Voices on Project Management

By Dave Wakeman

For me, planning is the secret sauce of almost every successful business—and definitely of every successful project. But while most project managers probably agree on that, not everyone else does. So how do we sell planning to an audience whose first reaction isn’t to lead with planning?

Here are a few ideas.

Lead with a discussion about outcomes. When I get stalled by people who don’t want to discuss planning as a strategic tool, I ask them about outcomes and what success is going to look like in this situation.

How does this help you get back to planning?

Well, it makes people think about the future. By doing that, they logically have to draw a plan together that’s going to help them get there. And this is a tool that is easy for you to use.

Ask about failures on similar projects. Just like with the discussion based on outcomes, you can overcome a lack of planning in projects by asking your stakeholders or sponsors about similar projects. Specifically, ask what some of the problem areas in previous projects were and how they were handled.

No one wants to make the same mistake twice. So by forcing your project stakeholders and sponsors to confront the reality of some of their past failures, you can automatically refocus them back onto planning. You can now direct the conversation to how to avoid having these issues arise again.

For you, that means being brave enough to ask about lessons learned during your initial conversations so that you can control the conversation if you are getting pushback on a thorough job of planning.

Find out about key stakeholders and other important people in the project’s success. This is a back door into finding out what these other people hope will be successful about your project.

Sometimes if you are under a lot of pressure on a project, you will discover that the sponsor hasn’t done a good job of accounting for all of the key stakeholders and may be missing something that is essential for one stakeholder. By asking about other stakeholders, you get a chance to refocus on where you are trying to get to and you have more control on pushing for planning.

You can easily do this in your projects by making sure to ask a simple question like, “Has everyone who is essential to the success of this project been asked for input?” This should get the conversation onto favorable footing for you.

What do you think? Am I onto something here? Or have you used other tactics to refocus your projects back onto planning when necessary? 

By the way, I write a weekly newsletter that focuses on strategy, value, and performance. If you enjoyed this piece, you will really enjoy the weekly newsletter. Make sure you never miss it! Sign up here or send me an email at [email protected]! 

By Christian Bisson, PMP

In my last post, I discussed why you should manage projects via project management tools rather than via email. Let’s imagine you’re making the transition—a wise choice, congratulations! But it may not be smooth sailing as you embed the tool into day-to-day team life.

This post talks about challenges you might encounter a long the way, and how to address them.

1. Cannot use the tool

Not everyone can pick up a tool and learn how to use it on their own. And more often than not, training given to people is not fine-tuned to each individual’s needs.

Some will struggle, meaning they will avoid the use of the tool and revert back to emails or other means to get their work done. In this instance, you might even be asked to stop using the tool yourself because others struggle.

Although abandoning the tool might seem like a quicker way of fixing the issue, it’s actually addressing a symptom, not a cause. Avoiding the use of the tool is not going to be beneficial to anyone long-term.

Instead, take the time to help anyone who struggles, or prepare customized training for your team members. Ask them where they are having trouble, and show them how they can achieve what they need to do.

2. Annoyed by notifications

Oddly, one recurring complaint of using a project management tool instead of emails is receiving too many emails. For instance, when people comment within a task, the tool might email once per comment.

There are two ways you can mitigate the amount of emails:

• Guide people toward their notification settings so they are configured to meet their needs. Some like to have lots of emails; others prefer to use activity feeds or a notification dashboard within the tool.
• A project management tool should not replace a conversation. Invite people to discuss issues in person or via a conference call instead of having 10 back-and-forth debates within an item of the tool.

3. Partial access or multiple tools

Many organizations work with more than one tool, which can be very effective in some cases. However, what often happens is that team members are confused because they do not know where to go to see their tasks. In addition, sometimes team members in other locations do not have access to the tool.

All this means the project manager struggles to manage all the work of a project since tasks can’t be assigned to everyone or tasks are split into different locations.

This can be tricky to deal with if the project manager cannot select tools and access. However, the objective is to have everyone on board use one project management tool only. This lets all team members know where to get the information they need and allows the project manager to have a complete view of the project in one place.

4. Email lovers

There are some who feel they cannot live without email. Even when the project management tool has all the information and properly archives it, some team members still want that information emailed to them. Project managers should not resort to sending information within the tool and also sending an email to that person, which is duplicated effort for nothing.

In these cases, it is important to show the person that the same objective can be met with the tool. Show him or her how to access the information easily and how to archive a project workspace if that is a long-term concern when closing a project.

By Christian Bisson, PMP

In the world of project management, you will encounter the “email philosophy” and the “project management tool philosophy” of how project tracking/communication should be done.

Emails can be an effective way to communicate or keep written documentation to refer to. Heck, I love emails. But ultimately, a properly used project management tool will be more efficient for your team. Here’s why:

1. Documentation Efficiency

Email might be a great way for you to track your written communications, but how properly it’s used and archived depends on the recipient. In contrast, with a project management tool, the “documentation” will be stored somewhere within a task or other type of item within the tool. Everyone can refer to it, and it should be easily found in the appropriate location instead of somewhere in someone’s inbox.

