Voices on Project Management

by Dave Wakeman

Last month I wrote about measuring your project’s ROI. Part of that discussion included the idea that in the end, your projects need to be measured according to the outcomes they produce and not the actions that are taken.

So I wanted to take a few minutes to go back over the concept of outcomes and how outcomes, execution and strategy play together to deliver successful projects.

1. Outcomes are all that matter: Every project has deliverables and actions that are meant to drive the project forward and give stakeholders an understanding of where things are and what is happening. The fact is, things like schedules, a work breakdown structure and risk assessments are just tactics that are meant to move your project closer to its end goal: the outcome!

In every project the only relevant measurements of success are the outcomes. Outcomes mean things like a fully functioning product or service, a project delivered on time and schedule, and one that meets the goals of the client and stakeholders.

So try to frame your project conversations in terms of the outcomes and the tasks important to those outcomes. Instead of an activity, think about how these activities play into timelines and budgets or into the overall success of the project.

2. Outcomes aren’t always obvious to everyone: It can be very easy to take a black-and-white view on outcomes. But the truth is that depending on where you are in a project and the role you play, the outcomes may not always be obvious to you.

Why? It’s pretty simple, really. In any situation, we spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on the actions and activities that are most important to us. So when we look at projects, it can be easy to just think about the tasks we need to do to clear out our schedule or to move onto the next task on our checklist.

Most of this isn’t intentional, so you may have to spend some time relating to team members how activities play into the desired outcomes or even spending time communicating the vision of how the project will play out in the organization.

3. Always be prepared to change: We spend a lot of time talking about risks and change in projects, but I think that in many instances these two skills aren’t applied with as much success and consistency as desired.

But the process of implementing your strategy and optimizing execution comes with the basic jumping-off point of needing to understand, prepare for and embrace change as a constant within all projects.

To better prepare yourself for change, develop this mindset: you are going to communicate consistently with your stakeholders and proactively manage where your project stays within the marketplace, the desired outcomes that the project will produce, and changes in the circumstances of resources and other internal factors.

The simplest way to think about a project is as a set of activities that can be checked off on the way to completion. In fact, a lot of projects are managed that way.

But to be the best project manager and a partner to your organization’s success, you have to make the effort to keep strategy top of mind while executing for the right outcomes. I think these three tips will get you started.

What do you think? 

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By Marian Haus, PMP

There is obviously a high interest in the project management community and literature about what drives project success. For example, searching online for “why projects succeed” will return you five times more web pages than “why projects fail.” Similarly, there are four times more pages about “project success factors” than “project failure factors.”

This is no coincidence! The overwhelming interest in project success insights is driven by the struggle of many organizations and project managers to understand what drives success.

But before answering the question of why projects succeed, let’s first try to define project success.

The most common definition of success is delivering the project on time, on budget and in scope. PMI’s PMBOK Guide^® says a project is successful if the following parameters are met: product and project quality, timeliness, budget compliance and customer satisfaction.

Others define project success by measuring the project ROI (or business case) over a certain period of time. If the ROI is positive, the project is declared successful, regardless of its deviations along the way.

I have my own definition: A project is successful if it meets its given goals, within acceptable variance boundaries (e.g., in terms of scope, time or budget). This is a relative definition and relies on the fact that the world is not perfect. Hence even a successful project will rarely be a 100 percent success.

A civil construction project might be declared successful if it meets its scope and quality. Acceptable time or budget deviations might not be seen as failure. Similarly, an IT project might be declared successful if it meets its scope on time, with acceptable deviations from quality or budget.

A project’s success is relative: it depends on how the success criteria and metrics are defined from the very beginnings of the project, along with who will measure them.

OK, there are clearly many definitions of project success. Similarly, there are also many views and studies on why projects succeed.

Let’s take a look at a few studies and try to find a common denominator.

According to PMI’s 2015 Pulse of the Profession®: Capturing the Value of Project Management, over the last three years the number of projects meeting their goals—hence being successful—has remained steady at about two-thirds of projects. This success is the result of organizations supporting project excellence by focusing on fundamental aspects of culture, talent and process.

But size matters, too. A Gartner study from 2012 shows that small IT projects (below US$350,000) are more likely to succeed than big projects (budgets over US$1 million).

Other studies reveal that project success is tightly linked to clear project objectives and requirements that are fully understood and supported by actively engaged stakeholders.

My view on the common denominator that leads to project success is simple: the main drivers of project success are rarely of a technical nature. Instead, the drivers are the basics of the project management culture and discipline within the project organization.

In other words, fix the project management basics, and your chances of reaching project success will increase.

By Christian Bisson

Risk management is often overlooked. Most people think it’s simply additional costs; others think it’s secondary and can be put aside to prioritize everything else. Some simply don’t understand it at all.

Regardless, project managers should always push the team to do it, even if at first it seems like it’s more about educating than any actual risk management.

