Voices on Project Management

By Conrado Morlan

In a previous post, “The Impact of Unforeseen Risks,” I described how two major events have impacted projects I’ve lead in the past: the eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland in 2010 and Fidel Castro’s death in 2016.

Many project professionals don’t include unforeseeable circumstances in their risk log, unless their projects are being executed in an area where natural and unavoidable catastrophes are known to occur. Due to the dynamics of geopolitical events, they may not be included during the initial risk identification process. As the project progresses, however, the risk log should be updated to identify the impact of these risks on project progress and the enterprise as a whole.

Risk management strategies help project management practitioners forecast and evaluate risk, while also identifying ways to avoid or minimize their impact on desired project outcomes.

Conducting SWOT on COVID-19

Late last year, news of a novel illness affecting a city in China failed to capture the attention of most people and businesses around the world; many thought the impact would be similar to SARS or swine flu—a blip on the breaking news radar and no real threat to the global economy. They were wrong.

Many organizations failed to consider the COVID-19 outbreak an enterprise risk and continued their business-as-usual operations. Around mid-February, I met with colleagues and friends who work in the telecommunications industry, and they expressed their concerns about how their projects would be impacted if the factories in China that produce the electronics needed for their work shut down. They wondered if that would break an important link in their supply chain and if it would jeopardize the final delivery of their projects.

Those in the telecommunications industry were not alone. Supply chains in multiple industries have strong ties to China. By the time they were primed to react, the risk was already an issue and without the procedures to avoid or minimize the impact, industries and countries were facing a pandemic with no plan in place.

Sharing enterprise risks identified during the planning and strategic phases of a project isn’t always a common practice within organizations. But not being aware of such risks has a direct impact on project success, and important assumptions may not be considered for the projects and programs that lie ahead.

People in charge of developing the multi-year strategy at an enterprise can use SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis to identify potential risks. This analysis uses a matrix, in which the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are listed and prioritized. 

The SWOT matrix can be evaluated and updated as the enterprise strategy is reviewed or on an ad hoc basis. Moreover, threats identified during the SWOT analysis may have an associated opportunity. For example, in the event that the plant producing vital electronics in China shuts down, it will impact the supply chain. An opportunity to avoid that threat would be identifying another country where the vital electronics could be produced in order to reduce supply chain disruptions.

As we’ve learned, the importance of communicating the risk identified by the enterprise risk management process needs to be shared with business units to achieve strategic alignment and empower teams to achieve strategic objectives.

As a project professional, how do you interact with the strategic team within your organization to learn about enterprise risk?

By Conrado Morlan

Project management practitioners know the importance of communication during the project execution, hand-off and operations stages. For each of these, the communication plan should cover all the different forms of communication and the target stakeholders.

The frequency of communication during project execution often has a defined cadence and uses different artifacts to deliver the message to stakeholders, who usually are internal.

During the operations stage, the project is usually in production and practitioners are communicating directly with customers, either internal or external. While the specifics depend on the situation, communication with customers must be regular, concise and delivered in a timely manner through the proper channels.

How Not to Communicate
As you may know from my past posts, I have been running for several years and have often thought about connections to project management. One of my running goals for 2020 is to run the Popular Brooklyn Half, the largest half marathon in the United States.

As I did not meet the pre-registration requirements, the open registration was my only option. On registration day I was ready: My account was available, all my personal information was filled out, and I had my credit card on hand. At the designated time I visited the registration website to compete for a spot with thousands of runners from across the world.

I thought I would be directed to start the registration process, but instead, I was directed to an electronic queue page. After a few minutes, my expected waiting time was listed as 25 minutes. I got a little anxious thinking that the limited number of entries would sell out in less than that time. A few minutes later, the waiting time changed to 40 minutes, then to more than an hour; all of a sudden a message about “experiencing technical difficulties” was displayed.

In the meantime, upset runners from across the world took to social media to vent their frustration and dissatisfaction. But the organizers did not acknowledge the blast of posts until three hours after the designated registration time. That’s when they posted a message stating that they were trying to figure out the problem, and if they were not able to resolve it soon, a new registration date would be announced.

That message ignited the runners, who inundated social media with posts venting their resentment.

By this time, the organizer’s website was down, and the homepage showed the “experiencing technical difficulties” message. I stayed away from the postings on social media and kept refreshing the website persistently.

Finally, five hours after registration began, the website came alive and the new registration time was posted. I checked social media for postings from the organizer but found nothing. Right at the new posted time, I started my registration process while thousands of runners kept venting their frustration. This time it only took me 20 minutes to complete my registration for the Popular Brooklyn Half.