For example, I once took over a project from another project manager who used emails to manage the project. To help me get up to speed, the project manager had extracted a dozen emails and sent them over. I had to go through all those emails threads, most of which were out of context or outdated.

A better option would have been to have the relevant information within a project management tool where I could have reviewed the available information and known exactly who was doing what.

2. Task management

You could send someone an email listing tasks to accomplish, but unless that person replies with a status or you regularly ask for one, you will not get an update. If an update does come, only you and maybe others from the team will be aware, assuming they even read the email.

A project management tool will allow you to track all those tasks, with a proper assignee and status. It will be simple for someone to have all his or her tasks displayed and ordered in priority, including a description of each task/issue. In the meantime, the project manager can easily track the status of the project without having to constantly ask for one.

In my next post, I’ll talk about how to overcome challenges when switching from managing via email to managing via a project management tool. 

By Conrado Morlan

If you’ve been a project practitioner for a long time, you’ve probably heard a variety of opinions about you and your colleagues. Many of those opinions may have reflected an oversimplified image of the project management profession. In other words, you and your colleagues were stereotyped.

The project management profession has given me the opportunity to travel across three continents and to work with people from different cultures and generations. I lost count of all the different stereotypes I was associated with, which involved my country of origin (Mexico), the country I lived in (the United States) and people’s previous experience with IT project managers, But many of the stereotypes were common despite the different situations where I worked.

Being stereotyped gave me the opportunity to change people’s oversimplified idea of me and my profession. On top of my daily duties, I had to transform that bad and/or ugly perception into a good one. Even when my title was IT project manager, my role was not purely technical—in many projects, the business function was also part of the project team.

Working with business and technical functions put me between a sword and a wall. On the business function side, people stereotyped me as too technical, while on the IT side, co-workers assumed I was not technical at all and too structured. In many meetings with business functions and IT team members, I had to show that the “real me” did not fit the stereotype they had in mind.

My credentials exacerbated the situation a couple of times. When team members learned I had several certifications, they feared I was going to “play by the book” and make them change the way they had been working.

Instead, I merely promoted discussions in which the team realized there were areas of opportunity in their way of working that could be improved.     

The “manager” stereotype popped up quite often. Team members openly told me I was not their direct-line manager and did not have authority over them. I had to address this stereotype and help people understand I was not there to manage but to lead.

So I held meetings with team members and their managers, in which roles were defined, the importance of the project was communicated and lines of communication were established.

At the end of the day, it’s incumbent on projects managers to face the stereotypes that are out there and work to change negative perceptions. As a project manager, how do you react to stereotypes? What are you doing to erase the stereotype you have been associated with?

By Mario Trentim

Ever heard this joke? “You don’t need superpowers to change an organization. You only need one project manager—but the stakeholders must want to change.”

In this post, I want to remind you to put yourself in your stakeholders’ shoes. As you think about the changes to be delivered by your project, take their different perspectives seriously.

If you ask most people about their attitude toward change, they give answers trying to show how flexible and adaptable they are. After all, nobody wants to play the naysayer role. We don't want to be seen as resistors.

For example, I once asked my MBA students if they like change. They cheerfully answered "Yes!", to which I promptly answered "Fine, let's extend our class by five hours. Moreover, I want you to read seven papers and two books by the end of next week so that you can take a four-hour exam."

It’s easy to prove the point that we don't like bad changes. But what about good changes, the ones that benefit us? Do we really even want a change that’s good for us?

In reality, our behavior and attitudes often contradict what we believe. Why? Because we are afraid, and our expectations and interests are different and changing. Our relationship to specific changes isn’t static.

The biggest issue is that organizations (and project leaders) don’t always present planned changes in ways that makes it easy for people to answer the most important question: “What’s in it for me?”

I sometimes hear project managers complaining about their stakeholders. They say, “stakeholder X always changes his mind,” or “stakeholder Y creates obstacles to my project,” and so on.

Wake up! Stakeholders are not the problem. The truth is that your project is the problem. After all, what is a project?

From its definition, a project is a temporary endeavor to create a unique result. So, your project will create something that didn't exist before, something that wasn't there.

A project is a disturbance in the environment.

As a functional manager, for example, I will have to give up my status quo. I would be “forced” by your project to learn how to use the new enterprise resource planning system that you want to install. Do you really think I would help you? Is the functional manager the problem? No.

As a project manager, your job is to convince stakeholders they are going to benefit from the outcome. Show them what they will earn. If you fail, they won't help. As long as your stakeholders are not happy, your project is doomed to fail.

Want to learn more? Check out the webinar Managing Stakeholders as Clients. And, please, leave your comments!