Voices on Project Management

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

When you begin to work in project management, you have much to learn and need to build credibility and trust with stakeholders. You are alert to new things, new behaviors, and the need to continuously improve.

Yet you may become overconfident about your project management competencies as the years pass. You may develop comfortable routines. You may fall into what psychologists call functional fixedness, a cognitive bias that sometimes prevents you from thinking of novel or creative solutions to problems.

How can you get trapped in functional fixedness?
It may sound counterintuitive because we have more information at our disposal these days at work and on social media: reports, posts, or lessons learned from organizations or individuals.

When I studied at university, the information came from the internet, printed books, or professors. Nowadays, we have all the materials and content to learn new things. However, because we are overwhelmed, we narrow down the content based on our interests. And we may become entrenched in the same areas.

It is essential to remain open to other industries, knowledge, content, and people.

How do you escape functional fixedness?

• Seek reverse mentoring. Reverse mentoring (also known as upward mentoring) is a professional development practice where a less experienced or junior employee is a mentor to a more experienced or senior colleague. The goal is to tame your ego. You will gain new perspectives that will help you to interact with your younger team members. If you feel intimidated, you may begin with small steps: Ask the young intern to review your slide deck and ask you questions, or repeat your presentation in front of them.
• Listen to diverse voices. You may have a young intern or colleague close to retirement in your projects. Or perhaps you are a technical project leader who has to collaborate with the marketing department. All have valuable inputs to give you. All can help you discover new horizons. You may have former university friends who work in other industries; talk with them to understand their challenges and how they solve them.
• Take roles at work—or outside it—in different areas. You may not have a remarkably diverse workplace. Look for communities or activities you can get involved in to immerse yourself in a different environment. You can define what “different” means for you. Differences can embrace social, economic, or academic backgrounds, along with ages, countries, cultures, genders, etc.

On the contrary, you may be in a diverse workplace, but you don’t take the time to talk genuinely with your colleagues to learn more. Have one-on-one breaks with some of them to exchange information.

Regardless of your situation, once you experience a new situation (that you naturally find or intentionally look for), observe how you feel:

• What do you like about the situation?
• What do you find disturbing?
• What are you learning?

Making efforts to remain open will protect you from functional fixedness. What strategies do you use to embrace novelty?

Dave Wakeman

I recently wrote about a podcast I listened to that shared key qualities project managers have. This month, I return to the topic and share the qualities I think the best project managers have.

Here are the nine qualities I look for when I think about great project managers:

1. Business acumen: This is my first key because I recognize that a project doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The best project managers recognize that and can frame the project in a way that highlights the impact and the potential opportunities that the project creates. All in the context of the world around your organization.

2. Negotiation skills: Getting people on the same page, winning the resources you need, and overcoming objections are key to any project’s success. That’s why negotiation skills are right up there when I look for great project managers.

3. Communication skills: Spoken, written, physical…all of them. They matter to the modern project manager because there are so many ways to communicate, and getting your point across can make the difference between success and failure.

4. Empathy: Life is tough. Your job is tough. The world is tough. Having empathy can uncover a layer of the team you are working with that can help you get the project completed.

Don’t confuse this with not being driven. Knowing how to deal with people is a key driver of a PM’s success, and not recognizing the human element and pushing through no matter what is likely a reason you are struggling to get results.

5. Consensus building: I’m mining a similar vein to communication and negotiation skills, but to me consensus building is about pulling those two things together and having everyone involved in the project recognize that this might not be the perfect solution, but it is a workable solution.

That’s key because too much communication is one way, “my way or the highway” communications. And too much of our negotiation can feel like having to “win” every point.

Building consensus is a recognition that you must try and find the “win-win” more often than folks let on.

6. Calm under fire: I had a boss in my 20s that would come to me and say, “Dave, it seems like the more pressure we are dealing with, the easier things come for you.”

I agree.

This skill can be hard to train for, but being able to not get flustered or freaked out by the changes and pressure that come during intense moments of a project can be a key to your success as a project manager.

Where do you start? Planning as much as you can.

7. View PM as a key job: Some people fall into the role of project manager, and it is just a job that doesn’t carry much importance in the grand scheme of their thinking.