The Project Management Takeaway
As project management professionals, we can face similar situations in the course of a project and need to be prepared with mitigation plans. In the case described above, communication with customers was not regular and sufficient, perhaps because the project team was too focused on solving the problem. This affected the customer experience.

In general, production problems have a resolution time window, which may vary depending on the seriousness of the issue. This is usually unknown for customers, but that does not hinder the communication process. We as project management practitioners need to consider that we are living in times dominated by instant gratification; customers expect that issues will be resolved immediately. At the same time, they expect frequent progress status reports.

As a project management practitioner, have you experienced a similar situation? If so, what did you do to keep your stakeholders/customers informed? What channels of communications did you use? How effective were they? Share your experiences with the community.

By Conrado Morlan

Did you know PMI is supported by volunteers from around the world? I had no idea when I first joined PMI in 2005.

That changed in October 2007 when I joined the ranks of PMI volunteers, a community of practitioners who give their time to work on activities that make a difference around the world. I learned about the many services undertaken by volunteers, including writing PMI standards, preparing questions for certification exams, organizing global conferences and presenting at PMI events. And the list goes on and on.

My first opportunity as a PMI volunteer came three or four months after I registered as a volunteer: participating in an item-writing session for the Project Management Professional (PMP^®) exam in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. At first, I had too many questions and felt daunted. Would I be able to deliver? Am I experienced enough? Would I be called again after this session?

When I arrived in Philadelphia, I put that feeling away and got ready to spend three days with a selected group of experienced project management practitioners from the United States and Canada. The session was quite productive; we shared our personal experiences and produced great material for the next version of the PMI certification exam. The experience was one of a kind; I could not believe everything I learned in three days, and for free.

I went on to participate in sessions in São Paulo, Brazil; Mexico City, Mexico; Washington, D.C., USA; Macao, China; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; and more. I had the fortune to write items for the PMP, Program Management Professional (PgMP)^® and Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP)^® certification exams.

But that was just the beginning. I kept looking for volunteering opportunities and, on several occasions, submitted papers for PMI congresses in North America and Latin America. Many of my papers were accepted and well received by audiences across the globe.

Through the years, I also have supported local chapters as a keynote speaker or guest speaker in Dallas, Texas, USA; Mexico City, Mexico; Costa Rica; and Nuevo León, Mexico. This has enabled me to share my experiences working with multicultural project teams and meet practitioners from different latitudes.

In 2009, at the congress in Orlando, Florida, USA, I tried something new: writing columns for a special edition of PMI Today. I then co-authored articles for PMI Community Post, have been quoted in several PM Network articles and, as you know, am a frequent contributor to Voices on Project Management.

My proudest moments as a volunteer were when I was selected as a core team member to develop the Implementing Organizational Project Management: A Practice Guide and The Standard for Organizational Project Management in 2013 and 2016, respectively. The opportunity to interact with other project leaders from around the world and contribute to the profession was extraordinary.

If you’re still wondering why I am grateful to be a PMI volunteer, try it for yourself. Take the opportunity to live your profession with passion. See what you can gain by sharing experiences with other colleagues while developing and mastering your skills in a friendly environment.

What are you waiting for? Make your mark and join the local or global volunteer team to grow and advance the project management profession.

By Conrado Morlan

As a project management practitioner, I’ve been lucky enough to deploy programs and projects across the Americas, supported by teams in South Asia and Europe.

Working on those assignments enriched my multicultural background and helped me learn and become proficient in Portuguese. But as I’ve learned throughout my career, language is just the tip of the iceberg.

Based on my personal experiences, here are three key areas of focus I recommend that practitioners consider before, during and even after their next global assignment:

1. Gain Cultural Awareness

It is imperative that global project management professionals understand an individual's personal, national and organizational cultures, so they can better align the team and gain greater influence.

Learn about the country’s culture—do your research and find out similarities and differences. Include cultural differences as one of the topics on the agenda of the kick-off meeting. Use that time as an open forum for everyone to share and record their cultural experiences. Keep those cultural experiences in a repository with documents and useful video clips that can be later used to induct new team members.

Cultural awareness is a skill that should be developed and mastered. Incorporating a cultural differences exercise establishes respect and empathy for diverse values and behaviors, which in turn creates an open and accepting team environment.

2. Embrace the Chinese Army Approach

As a global project management professional, you may worry about resource planning. Resources may not be your direct reports, meaning you don’t have control over their schedules.

Instead of struggling, apply the Chinese army approach: Imagine you have unlimited resources available. Assume you have resources with the right skills who can be assigned to the different roles in your project. Do not worry yet about assigning names to the roles.

You may find that the roles can’t be filled with internal resources because of a lack of required skills or capacity, so your solution may be to outsource resources.

