Voices on Project Management

By Yasmina Khelifi, PMI-ACP, PMI-PBA, PMP

As I shared in Part 1 of my look at diverse project teams, global projects have become the norm in many industries, and a rich source of performance. Business is done in global English, so in a certain way, that influences the project’s culture. Fortunately, cultural diversity is still present. How do you become more culturally self-aware without falling on the traps of prejudices or wrong assumptions?

Over my career, I’ve been asked the following questions:

• How long have you been living in France?
• Were you hired because you speak Arabic?
• Do you want to improve your French?
• What’s your origin?

These questions may be full of good intentions, but can also sound naïve. How much can we guess from a family name? Family names have histories, and sometimes you inherit a name from past generations with whom you don’t have any links; or you may have typically French names but with foreign origins. For instance, one of my colleagues I've been working with for ages recently told me her mother was Polish. As the last name was French, I wouldn't have guessed it.

More importantly, how do the answers to these questions help you to become culturally more self-aware? Don't they reinforce our biases? (For the record, I was born in France and don’t speak Arabic.)

Here are four ways I’ve experimented to embrace a learning mindset:

1. Set ground rules to ask personal questions

As a global project manager, it is key you discuss the ground rules and values with the team from the onset:

• Show respect and kindness
• Respect boundaries
• Shall we use first names or last names? At the beginning of my career, one British colleague asked me: “What’s your nickname?” I discovered afterward that nicknames are commonly used in some cultures (but not necessarily in France, for instance). With the strong influence of English in business, we tend to use first names and nicknames, but it is better to check.
• Another tricky aspect is the pronunciation of names. Fortunately, some social networks give you the possibility to record your name—though that doesn’t guarantee your name will be pronounced currently. You’ll have to be tolerant and accept deviations.

2. Learn by asking

Include snippets of diversity learning in your day-to-day project activities with small actions; this can also be an indirect way to ask people.

• Talk with colleagues when they have days off to understand what they celebrate (and how)
• Include the main festivals/celebrations/holidays in the project calendar
• Is there an intercultural club that organizes presentations at your workplace? If it doesn’t exist, why don’t you set one up? Or ask one member of your project team to make a short presentation about their countries/workplace as part of a small talk or happy hour session.
• Since the pandemic, I’ve asked project team members to send me pictures of their countries. I display the picture in the “sharing video” tool at the beginning of our conference meeting. It helps us “travel” and ignites curiosity to other realities.
• When I took part in events organized by our British colleagues, I was pleasantly surprised by the diverse questions about cuisine.

Don’t push back if you feel the colleague does not want to talk. Just because the projects are more international doesn’t mean we can ask any question.

3. Learn through intercultural/language courses

For a few years, I’ve taken part in many intercultural courses—although some of my colleagues told me that can be stereotypical. It’s true that if you begin with a course without having had any practice, you might have some prejudices. Going back and forth between practice and theory enables you to take small steps and adjust—and learning will stick.

Learning languages is also my passion. Through this, I could discover a lot. Talking to people in their languages (or learning some words) forges stronger connections.

4. Learn by practicing

Practice makes perfect. Through working with some of my African colleagues, I discovered how their societies are mixed. They have national holidays for Muslims and Christians. They are also comprised of many different ethnicities. For instance, Côte d'Ivoire is represented by more than 60 ethnics. It gives me humility to face my knowledge gaps.

Volunteering is another great way to learn as you go. You can deliver several projects with worldwide peers in a short period.

Global teams raise a set of challenges, but also provide a rich human experience. What other ways do you become more culturally self-aware in your project teams?

Lynda Bourne

To paraphrase Gen. George S. Patton, “A good plan, enthusiastically executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.” The objective of this post is to suggest that too much emphasis is placed on developing ‘perfect plans’ that attempt to accurately predict future outcomes (a passive process)—and not enough on using the planning process to proactively influence the project’s future direction.

