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Orgs Must Take on Innovation and Complexity -- Or Else
Categories:
PMI Global Congress 2014 - EMEA
Categories: PMI Global Congress 2014 - EMEA
| Organizations tend to look to the past to predict the future -- yet that's not the best path to innovation, said author James Burke, Tuesday's keynote speaker at PMI® Global Congress 2014 -- EMEA. "Conformity is essential to security in the present moment," he said. "But unless an organization updates that paradigm, it won't be able to process change." To cultivate innovation, organizations must learn to think relationally and connectively across business units. And armed with transferrable skills and knowledge, projects practitioners can serve as that valuable connection. "Innovation surges in the connective space between specialist silos," he said. "The goal is to foster broad-view generalists rather than narrow-view specialists." Organizations should also be leveraging big data. "'Data exhaust' can be used for predictive analytics," Mr. Burke said, "and also helps people break out of the box." Innovation isn't the only thing that has organizations scrambling. Complexity can also threaten an organization's competitive edge -- and the projects and programs it undertakes. "Complexity deals with a lot of unknown unknowns -- things you can't predict," said Dave Gunner, PMP, PfMP, at HP, a PMI Global Executive Council member organization. "You don't know when one thing will lead to something else." Complexity means different things to different people, said Mr. Gunner, chair of PMI's Navigating Complexity: A Practice Guide core committee and moderator at a congress panel on the topic. But the three main elements are: ambiguity, human behavior and systems behavior. The predominant characteristic depends on the type of project or program you're running, said Fadi Samara, PMP, of C4 Advanced Solutions. When he worked at a startup, it was more about the systems. But the people factor often takes center stage when working on a project with multicultural teams. And beware: Sometimes it's the project practitioners themselves. "Don't be a victim of self-inflicted complexity," said Sam Alkhatib, PMP, of Cupertino Electric. "Don't do things like micromanaging, focusing on narrow projects, creating the impression you're advancing projects while in reality, you're digging into holes. Unnecessary layers of management, confused accountability and confused communication makes complexity worse." Mr. Samara said the biggest issue is oversimplification. "People underestimate complex projects due to lack of experience," he said. So what does it take? More than 80 percent of respondents to the PMI Pulse of the Profession® survey ranked leadership as the most important skill to deal with project complexity. The panelists agreed: "Leadership is what makes project manager successful," said Mr. Samara. "It gets resources to do things for you, helps you facilitate problems through relationships and allows you to navigate to a solution." How does your organization foster innovation and navigate complexity? For more congress takeaways, read the recap of the first day or check out @PMIcongress. |
Dubai's Megasuccessful Megaprojects Set the Standard
Categories:
PMI Global Congress 2014 - EMEA
Categories: PMI Global Congress 2014 - EMEA
| PMI® Global Congress 2014 -- EMEA kicked off in Dubai, where nearly 1,000 attendees got an insider's look at how project management helped turn a pearl-diving village into a world-class city. "Dubai has a reputation for megaprojects, not only large, but iconic -- incredible feats of engineering," said Mark A. Langley, president and CEO of PMI, at the opening session of congress. "Not only the best and biggest projects, but the best project and program management to ensure success." When it comes to project performance, he said, PMI Pulse of the Profession® data reveals the Middle East does much better than the rest of the world. And Dubai stands front and center. The transformation of what was once a vast desert into a world-class city has been "staggering," said His Excellency Mattar Al Tayer from Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority. He outlined five economic building blocks:
While oil fueled early growth, Dubai has a grand vision -- and from grand visions come grand projects. Take Dubai World Central, a next-generation aerotropolis ultimately capable of handling 200 million passengers by 2016, said His Excellency Khalifa Al Zaffin of Dubai Aviation City Corp. And while the project is designed primarily to house commercial and residential districts, its competitive advantage lies in Dubai's strategic location. "One-third of the world's population is within a four-hour flight -- mainly from the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia regions that together have US$3.6 trillion GDP," Mr. Al Zaffin said. Dubai is leveraging that strategic location to carve out its place as a major global player. A new Silk Road is emerging, with 55 percent of the Middle East trade now with India and China, said Dr. Nasser Saidi of Nasser Saidi & Associates and former chief economist at the Dubai International Financial Centre. Part of the Dubai's success lies squarely with securing project and program buy-in at the highest levels. In the case of snaring hosting duties for World Expo 2020, local, municipal and federal government were all involved. "In other expos, it was always the mayor of the city particularly who was responsible," Dr. Saidi said. "Here, responsibility is right at the top, which leads to better coordination, strategic planning and getting things done." Along with World Expo 2020, two other platforms are driving Dubai's future growth, said keynote speaker Mr. Hassan Al Hashemi of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry:
Dubai's evolution is nothing short of amazing. And it will only continue with World Expo 2020, an engine for change powered by innovation and supported by expertise in project and program management. Where do you look for inspiration? |
Getting Documentation Right
Categories:
Project Planning
Categories: Project Planning
| Documentation is an important aspect of a project manager's job. We document to keep us aware of status on projects. We use it to stabilize spending and keep a paper trail of events and circumstances. So, what should you capture and how should it be maintained? Here are a few tips to make sure you're capturing usable documentation.
