Voices on Project Management

By Marian Haus

About 75-90 percent of a project manager’s time is spent formally or informally communicating, according to PMI’s Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (aka, PMBOK). No surprise, then, how much communication is linked to project success.

PMI’s latest Pulse of the Profession report, published this month, reveals that up to a third of surveyed project managers identify inadequate or poor communication as a cause of project failure. A Towers Watson survey conducted in 2012 showed that companies emphasizing effective communication practices are 1.7 times more likely to succeed financially than their peers.

So what can project managers and organizations do to improve communication and hence drive success? Here are six good habits.

1. Acknowledge and accept the need for active, clear and transparent communication as a key ingredient for project success.

2. Establish a simple and transparent communication framework. This means agreeing on who communicates what, to whom, when and how. For instance, a team member might communicate the project’s internal and external technical matters (the “what”), while the project manager will communicate the project status (the “what” again) for various audiences (“whom”).

   The communication time frame and frequency (“when”) will depend on the communicated message and the targeted audience. The communication tools (“how”) could range from project status slides delivered via email to status updates exchanged on the project’s internal websites.

3. Invest in communication, presentation and other related soft skills. Above all, the project manager has to be a confident communicator. Strengthening communication skills might be especially required if the project manager grew into the role from a more technical position.

4. Encourage project managers and teams to communicate openly and proactively regardless of whether the message is positive or negative. Especially when things go wrong, communicating issues early and transparently can mean more for the organization than solving the issues itself.

5. Put emphasis on the quality and effectiveness of communications. Communicating frequently and with the appropriate tools is not enough. Effective and high-quality communication means delivering the appropriate message in a simple and articulate manner and to the right stakeholders. For instance, within the project team you might use a detailed and technical communication approach. But when communicating (to management and sponsors), you will have to simplify your message.

6. Last but not least, communication isn’t only about speaking, reporting and asking. Communication also means time spent listening to what others have to say.  

How much time do you estimate you spend communicating? What best practices can you share?

By Peter Tarhanidis            

This month’s theme at projectmanagement.com is ethics.  Project leaders are in a great position to be role models of ethical behavior. They can apply a system of values to drive the whole team’s ethical behavior.

First: What is ethics, exactly? It’s a branch of knowledge exploring the tension between the values one holds and how one acts in terms of right or wrong. This tension creates a complex system of moral principles that a particular group follows, which defines its culture. The complexity stems from how much value each person places on his or her principles, which can lead to conflict with other individuals.

Professional ethics can come from three sources:

1. Your organization. It can share its values and conduct compliance training on acceptable company policy.
2. Regulated industries. These have defined ethical standards to certify organizations.
3. Certifying organizations. These expect certified individuals to comply with the certifying group’s ethical standards.

In project management, project leaders have a great opportunity to be seen as setting ethical leadership in an organization. Those project leaders who can align an organization’s values and integrate PMI’s ethics into each project will increase the team’s ethical behavior. 

PMI defines ethics as the moral principles that govern a person’s or group’s behavior. The values include honesty, responsibility, respect and fairness.

For example, a project leader who uses the PMI^® Code of Ethics to increase a team’s ethical behavior might:

• Create an environment that reviews ethical standards with the project team
• Consider that some individuals bring different systems of moral values that project leaders may need to navigate if they conflict with their own ethics. Conflicting values can include professional organizations’ values as well as financial, legislative, religious, cultural and other values.
• Communicate to the team the approach to be taken to resolve ethical dilemmas.

Please share any other ideas for elevating the ethical standards of project leaders and teams, and/or your own experiences!

By Kevin Korterud

I’m frequently asked how program managers can synchronize projects using waterfall approaches with those using agile or other approaches. As programs are launched to address larger and more complex business problems, harmonizing a program’s projects becomes an essential component of success.

In my last post, I shared two tips for achieving harmony: remember that there’s no such thing as agile or waterfall programs, and make the correct delivery approach choice before a project begins.

Here are two more tips.

3. Establish a Program PMO and an Agile COE

One of the critical success factors for any large program is the program management office (PMO). The program-level PMO enables the program manager to spend time on higher-value activities while the PMO creates the operational governance, reporting and overall management foundations required to run a program.

As agile and other delivery approaches mature, there is a great need for a COE (Center of Excellence) model that fosters efficient and effective delivery approaches for projects on programs. Just as PMI has created a consistent approach to project management, agile and other delivery approaches are at a point in their maturity cycle where consistency is needed for them as well.

An agile COE can facilitate this consistency while serving as a clearinghouse for improved agile practices. This COE can also address different variants in waterfall, supplier and governmental delivery approaches, thus resulting in an overall harmonized approach for program and project delivery. 

4. Speak the Same Metrics Reporting Language  

George Bernard Shaw once said, “England and America are two countries separated by a common language.” Being a program manager with projects utilizing multiple delivery approaches can feel like living in one country separated by multiple languages!

On a program, it is essential that no matter their delivery approach, projects need to be able to both accurately describe their progress and do it in a way consistent with other projects. When dealing with projects with multiple delivery approaches, a suitable translation needs to be in place for progress metrics. This is particularly necessary for stakeholders such as finance, human resources or other business functions where an easily understood definition of progress is critical.

For example, agile projects do a great job in counting projected versus actual requirements and their weighted points. Using the total and completed requirements, a percentage completion can be calculated that is consistent with a waterfall delivery approach. Other agile-specific metrics such as effort per story point can be used to supplement the core progress metrics.