To me, the best PMs look at the job as a key role in the organization. You can be successful just doing the job, but the best PMs look at the job as a key role that deserves respect and expertise.

8. Broad knowledge, not just skill knowledge: Again, this runs next to business acumen in my thinking, but it is different.

To me, broad knowledge allows you to make connections from different parts of the world around you. In my strategy work, I might pull an example from watching sports to illustrate an idea to a pharma company.  I might use my experience in politics to show a sports team how a concept applies to them. Or, I might use an example from a novel to make a larger philosophical point.

The key is that you want to be gaining ideas and perspectives from as many points as possible.

9. A desire and willingness to learn: Desire and willingness are two different things.

A lot of people want to learn, but they don’t follow through.

A lot of people are willing to learn, but they don’t receive the opportunities.

You need to combine the two, because one thing that dominates modern project managers’ lives is that things are constantly changing.

You have to be prepared for that—and you can only do that by learning.

What do you think of my list? Have I missed something obvious? Are you going to put some of these things to work from this month’s list or last month’s list? Let me know in the comments below.

By Soma Bhattacharya

Conflict is an inevitable companion in the realm of project management. It can arise from differing stakeholder interests, resource constraints or communication breakdowns—and how it's managed can make or break a project's success. Understanding the intricacies of conflict management within project management is crucial for effective leadership and achieving desired outcomes.

According to a study by Thomas and Kilmann (1974), conflict in project management can be categorized into five modes: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating. Understanding how individuals approach conflict resolution is essential for project managers to navigate through challenging situations effectively. This can be initiated simply and can be scaled up as required depending on the complexity and root cause of the conflicts.

One of the findings from the research reveals that projects characterized by constructive conflict resolution mechanisms tend to exhibit higher levels of team cohesion, creativity and, ultimately, project success.

How do we keep conflict in check in today’s environment?

1. Governance model of the project: The setting up of the model allows stakeholders and their roles to be defined in detail, along with details of how its run. The governance model is vast; however, the basics can outline a regular communication cadence, operations reviews, and parameters to set up escalation calls or meetings. Details mapped to the project’s operation and expectations might be one of the stepping stones to create clarity and foster healthy discussions that can lead to less conflicts.
2. Team culture: I have always believed one of the differences between a highly effective team and one that’s isn’t is the team’s culture. We all know how strong team dynamics can help a team perform better. While it’s a challenge if teams are distributed, we can definitely build strong culture for all teams to encourage trust and team bonding. While this doesn’t guarantee zero conflicts, it does ensure that differences of opinion are better handled and understood. A safe environment where everyone really opens up in a retrospective is more welcome than a team that keeps things bottled up—which is a disaster waiting to happen.
3. Role of the project manager: Effective conflict management can drive better innovation and originality. While challenging, simple things like keeping a strong, detailed, output-oriented agenda for meetings; publishing and looking for resolutions when there are conflicts or uncertainty in decisions to look for common ground; being objective and aligned to the project goals; reminders on why we are together with catchups or lunches; and maintaining a platform to access project details, updates and communication all might be good ways to keep everyone in sync and informed on the everyday details of the project. A skilled PM in any project might be the key to ensuring better conflict management.

The bottom line is always to foster open communication channels, because prevention is better than cure.

As Dr. Stephen R. Covey aptly puts it, "Strength lies in differences, not in similarities." Embracing conflict as a catalyst for innovation and collaboration is the hallmark of exceptional project management.

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

The ability to maintain a learning mindset is a top hiring quality that can potentially be more important than experience. Despite that, no one explicitly explained to me how to do it. I’m curious and ask many questions, which has helped me gain new insights.

However, given the pace of change in the world, this is not enough. Based on my experiences, I’d like to share a three-step roadmap to make the motto “learn continuously” a reality.

1. List your obstacles

First of all, you have to acknowledge it is not so easy. You are bombarded with information from social media, with successes from former colleagues or university friends. We may be tempted to follow all the paths and then abruptly stop in the middle. You may also have work-mandatory training.

At the same time, you want to prepare yourself for the next role and take other training courses. How can you squeeze in learning now and tomorrow in between all your work and your personal life?