The thinking behind this proposition comes from American political theorist John H. Schaar, who said: “The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created—created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.”[1]

In this frame, project plans become a guide to the pathway you are intending to make rather than a prediction about achieving something already fixed.

Unfortunately, the mathematical and scientific approaches to planning—particularly cost estimating and scheduling—have evolved in a way that implies that the plan is a factual statement of what will happen. This concept is embedded in contracts, law, and expert submissions going back decades. But is this approach the best way of achieving a good outcome? Fighting over what should have happened after it did not happen and allocating blame is not very useful, even in traditional industries.

My suggestion is that we adopt a more agile and adaptive approach to planning focused on engaging all of the important stakeholders. This type of collaboration is far more likely to craft success! Working with people to build a plan they are willing to commit to achieving is far better than telling them what the plan says they have to do. Then working with them to progressively adapt the plan to deal with the unfolding reality on your shared journey towards success is far more likely to optimise the eventual outcome.

The final project objectives of time, costs and outcomes are unlikely to change in most projects, but the pathway you chose to follow towards achieving these objectives is yours to make, adapt and improve along the way. The two key ingredients are building consensus and commitment with the stakeholders (particularly those involved in the work)—and then keeping them engaged. In this scenario, the project plans become a key communication tool and people are held accountable for achieving their commitments.

The analytical aspects of planning are still important, and should be used to support this approach. There is no point in committing to a plan that will deliver failure. What the analysis shows is the scope of the problem to be solved, and the solution is crafted with the project’s stakeholders. The trade-offs and challenges of project management don’t change; the difference is moving from a paradigm where the project manager tries to make people work to the plan, to one where the project manager leads the team in planning to achieve the project objectives and outcomes.

How flexible is the planning on your project?

[1] Legitimacy in the Modern State (ed. Transaction Publishers, 1981) - ISBN: 9781412827485

By Yasmina Khelifi, PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-PBA

Whether it’s for a volunteer association or a corporate organization, mentorship can help you learn and grow as a leader. The topic comes up a lot as I speak to different professionals and here are some of the lessons learned I’ve gained on the subject—both as a mentor and as a mentee:

1. Don’t rely only on corporate programs.

A few years ago, I began taking part in a corporate mentoring program. I’d been waiting for it and saw it as a silver bullet—giving me all the answers to my career questions. Going into it with so many expectations, it’s not surprising that I was disappointed. Still, it’s still worth inquiring if corporate programs exist in your firm and exploring how to benefit from them—plus, you can become a mentor yourself. Just don’t make it the only avenue you pursue.

2. Be open to mentorship from unexpected places.

When I first began leading projects, a colleague gave me some advice during the meeting: "Perhaps you should have said that instead of this.” At the time, I didn’t understand he was acting as a mentor to me. And in hindsight, I wish I’d been more grateful to him for his advice and that I’d spoken with him more regularly. It was a missed opportunity and a lesson on being open to taking direction.

3. Set the ground rules.

This is particularly important if the mentors are in your work environment. Some areas to explore are:

• Expectations
• Confidentiality
• Duration and frequency of meetings
• Constraints: In the corporate program I mentioned, the mentee was supposed to organize the meeting, but my mentor was very busy and had to cancel sometimes.

4. Keep your word.

At the beginning of this year, a young colleague asked me if I wanted to be her mentor. I admired her courage to ask and I wish I’d done the same at the beginning of my career. So I accepted without hesitation.

We talked once a month on the phone and I tried to answer her questions as best I could. I was consistent—and that’s important. As a mentor—and a mentee—you must be reliable: When a meeting is planned, stick to it, remain present and don’t multitask throughout.

5. Don’t give up.

In one of my work projects, I talked with a top manager with global experience. When I dared to ask him to become my mentor, I didn’t receive an answer. But that doesn’t mean you should just surrender: You can knock on other doors that will open. And eventually you’ll be part of a community where you can exchange ideas and build bridges to knowledge sharing.

