Voices on Project Management

By Marian Haus, PMP

The discipline of project risk management is all about limiting and hindering the adverse impacts of negative events. The complementary discipline of project opportunity management is all about increasing and enabling the beneficial outcomes of positive events.

In this post I want to look at both practices and treat them as a whole— Risk and Opportunity Management (ROM)—while showing that managing them is nothing more than common sense.

Internal vs. External

The risks and opportunities that are triggered by external project sources are generally out of the control of the project manager’s influence (e.g. organizational changes, political climate changes, strategy changes, technology shifts, etc.). External risks and opportunities are generally difficult to anticipate, avoid or eliminate. The best strategy to approach external factors is to mitigate their impact when they occur.

Most often, however, the source of project risks and opportunities are internal and can generally be controlled by the project manager and the project team (e.g. technical and quality issues, stakeholder requests, scheduling, requirements, budgets, etc.). Internal risks and opportunities are generally easier to anticipate, mitigate, control or exploit, since such events will show up in the day-to-day project work.

Now let’s talk about ROM.

The key of practicing effective ROM is twofold:

1. Awareness: The project team has to be aware that ROM will be conducted regularly, like any other project activity.

2. Active: ROM will have to be conducted actively and not reactively (e.g. when really needed).

Allowing things to happen, letting opportunities slip, or, even worse, being risk averse (i.e. zero tolerance for errors and failure) is not only project management negligence or ignorance. It is yet another project risk (of project-internal nature). Hence, make sure you as a project manager will not fall into this trap and become a risk for your own project!

Capturing ROM

What is the easiest way for your team to be aware and actively conduct ROM? First, put it on the paper—or even better, put it on the board. Allow the project team to write down every risk or opportunity they will encounter during the project course. Next, have the team split the board into four quadrants, based on probability and impact (i.e. low-probability + low-impact, low-probability + high-impact, high-probability + low-impact, high-probability + high-impact).

Then in regular project status meetings validate and agree within the project team on the recorded probabilities and impacts. Certainly there are several more elaborate ways to further qualify and analyze risks and opportunities (e.g. likelihood distributions, decision threes, etc.), but I prefer to keep it simple if possible.

Last but not least, actively capturing and talking about risk or opportunities is not enough. You also have to do something! You need a risk and opportunity response or strategy—whether it’s changing the project plan, getting more resources on board, changing project scope, etc. But that’s a topic for another day.

What do you think? Is ROM nothing more than common sense (at least in its basic form)? What’s your approach to ROM?

by Taralyn Frasqueri-Molina

In a small business, like a startup, organizational project management (OPM) may seem too big. At a large blue chip, layers of OPM may be standard operating procedure. But what if your org is somewhere in between? On one hand, you're past the days of moving furniture yourself, on the other hand, you're not yet cutting paychecks for 2000+ employees.

First, let's establish that OPM is a good thing. Linking strategy with implementation across an organization to deliver on portfolio promises and realize value is, trust me on this one, a good thing. But OPM at scale is even better. And that is because if you don't scale OPM to where your org is right now, it may seem that OPM is too complex to even attempt at all.

And if OPM is a good thing, then no OPM is probably not so good.

I've seen what happens to a business that doesn't have an OPM strategy in place. The business is moving along successfully but then the stumbling starts, and then maybe stops, but then it starts up again and continues unabated. Teams are frustrated that progress has halted and find they're taking the blame or blaming each other. Leadership pushes the same answers to newly arisen problems—work harder, faster, longer.

The Benefits of Scaling

OPM at scale ensures the strategy that your entire enterprise is about to adopt is the right fit.

Too light (but it may work for a startup), and your undertaking becomes inconsistent, priorities become ever-changing because there's no clear focus. The entire system is not reliable enough to deliver.

Too rigid (but it may work for a Fortune 500), and you may get in your own way with bottle-necking processes, decision-making by committee, waiting for an approval exit gate that never arrives, wasting time because the system is not flexible enough to deliver.

Where too much process is a hindrance (but may work for a large org) and too little is volatile (but may work for a fledgling company), start with some core principles that are key for your org and build from there.

An OPM at scale strategy could look something like this:

• Decide how projects in your portfolio are managed across your enterprise. That means an off-the-shelf OPM solution may not be where your answer lies—instead grow your solutions for areas like governance, change, prioritization and resource management, as organically as you can.

• Implement a few standard workflows that support delivery throughout a team and between teams. Are some processes already working? Keep 'em. Notice a couple gap areas? Partner with teams to design a workflow that solves your specific problem.

• Create consistency with standard, formal processes, but also allow project managers and teams the freedom to make good tactical choices.

• Focus on picking a few benchmarking criteria.

• Make space for continuous communication, provide visibility and support working toward improving the core you've got—not necessarily adding anything new.

At your next quarterly review, examine how your custom OPM framework is doing. Are you all still aligned on, not just the goal of your portfolio, but the goal of your OPM strategy? Ready to go bigger and start maturing your framework? Or instead do you need to scale back?

What experience do you have with implementing OPM to scale?

Want to see a fully baked standardized model, take a peek at PMI's Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3®).

By Christian Bisson, PMP

My last post about change stuck with me, so I want to revisit the topic by focusing on organizational cultural change here. Culture change means implementing new habits, new ways of thinking, new ways of working and so much more.

It presents a major challenge.

