Voices on Project Management

Economic and social conditions have led us into an age where workers are extending the length of their careers. For the first time in history, three generations —Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y — are together in the workforce.  The generations tend to differ in values, styles and work ethic.  

Baby Boomers, the most experienced workers, can easily feel a cultural disconnect with members of Gen X and Gen Y, especially in the ethical approach to work-life balance.

While many Boomers believe in working long hours, both Gen X and Gen Y believe they can accomplish the same task in less time through the smarter use of technology. This generational difference can result in misunderstandings.

Consider this example:

Julie Phillips, a Baby Boomer, is the project manager and sets a team meeting at 5:00 PM on Monday. She feels the meeting is needed to prepare for a briefing with the executive sponsor that will occur the next day. 

Her team member, John, a Gen X’er, leaves early without informing her to attend his son’s soccer match. Kevin, a Gen Y’er, leaves at 5:00 to volunteer at his favorite charity.

Jane sends an email to John and Kevin indicating a lack of dedication and poor professional conduct, noting that the behavior is costing the project and the company.

What should be done to avoid such conflicts? How does work ethic play a role?  What would you do in this situation?

Claudio Fernandez-Araoz, writing in Harvard Business Review, finds that the impact of demographics on hiring pools is undeniable. (“21st Century Talent Spotting," 2014.)   As Boomers retire, organizations must support the rising leadership of Gen X and the increasing population of Gen Y in the workforce. (“4 Ways to Retain Gen Xers,”HBR Blog, 2014.)  Millennials will represent 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025. (“Deloitte Millennial Survey,”2014)   

To reduce the potential for clashes, organizations must establish and communicate their ethical values and standards of conduct.  A strong ethical tone starts at the top.  Organizations should define expectations for professional conduct that meet business goals and respect generational differences in values and approach.

To get optimal performance from the entire workforce, a cross-generational dialogue is useful. Dialogue as a tool can uncover inter-generational dynamics that may be affecting your company’s environment and build the bridges of communication.

For project management professionals, the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct and the PMI Ethical Decision Making Framework are available to guide ethical behavior and address any ethical dilemma irrespective of the situation or the generation.

Sources Cited

Claudio Fernandez-Araoz. "21st Century Talent Spotting.” Harvard Business Review,  June 2014. >.

Deloitte Millennial Survey. Rep. Deloitte Touche Tomatsu, 2014. Web. Sept. 2014. . 

Hewlett, Sylvia Ann. "4 Ways to Retain Gen Xers." Web log post. Harvard Business Review. HBR Blog Network, 24 Sept. 2014. Web. 27 Oct. 2014. .

Voices on Project Management Guest Blogger Shobhna Raghupathy MS, PMP is a member of PMI Ethics Member Advisory Group. She has more than 20 years of strategy and portfolio management consulting experience in telecom, healthcare and finance. A longtime volunteer leader of PMI, she is a recognized speaker at PMI^® Global Congress and Leadership Institute Meetings. She is also a requested presenter at PMI chapter professional development days and symposia. Currently, she is an invited member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council.

By Jen L. Skrabak, PMP, PfMP

A portfolio manager’s key responsibility is to sell your idea — whether it’s to incorporate innovations into the portfolio, to advocate for portfolio management processes or to champion the establishment of a portfolio. And one of the most powerful ways to sell is to have great presentation skills. The next time you have to present your portfolio strategy to executives or conduct a meeting, think about the simple acronym that can ensure SUCCESS:

Simple     

I always think in terms of the outcome of my presentation or meeting first: what is the one thing you want to people to remember, do, think or feel differently as a result of your presentation.

·       Now, work this core message until it’s clear and concise.  As portfolio managers, we need to be experts at distilling a tremendous amount of information into the “critical few” points — think bullet points rather than paragraphs.  

·       Be aware that too much detail will cloud the message, cause confusion, and delay buy-in. Strip away the unnecessary elements and leave your audience with the essence. 

·       Don’t add jargon, industry-specific terms (i.e., technology or project management), or try to be too trendy. Spell out acronyms, and try to stay away from anything that requires a dictionary to interpret. I once had a project manager refer to a “wheelhouse,” and I had to look it up to see what it meant. For the record, it refers to “an area of expertise.” But ultimately, ask yourself: Do you want people to wonder what your message is? Or do you want them to quickly grasp it?

Unexpected      

·       Instead of just jumping into facts, keep the audience’s attention by opening and closing gaps in their knowledge. Put yourself in their shoes, and ask yourself, “What do they know, and what don’t they know?” Open with something they don’t know to grab their attention.

·       Then, try to highlight a few ‘a-ha’s” and lead them to the desired outcome. Is your audience interested in the process, or just your portfolio inventory of the programs and projects? Highlight a few programs and projects with interesting facts rather than reviewing the entire list of programs and projects.