To complement the approach, you’ll need to adapt and remaster communication and negotiation skills, which will help you get the best resources.

3. Be SMART

The project management profession now goes beyond just managing projects. The profession helps to achieve business objectives and explore new ways to lead, execute and deliver. Technical expertise in project management is not enough; global project management practitioners must adopt a business-oriented approach.

My suggestion is to become SMART. The SMART concept includes a portfolio of skills the global project management practitioner must master to meet the needs of the organization in the coming years.

Being SMART means you are:

• Strategic. Demonstrate an understanding of the organization’s business goals to help it get ahead of the competition.
• Mindful. Develop cultural awareness and leadership styles to influence and inspire multicultural and multigenerational project teams. Foster strong relationships across the organization’s business functions.
• Agile. Business strategy is not static and is frequently impacted by internal and external factors. Projects will need to be adjusted to remain aligned with the business strategy, so embrace change.
• Resilient. Remain committed and optimistic. Demonstrate integrity when realigning or repairing projects facing hardships because of miscommunication and problematic behaviors, as well as cross-cultural issues and conflicts.
• Transparent. Whether the project is in good shape or facing challenges, the status needs to be shared promptly with relevant parties.

To become SMARTer, global project management professionals need to continually strive for excellence and master new skills to support professional growth and help the organization achieve its business strategy.
 

If you’ve been exposed to global programs or projects, what advice would you offer to other practitioners?

By Conrado Morlan

I’ve been running for eight-plus years—ever since my son suggested I do a half marathon in San Antonio, Texas, USA. So when a friend suggested I try a triathlon, I was ready for it. At that point, three years ago, I had 10 full marathons and 15 half marathons under my belt.

The triathlon includes three disciplines in a single event: swimming, cycling and running. It was the athletic challenge I needed, similar to the professional challenge I encountered when I moved across industries to keep leading and managing projects.

To get ready for the triathlon, I had to go back to the pool and start swimming after a long time away. I borrowed a road bike from a friend to start the formal training. We worked out on our own on weekdays and as a team on weekends.

That first experience transformed me into a triathlete enthusiast, which led me eventually to the Ironman 70.3. The "70.3" refers to the total distance in miles covered in the race, consisting of a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride, and a 13.1-mile run.

The short distance triathlons helped prepare me for the Ironman 70.3. And as I’ve come to realize, learnings I’ve made along the way also apply to project management. These are my three main findings:

1. Expertise and Experimentation

Mastering all three disciplines in a triathlon can be difficult. My background is in running, but I was new to swimming and cycling. My coach gave good tips and workouts that helped me manage my bicycle on hills, navigate sharp turns and use all of my leg muscles to have a better stroke.

For swimming, I followed my instinct and experimented with the breaststroke. I soon felt confident in the pool and gradually in open waters. My experiment worked out, as I finished my swim in the Ironman 70.3 about 20 minutes ahead of the cut-off time.

As a project management practitioner, you may have mastered an industry-standard methodology and need to catch up with the new trends. In the triathlon, you may not transfer skills from swimming to cycling or running, but in project management, you can.

Communication, time management, and people management are required regardless of the methodology or best practice that will be used in the project. This gives you room to experiment. At project checkpoints, you can inspect, adapt and make the required changes to improve your project and be successful.

2. Transition Is Key

The transition is where the triathlete moves from one discipline to another, changing equipment. The area should be prepared in advance, with the gear set up in a way that helps the athlete have a smooth and fast transition. The time spent there may define the winner of the competition.

I would compare the transition area with the risk registry. The more prepared the project manager is, the less impact there will be to the project. The “gear” in your risk register will include the most impacting risk(s), the risk owner and the actions required to mitigate the risk if it arises. It’s a working registry, so the project manager should keep adding risks during the project as required.

3. Anybody Can Help You

A triathlon is not a team event, but that does not restrict the triathlete from getting support from others. Before the competition, the athlete may have followed a training plan supported by a coach, they might have been mentored by fellow triathletes and, last but not least, they likely benefited from family support.

It’s common for some triathletes to have a race sherpa on the competition day. The athlete and sherpa will discuss beforehand what tasks each will take on during the race. In short, a race sherpa will lend a hand whenever necessary and cheer for the athlete during the competition.

As a project manager, you have your project team, stakeholders and sponsor(s), but that does not restrict you from getting help from people outside the project. You may have an internal or external mentor, somebody in your organization who can be influential and help you address issues. I used to have a list of people in the organization I contacted in advance. I let them know about the project and asked them if I could ask for support if needed. That simple action helped me on several occasions when I faced a challenge.

If you are an athlete and a project manager, what lessons have you learned from practicing your favorite sport? Please share your thoughts below.