How do you encourage mentorship within your project teams?

By Cyndee Miller

When it comes to the all-important push for digital transformation, the education sector would no doubt have received a failing grade—until COVID forced some serious change.

Over 1 billion children across at least 185 countries were impacted by school closure mandates aimed to contain the spread of the virus last year, according to the World Economic Forum. Schools and government leaders around the world scrambled to implement remote education programs. Yet while some were able to quickly shift, many economically and technologically challenged groups were left with limited options. And project leaders were challenged to flash forward to the future of learning.

“We got thrown 30 years ahead in about a day,” said Mac Glovinsky, principal global program manager at UNICEF in New York. “When you get thrown 30 years into the future overnight, things are pretty messy. It can be unclear. But I do think that we’re already seeing success emerge and that we’ll have some incredible examples moving forward,” he said in a December episode of Projectified^® podcast. 

Glovinsky and his Learning Passport team were one of those “incredible examples.” Number 3 on PMI’s list of Most Influential Projects of 2020, the edtech tool delivers best-in-class digital learning experiences to individuals without internet connection. But even with the tech upgrade, Glovinksy still sees a need for human interaction and support.

“When you introduce things like simulation content, HTML5-based stuff— where the learner is moving the actual things around the screen and there’s more of a two-way interaction—it can be bewildering if there are not people involved,” he said. “And [when you look at] those kids in the Upper East Side in Manhattan versus a kid in very rural Sierra Leone, the difference there is all those people helping that kid on the Upper East Side utilize the technology and the content for its maximum benefit.”

As COVID restrictions have been shifted—and lifted—around the globe, so too has the approach of project leaders. Yet even with an increasing number of schools reopening, it’s become clear that the flurry of language apps, virtual tutoring, videoconferencing tools and online learning software will continue to transform education. The proof is in the payout: The edtech market is expected to more than double between 2019 and 2025, reaching US$404 billion, according to Holon IQ.

“There’s this wave of innovation happening in edtech that’s been accelerated by COVID-19,” said Jamie Beaumont, managing director at Lego Ventures in London. The venture investment arm of the Lego brand, it backs promising education startups, and Beaumont told PM Network he’s seeing a sharp uptick in the number of companies focusing on new ways to teach 21st century skills, including collaboration, communication and creative thinking.

Project teams are also reimagining how students access education and how teachers can introduce technology into the flow of learning. Case in point: the initiatives launched at British edtech startup Eedi. The organization developed a digital math assessment that uses AI tools to determine why a student gets a question wrong. If a student misunderstands the problem, it could lead to a lesson on terminology or language, but if they don’t know how to complete the equation, it would require a different response, explained Ben Caulfield, COO of Eedi.

“Understanding why a student gets the questions wrong leads to the right intervention,” he told PM Network. This solution makes better use of the teacher’s time and results in a more personalized learning environment—whether the student is at school or at home.

But the most brilliant and interactive edtech in the world won’t mean much if students can’t access the content, navigate the tools or understand the information presented. To get that right, teams need meaningful end-user feedback. And they should also be considering the full gamut of  stakeholders: students, teachers, administrators and parents, said Sean D’Arcy, vice president of school and home for live game-based learning platform Kahoot in Oslo, Norway.

Project leaders must also navigate complicated ethical questions at the intersection of education and tech: The UK government, for example, was forced to ditch its AI grading system after it spurred nationwide protests. Roughly 40 percent of the grades awarded fell below teacher predictions—with the biggest victims being students with high grades from less-advantaged schools.

How much edtech will grow remains an open question. While the social good of helping students spurred project activity during the pandemic, the market will ultimately determine which edtech tools have a lasting influence, says Caulfield.

And as with most pandemic pivots, the future may lie in some sort of blended solution, with teachers and schools using lower-cost digital tools to make time spent with students more impactful.