·       Create curiosity, interest or concern in what you are going to tell them before you tell them. For example, you might say that it’s commonly thought that there are 100 critical projects within the portfolio, but your analysis show that it’s actually 10 critical projects. This way, you are also selling your value as a portfolio manager — anyone can come up with a list of projects, but only you can analyze and bring recommendations.

Concrete  

·       Remove abstract language or ideas from your message, and replace them with concrete language or ideas (tied to a tangible/physical item that people can relate to).

·       Use sensory language to paint a mental picture. Give an example.

·       When selling a new portfolio management process, say “good portfolio management is like having a well-balanced 401k.”

Credible   

Use “good statistics” — ones that aid a decision or shape an opinion and humanize your statistics by bringing them closer to people’s day-to-day experience.

Make the statistics or examples relevant by placing them into the frame of everyday life. For example: “I compare the portfolio roadmap to having a detailed guide for a trip from NY to LA so that every major stop can be accounted for.”

Emotional         

·       Don’t rely solely on logic to sell your presentation.

·       Create empathy for specific individuals affected by what you are trying to sell. Say things such as: “Given that it currently takes five people two weeks to manually put together the reports needed, my new portfolio management process will now free up three people and reduce the time to five days.”

·       Show that your ideas are associated with things people already care about. Within a large company, that may be increasing efficiency, increasing shareholder value, meeting compliance and regulatory demands and increasing employee satisfaction.

Stories     

·       Use stories so your message relates to the audience and reflects your core message. Use specific examples, preferably yours, of why it’s worked (i.e., “When I worked at our competitor’s and implemented this portfolio management process, it resulted in an increased ROI from 50 percent to 85 percent within six months.”). Another thing that works well: A brief acknowledgement that your method is a best practice within the industry, based on your extensive research.

·       Finally, don’t forget that the story should have emotional elements and draw from the other SUCCESS principles.

What are your tips for successfully presenting portfolio management to stakeholders?

The yellow rubber duck that floats in baths of families the world over started appearing in harbors around the globe in 2007 — but not in their usual small size, but as giant floating structures. To the delight of many, waterways worldwide were being turned into a huge baths. Bath time reached Taiwan officially in 2013 at Kaohsiung City’s Glory Pier.

Requirements Management

This traveling sculpture display Rubber Duck was an international art show by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman. It has been built and displayed worldwide with the aid of two volumes of installation guides and specifications. The books offered details ranging from the materials of the sculpture's construction to the patterns those materials needed to be cut into and how they should be sewn together. They also included calculations of the sculpture's buoyancy and weight to help with moving and securing it. 

Lessons Learned

In addition, these books recorded the best practice of each construction of the Rubber Duck. In each new city the sculpture appeared, lessons learned were recorded. This meant that each new appearance of the sculpture would feature an accumulation of experience and insight in how best to manufacture and exhibit it.

Regardless of where it appeared, the Rubber Duck technically should have looked the same. But in reality, some cities’ ducks just looked prettier; while others’ had crooked mouths, tilted bodies or looked lethargic overall. Even if you have extensive lessons learned in hand, as well as basic guides to materials and construction, success comes down to the local project managers’ precision and quality control.

In the case of Taiwan’s Rubber Duck, erecting and placing the sculpture would be a challenge due to its size: At 18 meters (59 feet) high and 1 metric ton (2,205 pounds), it was the biggest in Asia at the time. Even more challenging were the threats of typhoons and earthquakes. Ayu Cheng, the project manager of the Taiwanese team, said they had to work on several issues, including:

1. How to combine the hose and skin in the ducktail to ensure no leakage of air and pumping on a 24-hour basis to ensure the duck's features never sagged.
2. How to assemble and sew the parts in order to make them more wind resistant than previous sculptures.
3. How to ensure the floating platform the duck body was fixed upon was properly concealed, floating just 1 centimeter (.4 inch) beneath the water's surface and not bobbing uncontrollably or looking like it was sinking.

Risk Management

The Ching Fu Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. and Airglow Co. Ltd. worked together to overcome these challenges. All the production teams, the project manager and the Kaohsiung Municipal created two precedents:

1. The platform which the duck body was fixed to could now be disassembled into four parts for transportation and re-assembly elsewhere
2. The initial inflation of the sculpture to take just seven minutes, a dramatically shorter time than the usual time of around seven hours.   

During the exhibition in Kaohsiung, risk response procedures were also used due to Typhoon Usagi. The sculpture was lifted and placed on the ground and deflated. Then after the typhoon passed, it was re-inflated and placed back in its position. The exhibition program, along with its risk management and quality control measures, helped Kaohsiung's Rubber Duck survive Typhoon Usagi. (For example, the Rubber Duck in another Taiwanese city, Taoyuan, exploded due to the natural disaster.) Mr. Florentijn has said because the world’s seas are connected, the Rubber Duck connects everyone's happy childhood memories. As simple as that idea is, it could not be realized without the elaborate program management and the cooperative project work behind it.