Now that you know how to maintain documentation, we'll review which documents should be retained in my next post. What are your must-have tips for documentation on projects? |
Why Realistic Goals Matter — and How to Set Them
Categories:
Project Planning
Categories: Project Planning
| One of the regular challenges I hear coming from the project management community is the idea that our organizations are setting unrealistic goals. This is a tremendous challenge because setting unobtainable goals can lead to project failure, low morale and a culture of insecurity. It's vitally important to spend time working with our project management offices (PMOs) and sponsors to develop realistic timelines and goals that are achievable in the short- and long-term. Why? Because this is going to help maintain motivation throughout the project as each milestone is obtained. Additionally, it will help you communicate progress more effectively to your sponsors and gives you the capability to set clear, reasonable expectations at the start of the project. Here are three ways you can set better goals that motivate your teams, sponsors and stakeholders:
While it isn't possible to control every variable on every project, a project manager can make great strides in team performance by using goals to set proper expectations. What helped you set proper goals in a recent project? Read more about PMOs and their impact on strategy implementation in PMI's Strategic Initiative Management: The PMO Imperative. |
Turn Chaos Into Success
Categories:
Complexity
Categories: Complexity
| Project managers usually advance in their careers by managing small, then medium and ultimately large projects. What project managers may not be prepared for is the complexity that comes with taking on bigger projects. Left unmanaged, this complexity leads to chaos and ultimately project failure. Why does this happen? A business system is characterized by processes and activities that work in tandem to deliver a specific result that benefits customers. Throughout a project's life cycle, it can encounter a number of business systems -- such as leadership systems (how leaders set values and organizational performance and governance) and customer systems (engagement strategy to meet customer needs and support that relationship) -- that independently and jointly put pressure on the project. As you segment the business systems further, you will find underlying, interrelated business processes and activities that create even more complexity. And as the project traverses along the value chain, more strategic tensions apply, such as competing research and development priorities or sales quotas. Projects that disrupt these systems and value chains promise new and improved approaches. But project managers must mediate the chaos this disruption generates to achieve project success. Organizations with less mature processes and fewer performance measures tend to put more pressure on project teams. In these organizations, the project team is responsible for navigating the chaos caused by increased complexity. Projects often devolve into uphill battles and ultimately fail. This demonstrates an inherent "inverse tension" between process maturity and project complexity. Reduce complexity by relaxing tensions. By understanding tensions, project managers can develop a management discipline that shapes the project plan and enables success. To create that discipline, follow these foundational steps:
I use APQC's Process Framework as one source to identify common organization business systems and processes, and their potential pitfalls. A team should identify the system's performance gaps to manage mediations and avoid negative impacts proactively. To assess the performance of business systems, I generally rely on the CMMI model (Capability Maturity Model Integration). I define the performance criteria according to the following maturity levels:
I also use simple checklists to assess the project capability of an organization and team to determine any preventative actions I can take in the planning phase. For example, asking a series of assessment questions that identify process maturity levels allows me to consider any gaps I need to mitigate to improve project performance. To analyze team-related project complexity, I leverage the characteristics outlined by U.S. authors Kathleen B. Hass and Amit Kumar:
I used these frameworks to reduce complexity and increase predictability when I managed a big project team that was working with a large number of suppliers. The project was highly complex, behind schedule and expected to go over budget. The team managed supplier payments by sending invoices to accounts payable once the related work was complete. Using assessment questions, I discovered the main problem was related to a large global transformation initiative, in which the purchasing team worked within limited regional relationships. I classified this as a high complex engagement because the team:
In my management improvement plan, I was able to clearly demonstrate what business system was failing, where in the system it was located and why it was underperforming. I created a clear path forward to restore performance, which resulted in reduced complexity, better alignment and lower costs. How do you create a framework to get a handle on complexity? Learn more about complexity on PMI.org. |