Why? Well, it’s more than processes, tools or documents—creating an organizational culture means changing people. This is as challenging as it gets.

When you’re looking to implement a culture change, here are few items to consider:

1. It takes time.

Most people will expect cultural changes to take a max of a few weeks, which is generally unrealistic. To level set expectations, share a roadmap of your changes.

The map should include high-level milestones of what the change will entail — training, meetings, etc. Then specify the objectives so people are on the same page as to why this is being implemented.

The roadmap will ultimately show that the changes are under control. It should mitigate any concerns or problems people will imagine.

2. You’ll need support.

A culture cannot be changed by just one person. There needs to be buy-in and it must be obvious.

I once had to implement daily Scrums with about 15 people, all of whom were accustomed to daily Scrums being long, painful meetings.

Changing that perception to one where meetings would last less than 10 minutes, where people would be on time, stand up and commit to the work they would aim to accomplish, was a challenge. I started by seeking out the colleagues in the group who were already on board with the change.

These early adopters helped me push others to stand up, be on time and ultimately helped keep things rolling when people went on tangents or brought up items out of turn. They were the first to jump in and “commit” to tasks rather than just saying whatever to get the meeting over with. It created a snowball effect, and we soon had efficient 10-minute meetings in place.

It’s a small example of a culture change, but it shows that having buy-in made all the difference.

3.  Seek feedback.

All team members react different during a culture change. Some will let frustration accumulate and burst when it’s too much, others might complain as time goes, others will be constructive, others will never share, etc.

You want to take control over that by welcoming feedback, as often as you can, from as many people you can. Obviously, don’t talk to everyone everyday. Use your judgment — for example, you might want to talk to those colleagues impacted the most every week, while speaking to others only monthly.

While more time-consuming, gathering feedback from people is better done one on one. It gives you a chance to connect with the individual. If you speak in large groups, the majority of people will remain quiet while others take over.

How have you tried to implement changes to your organizational culture? Share your stories and your tips!

Author and activist Wes Moore closed out congress to a standing ovation.

By Cyndee Miller

Not to get all sappy, but everybody needs a sense of purpose, a reason to get up in the morning.

Projects—and the people managing them—are no different. Each project has a purpose, and will be judged by how well it delivers on that purpose.

But for the maximum ROI, project managers must stay focused on the people who will benefit from their work, said Wes Moore, founder of education initiative BridgeEdu, in Tuesday’s closing keynote.

“Often it is the people we will never meet…whose lives will be immeasurably better because of the time and diligence and heart we put into [our work],” said the author and activist on Tuesday.

Project managers spend plenty of time thinking about stakeholders—how to manage them, how to communicate with them, how to serve them. But some things don’t fit in a risk register or a project charter. In the midst of all that documentation, project managers shouldn’t lose sight of the human element.

“We live in a completely interconnected society,” Mr. Moore said. “The only way success means something is when our success doesn’t just have a personal definition.”

Looking forward to more interesting insights from speakers and sessions at next year’s newly rebranded and renamed PMI^® Global Conference in my hometown of Chicago, Illinois, USA. See you there. (And yes, I am more than happy to serve as your personal pizza and craft cocktail adviser.)

Sue Gardner says winning companies of the future will put tech at the center of their organizations.

By Cyndee Miller

Nap pods, free laundry service, foosball tables, an endless supply of snacks. Ah, the perks of working at a Silicon Valley startup. Of course, there are also expectations of brilliance—and a willingness to log long hours.

And now the Silicon Valley way of working is infiltrating mainstream management.

More companies are realizing they need to create an atmosphere of ease, comfort and pleasure if they want their people—and projects—to reach their full potential, Sue Gardner told congress attendees at her keynote on Monday.

“The new workplace believes abundance drives innovation,” said Ms. Gardner, former executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation.

That means becoming a lot less Office Space and a lot more Silicon Valley—focusing more on creativity and less on cost-efficiency.

“Organizations need to be more willing to take risks and break things,” Ms. Gardner said.

I know, I know. Breaking things sounds messy. But face it, maintaining the status quo is never going to give companies an edge. In today’s tech-drenched, rapid-fire environment, companies quickly move from challenger to incumbent to decline.

“For the past 15 years, this cycle has been aggressively speeding up, with more disruption being more quickly driven by technology changes,” she said. “Tasks that used to be done by people are now being done by technology.

As technology takes center stage, so must the technical team. Smart companies will prioritize people with tech skills—giving them the chance to be innovators rather than order takers.  

“Technology is now core to everything we do—and organizations that don’t retain tech talent will be vulnerable in the marketplace,” she said.

Project managers are in a prime spot to help drive the change, Ms. Gardner said. They can be the “connective tissue” between tech staff and management types, helping different groups understand each other. But it requires a degree of flexibility.

“Adapt to other people. Don’t expect them to adapt to you,” she said.

That doesn’t mean project managers should be pushovers. On the contrary, Ms. Gardner thinks they have the power to address an organization’s most intrinsic issues.

“You have access to information, so you will know where the bodies are buried,” she said. “When there’s an elephant in the room, project managers are the ones who need to acknowledge and resolve it.”

And if Ms. Gardner is right, you’ll have a nice nap pod to retreat to after all that hard work.

But is that enough? As much as I’d love my own personal concierge service a la Google, you have to wonder if the Silicon Valley startup style will really work for everyone.