Have you worked on a program where you had to use lessons learned, requirements management and risk management together?

Project requirements are usually collected through an elicitation process, which requires employing various techniques and methods, such as discovery, analysis, understanding and validation. These methods can be applied in interviews, focus groups, questionnaires or requirements workshops. Typically, one or more business analysts will carry out the requirements elicitation process, while the project manager will be generally responsible for planning and setting up the requirements elicitation and management framework and for its outcome.

This approach might be applicable for various types of projects, but when gathering requirements from high-level executives — who don’t have the time nor need to know the details but who focus on the big picture — a special tailoring of this process might be needed. Here are eight strategies you or your business analysts should consider when collecting requirements from executives:

1. Prepare. Try to understand what their business priorities and objectives are. Find out in advance their preferred communication style. Get ready to collect the requirements in a short time and in an atypical environment — i.e., during a coffee break or lunch — due to their busy schedules (more on this point in number 5).

2. Simplify the process. Avoid going through checklists or elaborate discovery techniques. Instead, use a conversational approach, understand, guide and offer solutions and project pros and cons. Use visual depictions and summaries.

3. Simplify the language.Use simple and straight communication. Avoid technical language; instead, use examples or stories that relate to business problems and solutions.

4. Remain positive. Maintain a trustworthy attitude, be an adviser and be proactive. Instead of talking about issues or problems, talk about solutions and give details of what will work.

5. Focus on time.Consider that executives have many challenges to deal with, and hence the amount of time and attention they can allocate on a single topic is limited. Therefore, once you get their attention, stay focused and avoid wasting time. Remember: Time is money, especially for the C-suite.

6. Start with the outcome.The best advice I heard about communicating up is starting with the outcome. When you present solutions to their requirements, engage their attention by providing them an overview of the results first. Then they usually become more interested, creating an opening for you to tell them about the “how.”

7. Manage risk. Consider that some execs are sensitive to risk or can be risk-averse. If any of their requirements pose risks, prepare to develop risk mitigation and risk response options.

8. Maintain a strategic orientation.Focus on what the executives mostly care about — what impacts the business. In most cases, they’ll focus on a business vision, a product concept, innovation or financials (e.g., the outcome with the highest ROI).

What’s your experience with collecting requirements from executives? Have you employed any of these strategies? How did they work?

For more on requirements management, check out PMI's Pulse of the Profession® In-Depth Report: Requirements Management or visit the Requirements Management Knowledge Center of Excellence.

In an age of hyperconnectivity and rapid-fire change, project practitioners can feel overwhelmed. Never fear. There are ways to stay ahead of the pack, according to keynote speakers during the final two days of PMI^® Global Congress — North America in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.

First, forget multitasking. “It turns out multitasking doesn’t exist,” said Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist and author of The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload.

Constant task switching “comes at a neural cost,” he said. Instead, practitioners should try “unitasking,” focusing squarely on one mission for large chunks of time. And step away from the computer and the smartphone for a few hours.

“Highly successful, highly productive people get more done by actually shutting things off,” Mr. Levitin said. They know what’s not worth their time and don’t waste energy on minor decisions. “People who do that really do get more done, and the quality of their work is better.”

Tamara Kleinberg dared congress attendees to cultivate their innate capacity for innovation. The message was simple but powerful: With the right attitude and habits, anyone can disrupt the status quo with creative ideas.

“It’s about being annoyingly curious, always questioning, always challenging,” said Ms. Kleinberg, author of Think Sideways: A Game-Changing Playbook for Disruptive Thinking. “Great innovation isn’t in the answers, it’s in the questions.”

To “prime the innovative mind,” project managers should write down every idea, no matter how trivial or seemingly mediocre. Like the body, the mind needs daily exercise to reach its full potential, she said, urging attendees to “turn your office space into a gym of innovation.”

Ines Vazquez, PMP, walked away inspired. “I love the idea that everyone is capable of innovation,” said Ms. Vazquez, project manager, Boeing Co., Bothell, Washington, USA. “I used to think that I didn’t have that ability — but the only thing I need to do is exercise my mind.”

Vince Poscente closed out congress with a challenge to attendees: “How are you going to become more agile in a competitive environment?”

Author of The Age of Speed: Learning to Thrive in a More-Faster-Now World, Mr. Posente recounted his long-shot qualification for the Olympics just four years after taking up competitive speed skiing at age 26. He said he pulled it off by developing a 360-degree awareness of the sport’s risks and then choosing fun over fear.

Mr. Poscente urged practitioners to set their own bold goals and then develop the willingness do what the competition won’t.

The most important advice he ever received was just three words: have no regrets. In “a world that is getting faster and faster and faster,” Mr. Poscente said, it’s imperative to pursue the goals that deeply inspire us because project teams respond to passion. “How do we get people heading in the same direction?” he asked. “It’s that emotional buzz.”