Voices on Project Management

Organizations exist in all shapes and sizes, which means there is a wide range of project management needs to be fulfilled by standards, processes and best practices. In order to cope with that challenge, some organizations implement project management offices (PMOs).

PMI’s Pulse of the Profession: PMO Frameworks describes types of PMOs and their characteristics. Moreover, there are plenty of books and research on this topic (see Brian Hobbs and Peter Taylor, for example). However, despite PMO’s good references, detailed implementation and well-intentioned frameworks, organizations continue to question the value of these offices.

I recently came across four multinational organizations that killed their PMOs entirely. Although I believe these decisions did more harm than good, it is unquestionable that PMOs have to reinvent themselves. That’s why I compiled a list Frequently Avoided Questions that should be answered with honesty right from the start:

1. Does your organization really need a PMO?
2. What is the unique value proposition of your PMO?
3. Do you have a business model for your PMO?
4. Who are the clients of your PMO?
5. How are you going to measure the impact of your PMO?

Answering these questions is not an easy task. In order to answer, “Yes, we need a PMO,” you have to understand organizational strategy, structure and culture. 

• Strategy
  • Organizations with a few sporadic projects are better off outsourcing project management entirely. If project management is a core activity, the organization will probably benefit from a PMO (take a look at PMI’s Pulse of the Profession: The Impact of PMOs on Strategy Implementation).
• Structure
  • Project-oriented organizations are more suitable to PMOs because support functions are designed to improve projects’ performance. Matrix organizations pose different challenges to PMOs because there is a need to balance operations and projects. Functional organizations are not PMO-friendly due to silos and specialization.
• Culture
  • Change management is critical in PMO implementations. Some organizational cultures would simply target a PMO as an “anomalous cell” to be purged. If that’s the case, don’t even try to implement a PMO.

If you understand the organizational contexts of strategy, structure and culture and your answer is still, “Yes, we need a PMO,” it is time to define what type of PMO (questions 2, 3 and 4) to create. Performance measurements and KPIs are part of answering question 5. After working through those questions, we can finally craft and execute a plan.

But I get ahead of myself: I’ll address these topics in my next few blog posts. Don’t miss them! And please, leave your comments and suggestions below.

And by the way: Visit PMI’s Knowledge Shelf to learn more about PMOs.

In my previous post, I emphasized the importance of engaging and involving stakeholders proactively in a learning process about project definition and planning. I highlighted soft systems methodology as a powerful problem-structuring method.

But how exactly can we incorporate problem-structuring methods into the project management practice? Are they really useful and feasible? Let me guide you through an example below, step by step, according to the Soft Systems Methodology.

Project: Build a New Power Plant

1. Problem situation unstructured: Our energy supply isn’t meeting demand.
2. Problem situation expressed: This expresses the area of concern through a rich picture containing both appropriate symbols for real-world activities and words.

Figure 1: Simplified rich picture for the project “Build Power Plant” (Trentim, 2013)

3. Root definition: The purpose of the project is not to build a new power plant; the end objective is to deliver enough energy to the client. The client expresses the most important human activity system (HAS) to be further studied. We could define more than one root definition to represent a different HAS. For each HAS, we have an analysis of the customer, actors, transformation, weltanschauung (comprehensive worldview), owner and environment (CATWOE).

• Root definition: to ensure that the client has enough energy.
• CATWOE Analysis

Customer: client

                           Actors: sponsor, project manager, team and contractors

Transformation: provide enough energy

Weltanschauung: energy fuels operations

Owner: client

Environment: client environment

4. Conceptual models: We could develop many models in different levels to better understand the problem. Simplifying, I’ve created a conceptual model of how the client uses energy, based on the root definition stated before.

Figure 2: Conceptual model based on root definition “to ensure that the client has enough energy” (Trentim, 2013)

5. Comparison between conceptual models and the real world. This stage compares what we are now to what we want to be able to do. The conceptual model (or models) represents how things should work. The reality has to be changed in some way to improve the problem-situation.

Table 1: Comparison to reality (Trentim, 2013)

6. Feasible desirable changes: The project manager and his or her team propose solutions (project scope). In stage 5, we compare the ideal conceptual model to reality, so we can propose feasible solutions and create action plans.
7. Implement solutions: project execution.

Actually, the solution implementation might encompass all of the project life cycle. Stages 1 to 6 may happen prior to project initiation or in the beginning of the planning phase. Once we have the problem statement and the proposed solution aligned strategically to stakeholders’ expectations and needs, we can use our traditional project management knowledge, as compiled in the PMBOK^® Guide, for example.

A successful project delivers solid benefits. That’s why we have to understand the problem before we start creating a solution. In other words, well-crafted plans and detailed scope definitions are useless if they do not address the real needs of stakeholders. Don’t you think?

Have you ever solved the wrong problem? Please leave your comments and thoughts below.

A successful project must satisfy stakeholders. But how can we agree in advance what success means if we don’t have all the information?

Although you cannot control stakeholders’ expectations, you can influence and persuade them. The key is to engage and involve stakeholders in value creation. Success hinges on a stakeholder-centered approach to project management.

Your job as project manager is a cross between a physician, a consultant and a professor. You have to guide and educate stakeholders, diagnosing their pain to uncover their real needs. If you really want to uncover stakeholders’ needs, you have to learn how to ask the right questions.

