Voices on Project Management

By Cyndee Miller

We all prefer the familiar. I gravitate to pizza and a big glass of red wine. I buy a lot of jewelry (usually with insects and/or skulls). And I tend to hire people who ask a lot of good questions without stirring up a lot of drama. 

That hardwired pull to what we know and like isn’t just human nature, it’s evolutionary biology. But it can also mean project practitioners are skimping on the critical thinking.

“What’s most familiar to you is you,” keynoter Margaret Heffernan told attendees of PMI^® Global Congress 2015—EMEA in London, England. “To the degree that we surround ourselves with people predisposed to agree with us, we are editing out the opportunity for challenges. And that’s dangerous because the people who are just like us won’t notice the early warning signs that we turn a blind eye to.”

She challenged the nearly 800 project practitioners in the audience to avoid such “willful blindness.”

London was a fitting venue for the gathering: It’s an ancient yet hypermodern city where people from around the world rub shoulders and help invent the future. And that future, said Ms. Heffernan, will reward organizations that help teams value diversity and avoid thoughtless conformity.

“Organizations don’t have ideas,” she said, “only people do.”

To build the teams that give them a competitive edge, organizations must foster connectedness and trust—what Ms. Heffernan called “social capital.”

“Teams that are highly connected can be more powerful and effective than teams that are highly funded,” she said. Yet that requires an organizational commitment to stop team churn. “The longer teams work together, the more effective they become.”

So how can organizations build their social capital and avoid being eclipsed by more forward-looking competitors?

Create an environment “where nobody has to ask permission to have great ideas,” Ms. Heffernan said. It’s not just about getting smart people in the same room. Three traits characterize top-performing teams, she said: Team members are socially empathic. All members have equal importance and influence. And the teams aren’t male-dominated.

The goal must be to see the threats and challenges “that we most desperately need to see, early,” Ms. Heffernan said.

By Lynda Bourne

Most organizations that take change management seriously have processes in place to train staff, reconfigure work practices and provide frontline support to ensure the project’s deliverables are effectively used to create value.

Many organizations are now also tracking the realization of benefits once the project is finished and its product has been transitioned to operations or the client—closing the loop back to the promised benefits in the business case.

However, there is an emerging body of evidence that while “business as usual” change—for example, to introduce an upgraded software system or market a new product—is fairly well understood, this type of change is very different from transformational change focused on reinventing the organization in some way.

There is confusion about what constitutes change versus transformation. We have a good idea of how to manage change, but most organizations continue to struggle with transformation.

Change management means implementing finite initiatives, which may or may not cut across the organization. The focus is on executing a well-defined shift in the way things work. By applying well-known change management principles and tools—including explaining the reason for the change, building a coalition of leaders, engaging stakeholders and executing with discipline—there is a good chance the change will go smoothly and the expected benefits realized.

Organizational transformation is altogether different.The objective of transformation is not just to execute a defined change, but to reinvent the organization, change culture and behaviors, and discover (rather than create) a new way of working based on a vision for the future.

For example, a transformational change could involve moving from a traditional sales model with sales representatives and brick-and-mortar stores to a 100 percent online sales and marketing presence.

Unlike change management, transformation management cannot simply focus on a few discrete, well-defined shifts. It must focus on a coordinated portfolio of interdependent initiatives.

Delivering the capabilities for this type of initiative is the realm of program management, because multiple projects will be needed to build the different elements required for the overall transition. Those multiple projects, requiring multiple change initiatives, together lead the organization on a journey of discovery toward its new future state. Even if successful change management leads to the successful implementation of certain initiatives within the transformation portfolio, the overall transformation could still fail.

This type of transformation is far more unpredictable, iterative and experimental than traditional project or program management, and consequently entails much higher risk. The key elements needed to build success are a clear vision of the final outcome, good stakeholder engagement and flexibility to adapt the program of work based on feedback from earlier initiatives.

The ultimate vision may not change, but the route to success will require continuous adaptation to overcome obstacles and exploit opportunities.

By Conrado Morlan

When I was a portfolio manager, I attended many portfolio status meetings where projects were reviewed and assessed based on their status color. The status color—green, yellow or red—was usually determined by a combination of specific metrics defined by the organization's project management office.

Green meant the portfolio was on track, yellow meant the portfolio could be in danger of not meeting its goals, and red meant the portfolio was in serious danger.

Attendees’ behavior during these review meetings was always the same. To me, it revealed how simplistic or misleading the tri-color status system can be. Portfolios with a green status received no questions from the audience, even when a portfolio manager conducting the presentation specifically asked if anyone had questions.

On the other hand, yellow and red status portfolios produced expressions of surprise and/or contempt. The audience bombarded the portfolio manager with questions and asked for contingency plans to bring back those portfolios to green status.

At times I felt those portfolio managers were being punished for doing their job well. And I always wonder if people had dug deeper into the portfolios with green status, would they still have been so surprised or contemptuous of the other portfolios?