While doing just that recently, though, I stumbled onto a new point of view I didn’t see coming: Risk management is “negative.” The rationale behind this view seemed to be that it makes us focus on what could go wrong, when we should be managing the project without thinking about potential problems.

I can’t deny that being positive is important for every aspect of one’s life. But I couldn’t disagree more that thinking about what could go wrong is negative. If anything, risk management is a positive way to work to make sure the negative stays far away from your projects.

Risk management is also about focusing on the positive risks and how to embrace those opportunities, although that part of risk management is often overlooked, unfortunately.

Have you come across similar point of views around risk management?

Have you been in situations where it seems that only shouting generates results? Or has your team been pressured to complete tasks that don’t appear to benefit your project? Maybe as the project manager, you have been in the middle of confusion and agitation that seem to undermine your project management abilities.

Could it be that many of the scenarios you encounter have their roots in conflicting stakeholder requests and misunderstandings? Well, it’s possible to avoid these types of predicaments. Consider utilizing the following three tools that allow you to have better control of your project and your project team:

1) Communications Plan. Outline a plan with names, contact information, and details on when and what messages need to be delivered to and from you. This tool allows you to know the frequency of message exchanges and the media required for specific contacts. 

It also lets you know what level of detail the message should have, i.e., if it is going to a senior manager vs. a member of the supporting team.

2) Stakeholder Analysis. Prepare an analysis of your stakeholders to understand what their roles are and what area of your project is impacted by their involvement. This tool can help you with the department that has the biggest impact all the way down to the departments that have even a small effect.

Additionally, this tool can show how those who are directly or indirectly connected to your project may have an influence that can be detrimental.

3) Project Plan. Develop a plan with the focus on your project objectives and what the project will entail. Organize the plan for what needs to be done and when. The tool should show ownership and timings that you can share with stakeholders to also make them aware of the potential influence of their requests. 

Sometimes, we get can get distracted when trying so hard to make sure our projects meet every need. There are many voices, conflicts, risks and events that affect the success of our project. Leaning on these tools may make your stakeholder management process smoother.

What tools do you leverage to ease stakeholder management issues?

Last month I went to see a stage adaptation of George Orwell’s masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four at the Melbourne Festival. The experience sparked this question in my mind: Can we learn from the black arts of propaganda showcased in Orwell’s dystopian novel and turn them into assets to enhance our communication and stakeholder engagement activities?

The way words shape people’s thinking is very powerful. This power can be used for both good and bad. Oratory and rhetoric are generally seen as positive motivational and persuasive skills; propaganda is the flip side that misleads and creates false truths.

Can project professionals learn to use these skills to enhance their stakeholder engagement activities—and is this ethical? My feeling is that the ability to persuade stakeholders to help you be successful is a positive and ethical skill provided it’s used for the greater good.

Orwell is famous for two novels, Animal Farm published in 1945 and Nineteen Eighty-Four (often written as 1984) published in 1949. Both were focused on the evil of totalitarian regimes, but Nineteen Eighty-Four goes beyond politics to look at the process of manipulating the way people think, or more precisely, how to use language to prevent people from thinking. “The Principles of Newspeak” are defined in an appendix to 1984 (and therefore few people notice them). But reading them reframes the whole book.

The importance of Nineteen Eighty-Four as a classic 20^th century novel can be measured by the number of its terms and concepts that are still part of our language today. These include Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime and thoughtpolice, as well as the adjective Orwellian, which describes official deception and manipulation by the state.

What I find fascinating are the parallels between Newspeak and modern adaptations of language, particularly that often found in SMS (text) messages, and the intention of Newspeak to control thinking.

From the appendix:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc*, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought—that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc—should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.

* Ingsoc: The philosophy of The Party, run by Big Brother.

Newspeak was constructed using two fundamental processes:

1. Remove as many words as possible from the language. This reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself. Newspeak was designed to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.
2. Abbreviate and amalgamate words to create a simple construct with a precise (usually perverse) meaning. MINILUV (Ministry of Love) was the department focused on maintaining state control over everyone through surveillance by the Thoughtpolice, torture and state killings. MINITRUE was responsible for propaganda and the manipulation of historical records to meet current needs.

Fast-forward to the 21^st century and consider typical text-message acronyms like TMI—KHUF! (Translation: too much information—know how you feel.) 

Of course, one of the big differences is that Newspeak was designed to eliminate creative thought, while the language of SMS and social media users is organic and created and owned by individuals. But is this difference enough to prevent the stifling of creative thought and innovation?

Conversely, one of the ideas in Newspeak that could be adapted to a positive use is the way entities are named. What if we changed the name of PMOs to SPEs: successful project enablers? 

If the SPE staff lived up to that name and helped projects under their control to be successful, wouldn’t that be a good thing? Similarly, why not change the name of the “Monthly report for July” to a “Report on achievements in July”? Could this make the document more interesting and meaningful to those who receive it?  

We know that what things are called affects people’s expectations, a fact not lost on Big Brother. But can the concept be equally useful if used positively to encourage success…or is this too much spin?

What do you think?