In addition, even between waterfall delivery approaches there needs to be defined a consistent approach for earned value structures, tracking actual cost and other progress essentials. (Note that aside from progress metrics, the concepts of risks, issues, dependencies, milestones, cost forecasts and governance escalations all remain the same no matter the project delivery approach.)

Program managers are orchestrators of both project delivery and the attainment of business results. They need to be always thinking about eventual business outcomes, no matter which delivery approaches are in play. Remember: no one chooses an airline or car model because the company used agile or waterfall on their projects—it’s all about the experience.

What methods have you seen employed in programs to handle multiple delivery approaches? 

By Linda Bourne

As we all know, the problem with best practices is that they slowly slip away as we respond to time pressures, and bad habits take root. We know what’s supposed to be done but settle for good-enough practices—until it’s too late.

Well, the start of a new year brings a new opportunity to refocus on re-establishing good habits in all areas of project management, including stakeholder engagement.

The following four best practices will help you engage with your team and other stakeholders:

1. Listen well and respond promptly

This is the first lesson in stakeholder engagement for a project manager dealing with demanding and influential stakeholders: Listen well and respond promptly to stakeholder requests as appropriate to the level of need and the stakeholder priority.

Responding quickly to a request shows you respect the person making the request; but responding does not mean you’re agreeing or dropping everything else. A suitable response may be to say no or to schedule an action at an appropriate future date.

2. Connect with others who share your goals

Stakeholder engagement is required when you alone cannot achieve your goals, particularly goals that you share with others. You cannot achieve these goals without ongoing, effective stakeholder dialogue. This includes connecting with your team, networking with your peers and building “organizational currency” for use in the future when you need to influence others (see my post from a few years back about “Influence Without Authority”).

3. Commit to consultation before decision-making

Don’t try to engineer in advance the outcomes of stakeholder dialogue. An open discussion, without prejudicing any of the outcomes in advance, almost always results in a better decision. If stakeholders think you are just trying to persuade them to accept an outcome that is already set in stone, they will disengage and become cynical.

However, if you’ve already made a decision, respect your team and pass on the information—don’t pretend to consult.

4. Stay focused on common goals

In project management this ought to be easy—a successful project outcome benefits everyone. But project managers sometimes fear that stakeholder engagement will force them into doing things they may not want to do. This is unlikely to happen if you focus your communication and engagement activities on the common goals you share with your stakeholders. The dialogue then becomes a discussion about options for achieving shared goals, not a series of demands by either party.   

None of this is rocket science, but effectively engaging your stakeholders, leading to constructive dialogue that drives project success, does require planning, processes and time. Given the myriad time pressures we all face day-to-day, it’s all too easy to see these simple practices as low-priority activities and start ignoring your stakeholder community—until it’s too late and you have a major crisis on your hands.

Make 2016 the year you move beyond crisis management.  

By Kevin Korterud

As both a project and program manager, I’m always keen to have projects and programs take the right first steps toward success. In the past, this would involve selecting the unified delivery approach used for all of the projects on a program. The idea was to impart consistency to the way projects were managed as well as produce common metrics to indicate progress.

It’s not that easy anymore. Today’s programs have projects with agile, waterfall, supplier, corporate and sometimes regulatory-mandated delivery approaches. In addition, these approaches as well as the different arrangements made with suppliers (e.g., time and materials vs. fixed price with deliverables) have dramatically increased the level of complexity and diversity of delivery approaches within a program.

So as a program manager, how do I keep all of these projects in sync no matter the delivery method? As a project manager, how can I execute my project in concert with the overall program in order to maximize the value that will be delivered, while avoiding schedule and cost overruns resulting from projects not operating in harmony? 

These are emerging challenges for which there are no single easy answers, of course. But I have found a handful of tips useful in getting a program’s projects to operate in a synchronized manner. I’ll share the first few in this post and the final ones in my next post, appearing later this week.

1. Remember: There’s No Such Thing as Agile or Waterfall Programs  

Given the mix of project delivery approaches, the program needs to properly segment work to manage the budget, resources and schedule regardless of the project delivery approach. In addition, the schedule alignment points, budget forecast process and deliverable linkages need to be identified between the various projects.

Typically, I find that while there is effort to plan for these items at the project level, the upfront effort for this harmonization at the program level is underestimated or sometimes left out altogether—program managers think the project teams will figure this out themselves. This sets the program up for schedule and budget overruns as well as overall dilution of the program business case.

Some ways for a program manager to harmonize projects on a program include:

• Determine which agile sprint cycles will be used for aligning data integration, requirements and deliverables with the other projects.
• Forecast the number of agile sprint cycles possible given the program schedule and budget parameters.
• Use an integrated schedule to constantly generate awareness of relative project progress within a program—no matter the delivery approach.
• Identify key dependencies between projects in the program; this can include event, deliverable and external dependencies.
• Use active resource management across all projects on the program. 

2.  Make the Correct Delivery Approach Choice Before a Project Begins

The type of delivery approach for a project is determined by the type of work being performed and the end consumer of the project’s deliverable.

For example, a project on a program that is slated to create a consumer portal would be a desirable candidate for an agile delivery method. Another project that involves heavy system integration that a consumer never sees would be a candidate for a waterfall approach. A project to pass data into a government system would likely have its delivery approach set by the governmental body.

So before a project starts, program and project managers should agree on the optimal delivery approach that is the best fit for the project.   

Look for more advice in my next post on synchronizing a program’s projects, regardless of delivery method.