is missing from a culture does not mean that it is not desirable or essential. Acknowledgment is, I believe, a basic human need, no matter what one's cultural conditioning. I have since received e-mails from people in Finland telling me they've started to acknowledgment colleagues and family members in a profound and sincere way and are extremely pleased with the results. So I'm now becoming confident enough to say that yes, one project manager can certainly begin to change a culture. Now just think of what 800 can do! Germany, stay tuned! |
Risk Is Not An Opportunity
Categories:
Risk Management
Categories: Risk Management
| In my continuing series on commonly held but, in my opinion, highly suspect project management practices, I want to ask the question: Exactly what do the risk analysts do that improves a project's ability to come in on-time, on-budget? Now, as the firestorm I've just ignited races to engulf me, let me be crystal clear about what I'm asserting. I am not saying that risk management is without value. What I am saying is, once the contingency budget and/or schedule have been baselined, the value of the information produced from risk-analysis techniques drops off dramatically. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower believed that once you're on the battlefield, all plans were out the window. And, while (most) projects don't approach the level of chaos and mayhem associated with a battlefield, I think his ideas are highly applicable in our works. That's what project managers do; they respond to the changes in circumstances, resources, demands, and hundreds of other parameters, every single working day. The notion that project management decisions can be quantified and reduced to formulaic responses in most circumstances is absurd, and furthering that approach using excessive statistical jargon does not automatically make it legitimate. As for the assertion that risk management includes an "upside risk" component--a.k.a. opportunity management--I would like to point to the Unabridged Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition. Its definition of "risk" reads, in part, "Hazard; danger; peril; exposure to loss, injury, disadvantage or destruction." Indeed, nowhere in the definition will you find any reference to any possibility of a positive outcome or environ, much less opportunity. And yet, you see people make the comparison risk management equals opportunity management. I know the risk management aficionados have had a lot of success re-defining the verbiage associated with their area of expertise in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) space, but isn't there another way of furthering risk management notions without pounding away at the lexicon? |