This is where you need to reframe your mindset.

2. Change your mindset

Don’t be too hard on yourself. Stop repeating, “I have to do A and B,” “ I don’t learn so much” or “ I’m lazy.”

Learning doesn’t only take place in formal classes—something I’ve only recently understood. Being aware of this will help you be more satisfied with the learning you pick up along the way.

Also accept that it’s okay to be less ambitious; it is better to learn a little daily rather than not at all.

Force yourself to learn things in completely different fields. For example, talk with a video expert if you work in compliance, or have lunch with a marketing colleague if you work in technical fields.

Last but not least, be open to changes along the way. You might need to learn a new tool or technology you were unaware of at work. Or you might become overwhelmed by work or personal issues that stop your plan—and that’s okay. If you accept these changes, you will not feel frustrated.

3. Sharpen your approach

Define clear objectives for what you want to learn (hard skills or power skills), and for when (short term, mid term, or long term). It will help you prioritize them.

Then you have to map how you would like to learn these skills—taking a training course, preparing for a certification, etc.

Engaging in communities within your industry to keep abreast of the latest trends and having conversations with experts is also important. You can also watch a webinar, listen to a podcast, or read a blog or a book.

The key is to not insist on doing all the different things at the same time.

Learning continuously is a lifelong project to develop yourself professionally and—more importantly—as a human being.

How do you learn continuously? Share your feedback below.

by Christian Bisson

Agile team cohesion is the seamless collaboration, effective communication, and shared goals and values among team members. I frequently prompt new teams to reflect on a time they thought things were going great; consistently, "the team" emerges as the primary factor contributing to that moment’s greatness.

Being intangible, team cohesion is often undervalued, with some viewing it as simply as an overhead. For example, team building activities, or even retrospectives that have a bit of fun included in them can be seen as a waste of time. Heck I’ve also been told by team members that it was an insult to their intellect! 

Despite that, the impact of team cohesion is far-reaching, offering substantial benefits to the team and the project at hand.

Enhanced Communication

Cohesive teams communicate more effectively, leading to smoother workflows through several key mechanisms:

• Shared Understanding: Team cohesion fosters a shared understanding of goals, objectives, and project/product requirements among team members. When everyone is on the same page, communication becomes more targeted and relevant.
• Open Communication Channels: In cohesive teams, trust and mutual respect is built over time which creates a culture of open communication. Team members feel comfortable expressing their ideas, concerns, and feedback. Not only does this transparency helps in addressing issues promptly, but it also provides the team with collective creativity to find solutions to whatever challenge they face.
• Adaptability to Change: In agile environments, where change is frequent, cohesive teams are more adaptable. Effective communication ensures that everyone is informed about changes promptly, and the team can collectively adjust its strategies and tasks to accommodate new requirements.

Increased Productivity

• Alignment of Efforts: Shared goals provide a common purpose that aligns the efforts of each team member. When everyone understands and commits to the same objectives, individual tasks and activities naturally complement one another, avoiding conflicts and redundancy.
• Motivation and Engagement: Having shared goals fosters a sense of shared ownership and commitment. Team members are motivated to contribute their best efforts when they see how their work contributes to the overall success of the team and the achievement of common objectives.
• Efficient Capacity Management: A united team optimises their capacity by ensuring that each team member focuses on tasks that align with the team's goals. This prevents duplication of efforts and ensures that time and expertise are utilised efficiently.
• Collaborative Problem-Solving: Shared goals encourage collaborative problem-solving. Team members are more likely to work together to overcome challenges and find innovative solutions when they share a common objective. This collective approach enhances problem-solving efficiency and effectiveness.
• Mutual Support and Knowledge Sharing: A united team promotes a culture of mutual support where team members readily assist each other. This support extends beyond task completion to knowledge sharing, where individuals leverage their strengths to help others, fostering continuous learning and skill development. Furthermore, this prevents “points of failure” where one member only can execute a certain task or has a certain expertise, lowering risks if team members leave the team or are missing.

Conclusion

Team cohesion is important, and it’s important for all members of the team to understand its value so that everyone contributes to it.

How do you actively contribute to your team's cohesiveness? Share your insights and any noteworthy team-building activities you've found effective.