Since 2011, I’ve been applying problem structuring methods (PSM) to project management. These methods guide stakeholders through a learning process in which you define the boundaries of a problem to be solved. You understand more as you advance progressively and iteratively, tilting the project toward success.

Soft systems methodology (SSM) is one of the most powerful PSMs I know. It is organized into seven steps:

1. Problem situation unstructured: area of concern, purpose and end objectives.
2. Problem situation expressed: rich picture created to represent the structure and processes of the problem situation.
3. Root definition: clarifies what needs to be addressed and which human activity system is of concern. You can have more than one root definition, representing the HAS (human activity system).
4. Conceptual models: use creativity and logical argument to derive relevant activities in the HAS and build conceptual models in different levels of abstraction.
5. Comparing #4 to #2 (real world and the conceptual model), provide comments and recommendations.
6. Identify feasible solutions: you can use a multi-criteria model to compare alternatives.
7. Improve the problem situation by implementing the solution.

_{Soft systems methodology (adapted from Checkland, 1981, Fig. 6).}

In my next post, I’m going to provide a real project example showing how to use SSM. 

Do you have any other ideas or experience on how to engage your stakeholders in a learning process? Please leave your comments.

If you’re new to project management, mastering negotiation skills is going to provide you with an invaluable asset to cope with real-life situations that drive project managers crazy sometimes.

If you’re a seasoned project manager, you’ll probably wish you’d read this post before!

In fact, negotiation skills offer many benefits to project managers. Most important, they:

• Equip you with tools and techniques to resolve differences and to mend hard feelings, instead of avoiding them
• Help you to build relationships with stakeholders
• Provide you with strategies to clarify expectations
• Improve your chances of getting support while also keeping conflict to manageable levels
• Facilitate a deeper understanding of stakeholders' needs, expectations and agendas

The term “negotiation” derives from Latin roots. Its original meaning likely won’t surprise you:

• “neg” means “not”
• “otium” means “leisure”

Negotiating isn’t easy. That’s why most people try to avoid or withdraw from negotiations. But doing this makes you worse off, increasing the chances of being exploited and bullied.

Stop for a moment and ask yourself: Did any stakeholder take advantage of you in a recent negotiation? Maybe your boss shouted at you, “Why are you still planning—when are you going to start doing some work?” Or perhaps a client asked, “It is just a small change to the requirements. Can’t you get it done by next week?”

Here are the Ten Commandments of negotiating with project bullies:

1. Prepare before starting to negotiate

2. Don’t be emotional. Don't take it personally

3. Always be honest

4. Put yourself in “their shoes”

5. Know your BATNA—the best alternative to a negotiated agreement

6. Identify the zone of potential agreement

7. Learn how to say no

8. Think long-term

9. Understand that every problem is an opportunity

10. Whenever possible, improve relationships and build trust

Have you ever taken a negotiation course? Or did you read a great book on negotiation that helped you as a project manager? Please share your thoughts, suggestions and experiences below.

Witnessing so many unsuccessful projects these days, I keep asking myself why execution continues to fall through the cracks while organizations apparently grow in project management maturity.

If organizations are more mature in project planning, why aren’t we reaping better results? It’s easy to see we have an execution gap.

I think this is because some project managers are so immersed in the minutia of best practices that they don’t understand the big picture.

They don’t understand that project management processes, tools and techniques are only a means to an end. The final goal of every project is to jointly create value by engaging stakeholders to build a unique result under constraints (scope, time, cost and more). In other words, a successful project delivers benefits and satisfies stakeholders.

Execution demands proactivity. Project managers should embrace change, keeping their eyes wide open to take their project plans out of the paper. Making things happen is easier when you have a good plan, but it still demands a lot of energy and motivation.

Practitioners sometimes put their well-crafted, detailed plans on a pedestal as trophies of great project management. In fact, planning is only half, or less, of the way to the finish line.

To paraphrase the boxer Mike Tyson, “everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” The real world is volatile and complex; missing and incomplete information is the norm. Will your plan survive the challenge? It depends on how well you execute. As many in the military learn, strategic, tactical and operational plans need to be executed with maximum agility. Adjustments, adaptations and unexpected decisions must be made along the road to project completion.

To execute well, you need clear goals, resilience, flexibility and a high degree of “alertness.” The OODA loop, created by John Boyd, revolutionizes goal-centered execution by adding flexibility and velocity in the decision-making process. Here are the four steps.

Figure 1- OODA loop (Source: Defense and the National Interest)

1. Observe. Collect current information from as many sources as practically possible: Keep in touch with stakeholders, collect project data, and gather information about context and environmental factors. Alertness is critical to project execution.
2. Orient. Analyze information and use it to update your current reality. Monitor and control, including looking for variances’ causes, forecasting and re-planning.
3. Decide. Determine a course of action, updating the project plan on the fly using an effective integrated change control.
4. Act. Follow through on your decision, observing the results of your actions. Assess whether you achieved the results you intended, and review and revise your initial decision as necessary. Then, move on to another decision.

Next time you start execution on your project, put the OODA loop to work for you. It will guide you through the project plan as a series of linked decisions to help you make sense of the environment, update the plan and observe results.

If you have any comments—or perhaps a negative or positive story about execution—please share below. Thanks!