A portfolios status turns yellow or red because a risk turned into a problem or because of internal dependencies like other portfolios or external dependencies like new government regulations. When portfolios are aligned with the organization's strategy, portfolio managers must know all the risks identified in the strategy and assess how those risks will impact the project portfolio.

That’s their job. Furthermore, portfolio managers who create awareness among the portfolio steering committee about risks or external dependencies are being smart. They’re gathering input to decide which projects in the portfolio may need to be postponed, which may need to have their scope changed based on risk and/or internal or external dependencies, and which may need budget cuts or increases.

In other words, a yellow or red status can indicate a portfolio manager’s competence and sophistication, rather than incompetence and stupidity.

As a portfolio manager, how do you avoid surprise and contempt among your stakeholders? 

By Rex Holmlin

I teach project management to undergraduate and graduate students, and recently one of my students asked me which knowledge area was the most important.

My response: All the knowledge areas are important. Depending on the project and organizations involved, we would use more or less of the processes and tools, but most likely we would use all the knowledge areas in some way to help ensure project success.

But as I reflected on the question later, as well as my own nearly four decades of experience as a project manager, I realized my answer wasn’t great. In retrospect, I should have said Stakeholder Management is the most important knowledge area.

By training, I am an engineer. I love cost estimating and scheduling. But as important as these topics are, the source of most problems on projects is people. And the best way to avoid project problems is through the people involved in the project.

Therefore, paying attention to the four processes of stakeholder management can pay significantly more dividends to a project than a schedule or cost estimate.

When it comes to stakeholder management, I believe we shortchange our projects most often in two areas.The first is identification of stakeholders.

I am reminded of the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Early in the film, train robbers Butch and Sundance are being chased by a posse. They stop to catch their breath, hoping they have lost the posse. When the lawmen appear over the ridge still on their trail, Butch and the Kid look at each other and say, “Who are those guys?”

This is the key question with the identification of stakeholders. We as project managers need to do a very thorough job of identifying the people, groups and organizations not only involved in the project, but who might be affected by it.

The second aspect of stakeholder management where project managers often fall short is stakeholder analysis. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge(PMBOK^® Guide)includes some great stakeholder analysis tools, but I recently came across an outstanding academic article(PDF link) by John Bryson of the University of Minnesota about stakeholder analysis.

It provides step-by-step instructions on 15 stakeholder analysis tools and techniques that can really take your understanding of the stakeholders in your project to the next level. I think you’ll find it both interesting and a potential source of tools to help you avoid a lot of the headaches we often encounter with project stakeholders. 

Which knowledge area do you think is the most important?

By Kevin Korterud

It’s not uncommon, particularly on larger programs, that project practitioners have to assemble a team of project managers. Sometimes we’re lucky enough to hire project managers we know. But quite often, we have to resort to a formal application process.

I get many questions about how to find the right project manager for a role. The process of interviewing and selecting a project manager requires preparation, efficiency and the ability to quickly focus on the skills needed for a project.

Here are four tips for navigating the interview process—and identifying the ideal candidate. 

1. Read and Rank Résumés—Before Interviews  

It is essential to prepare for the interviews. Good preparation practices include:

• Think about the primary behavioral skills as well as industry/technical skills that the role requires.
• Read each résumé in detail, looking for the desired skill profile.
• Rank the résumés based on the desired skill profile.
• Create a list of scenario-based questions that reflect those skills and the desired responses.

2. Set the Stage  

Where you conduct the interview can be as important as what you ask. Secure a location that makes for easy dialogue with minimum distractions and supports your scenario-based questions.

The best location is in a program “control room.” These rooms typically have project schedules, metrics, risks and issues displayed on their walls. Having real-time project artifacts as a reference point promotes both active dialogue and the ability to highlight examples related to the scenario-based questions. If a control room is not available, create a temporary one in a conference room where you can tack up project management artifacts.

3. Ask the Right Questions

The candidate has probably already gone through an initial screening. So resist the temptation to ask questions that could have been posed before or “dead-end” questions that don’t shed light on a candidate’s project management skills. Dead-end questions include:

• Tell me about yourself.
• Share your strengths/weaknesses.
• Why did you leave your last role?  
• Why should I hire you?

Scenario-based questions that bring out the depth and breadth of a person’s project management skills include:

• Why did you become a project manager?
• Share some accomplishments and learning experiences.
• How do you deal with challenging stakeholders?  
• What are your favorite project management metrics?
• What techniques do you use to get a project back on track?

4. Leave a Positive Impression     

Sometimes a candidate isn’t a good fit for a specific project management role. If that occurs, consider the interview to be an investment in the future—perhaps you will need a project manager with that skill set for a later project. Be sure to stress this to the candidate. If there are other project manager roles open, explain that you will route the person’s résumé for consideration for those roles.

No matter the decision, it’s essential to leave a positive impression with the candidate. A positive impression left with candidates also helps attract referrals to your role.

Interviewing project managers can feel like as much work as the project itself. Good preparation, execution and decision-making during the process can help to quickly fill your open project manager role—as well as build a pipeline of candidates for the future.

What techniques do you use to interview project managers?