“Teachers create interest and accountability in learning, and that won’t go away,” Caulfield said. “The companies with projects that combine virtual content with human engagement will be the ones that succeed.”

Of course, it’s wasn’t just kids that were tapping into edtech. Even PMI has had to pivot its educational offerings, joining forces with Pearson VUE to begin offering an online option for taking the Project Management Professional (PMP)^® certification exam.

How did you and your teams take advantage virtual education and training?

By Lynda Bourne

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

We’ve all heard—and have probably uttered—this epigram many times.

The origin of the phrase now known as Murphy’s Law is often attributed to U.S. Air Force colonel and flight surgeon Dr. John Paul Stapp, who directed research Project MX981 in the late 1940s. The objective was to determine the effect of gravitational forces (g-forces) on the human body—and to use this data to work out how to safely eject pilots from high-speed jet aircraft. The experiments involved rapidly accelerating and decelerating rocket sleds carrying varying payloads, including human volunteers. For many of these experiments, Stapp served as the volunteer so he could apply his medical knowledge directly to what he was feeling. Over the years, he collected a catalogue of broken bones and other injuries, but no one was seriously injured or killed in large part due to the application of Murphy’s Law.

To validate the experiments in Project MX981, Stapp required very precise measurements of the stresses being experienced by the volunteers. He became aware that Capt. Edward A. Murphy was working on another project involving centrifuges, which included designing very accurate systems to measure the g-forces exerted on the person in the centrifuge.

From Stapp’s perspective, Murphy’s sensors seemed to be ideal for accurately measuring the forces the person strapped to the rocket sled experienced. Murphy happily agreed to Stapp’s request to modify his sensors and shipped a couple to Stapp for use. However, the first experiment Murphy’s gauges failed completely: No measurements were recorded. When Murphy came out the morning after to investigate the failure, he found the gauges were oriented incorrectly and is reported to recall saying, “If there is more than one way to do a job and one of those ways will result in disaster, then somebody will do it that way.” Murphy had made accurate drawings of the gauges and instructed the people who would install them but had not made it clear that the gauges had to be positively oriented in only one direction.

The origins of Murphy’s Law lies in a conversation following this failure. Murphy recalled saying, “Well, I really have made a terrible mistake here, I did not cover every possibility.” Stapp replied: “Well that’s a good candidate for Murphy’s Law,” according to Nick T. Spark’s “A History of Murphy’s Law.”

The experiments continued with the final test run before the project was terminated. With Stapp as the volunteer, the test resulted in the sled accelerating from 0 to 630 miles (1,014 kilometers) per hour—the highest land speed of any human—in 5 seconds, creating a force of 20 Gs. The sled then stopped in 1.4 seconds, imposing 46.2 Gs of force on Stapp.

When asked many years later about the remarkable safety record of Project MX981, Stapp said one of the key factors was the application of Murphy’s Law: “The entire team adhered to Murphy’s Law, they always kept in mind whatever could go wrong would, so they made extreme efforts to think up what could go wrong and fix it before the test.”

While your project is unlikely to have the risk profile of a ride on a rocket sled, designing potential problems and failures out of the overall system pays dividends. Success is designed in, not tested in. To apply Murphy’s Law proactively, you need to think through everything before you start work. Ask yourself: When one part fails, does the system still work? Will it still function as it was supposed to do? What are the single points of failure? What are the processes someone can do incorrectly?

This type of thinking establishes potential critical failure points, where there’s a need to put redundancy into systems. It also pushes teams to ensure the opportunity for human error is eliminated wherever possible. There are formal approaches to applying Murphy’s Law, such as failure modes and effects analysis or reliability engineering used in system engineering and on the design of critical systems. But you probably don’t need to be this sophisticated on your project. Simply ask your team to think through what can go wrong and what can be done about it. This approach may be included in the project’s regular risk reviews or included in the agenda for the daily stand-up or other team meetings.

How will you apply Murphy’s Law with your team?