Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Viewing Posts by Lynda Bourne
Hey Boss, What About Work-Life Balance?
| The last hypothetical I posted, Is This Your Project Stakeholder? attracted a wide cross section of responses. It made me wonder what you think of this real life experience (only the names have been changed): Sebastian is a highly competent, upwardly mobile executive and your boss. He works 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., and is a very detailed person. He proofreads everything, making copious corrections and is also studying for his second master's degree. You have found the best time to approach Sebastian to discuss anything is after 8 p.m. when the office is quiet and he is working on his studies. In fact, at this time of night he seems to appreciate a brief chat. The problem is you have a "life" outside of the office and feel 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. is a very fair day's work. How would you approach building rapport with Sebastian to allow the discussion of important project issues and enhance your career prospects without waiting until after 8 p.m.? I will review all comments and based on your feedback I will suggest some solutions in my next post. |
The Value of Reports
Categories:
Communications Management
Categories: Communications Management
| Developing reports is an art form--and it's one that every project management office manager needs to master. Well-designed reports contain large amounts of useful information in a time series, making them a valuable data repository. And if the report covers the right questions, the process of gathering the information can generate valuable insights for the project team to act upon. That information also allows stakeholders to extract trends and status. And if you deliver them in person or attach a note to highlight specific issues or messages, reports can form the basis of a targeted, purposeful communication. Some people simply like getting reports--and dropping those people off your distribution list make them more upset than you realize. This also applies to cutting content. As a rule of thumb, by the third month it's probably too late to remove sections or drop recipients without encountering some issues. Another benefit of reports is only starting to be recognized. Jon Whitty of the University of Southern Queensland here in Australia has been measuring the emotional effect of project artifacts. Based on Jon's work it seems a well-formatted report will in itself increase positive emotions. The project manager feels comfortable because she or he has a "proper report'' that is part of the "clothing'' every project manager wears along with their Gantt charts and other expected artifacts. And senior managers experience positive emotions because the existence of a well-presented report suggests control, order and capability. The challenge is to design reports that are relatively easy to produce, ask the right questions, are well-structured and well-formatted, and contain needed data. What are your experiences with reports? |
Is This Your Project Stakeholder--The Conclusion
| My last post received a wide range of comments and I wanted to draw some conclusions based on those comments and my thoughts. The majority of those that left a response said they would choose "option one." If you selected "option one" and well managed your relationship development and engagement processes, then helping "Mary"--the stakeholder in question--and her team contribute to the change should be beneficial. Why? The first thing to consider is that Mary would be a key stakeholder at several different levels in the overall change management program. As a long-term employee leading a group of workers, she is a stakeholder in the overall organization and is likely to have many unofficial contacts and significant influence. As the leader of a group of workers who will be disadvantaged by a planned reorganization, she and her team are critically important stakeholders for the change manager. The group will never like the consequences of the change, but they need to be included so they at least cooperate for the good of the overall organization. Because they can contribute knowledge and support, Mary and her team are also stakeholders of the program and particularly your project. The assumption that your team has enough knowledge to bypass her people is risky. You don't know everything that happens in Mary's section on a day-to-day basis. The second important consideration is where the value is created. Ultimately, there is no value to the organization unless the change is successfully implemented. Your project may deliver a key component needed for the reorganization but if it is not used, there is no value. This is something IT people in particular need to remember; 99 percent of IT projects require changes to business processes and are a complete waste of time if the business people reject the new processes. If you selected "option two" and chose to ignore Mary, she is likely to become an active opponent of the change (no involvement equals no commitment and no support). This puts your most important stakeholder at a disadvantage: the overall change manager. |
Is This Your Project Stakeholder?
Categories:
Leadership
Categories: Leadership
| Imagine for a moment your organization has decided on a major restructure, and as a consequence has initiated a change-management process and appointed a change manager. The change manager develops the business case for a major program of work. The executives responsible for the organization's portfolio management approve the business case and agree to fund and resource the program. The program manager sets up the program management team, establishes the program management office and charters a series of projects to develop the various deliverables needed to implement the change. And you have been appointed project manager for one of the projects. In this situation, your life as a project manager would be fairly straightforward; you have direct-line management responsibility to the program manager, and the change manager is your project sponsor. The program management office looks after most of the issues of sourcing adequate funds and resources. All you have to do is deliver the project's outputs as defined in the project charter. However, part of your project ideally needs the cooperative input from a group of people who will be significantly disadvantaged by the overall reorganization. This group is led by a 20-year veteran of the organization, whom we will call Mary. At the moment, Mary's loyalties are divided--at one level she wants what's best for the organization she has worked for all her life, but she also wants to preserve her team and keep the status quo. Fortunately, you have enough domain knowledge in your team to bypass her input and produce the deliverables anyway. So what should you do? Option one is to work to get Mary and her team's input--if not their positive cooperation--but risk delaying your project's completion and overspending the budget. Option two is to use the knowledge you already have in the team to produce the deliverable and bypass the problem, thereby ensuring on-time and on-budget delivery. This option also minimizes the chance of Mary interfering in the overall work of the project and program. What would be your recommendation to the program manager? Option one, two or something different? Post your thoughts in the "comments" section and we shall draw some conclusions in my next post. |
The Other Side of the Argument
| As I said in my last post, customers' perceptions are their reality--and if you're going to make the sale, you need to deal with their reality not yours. This poses a number of challenges for technically oriented people (i.e., project managers) focused on "the facts." The first challenge is recognizing that if you want someone to take on your ideas and work to help you, you have to get them to accept your ideas. This is a sales process. Even the terms we use to describe the transfer of the ideas are sales-based. You have to "sell the idea" to get "buy-in." The second challenge is recognizing perceptions are highly unlikely to change quickly. You can deal with this in one of two ways: - - arriving late for appointments. You can differentiate your business by guaranteeing a time, offering a US$10 discount for every 5 minutes you're late and proposing to quote a fixed price before starting work. This solution is partly differentiation and partly working within the reality of the perception by offering a benefit (the discount) if the perception holds true. The difficulty with managing perceptions is that most people don't advertise their views openly. The only way to unearth another person's perceptions is through a combination of observation, active listening and careful questioning -- in that order. This takes time and effort and needs to be focused on the stakeholders who matter. At the PMI Asia Pacific Congress in February I will deliver a paper called, "Beyond Reporting--The Communication Strategy" that builds on this idea. I will discuss more on this idea in upcoming posts. |