Voices on Project Management

By Mario Trentim

There have been a number of memes and social media jokes about how the COVID-19 crisis is “accelerating” the digital transformations of many organizations. But that’s a misunderstanding: The pandemic is in fact a major setback to digital transformation, as organizations venture into the uncharted waters of sustained virtual work and remote project management.

What Is Digital Transformation Anyway?

Digital transformation refers to the integration of technology into all areas of business operations, fundamentally changing how the organization operates and delivers value. It also describes the application of digital capabilities to processes, assets and products.

Let’s take the sharing economy, for example. Uber, Airbnb and many other modern services are built on the idea of collaborative consumption. But did you know that bike-sharing was first introduced as a business model in the 1960s? At that time, it didn’t work well because there was no easy way to find the bicycles. Now that we have mobile phones, GPS locators and ubiquitous connectivity, business models that seemed unviable before are now possible.

The pillars of digital transformation include:

• Engage your customers by reaching them where they are with offerings that speak directly to their needs.
• Empower your employees with effective collaboration and productivity tools.
• Transform your service offerings by evolving your products and business models to better serve your customers.
• Optimize your operations, focusing on data-driven management, clear workflows, better resource management and more.

As project teams across the globe settle into the reality that remote work is the new normal, focusing on these pillars becomes even more important.

What Lies Ahead for Project Teams

A few months from now, organizations may face unforeseen cybersecurity issues, sensitive information leaks and the uncontrolled spread of data across digital channels.

In terms of cost, adopting consumer-grade or free preventive tools might seem reasonable now. But that’s because organizations are not taking into account the fact that these tools won’t be effective to take their competitive advantage to the next level.

In fact, a myriad of tools without integration, uncategorized information, old business processes and tech-averse employees pose a huge challenge to collaboration and productivity.

As teams continue to collaborate virtually, people will likely waste even more time trying to reach a solution, and they will plan multiple, unfocused daily meetings, as managers struggle to provide guidance and accurately measure the performance of employees working from home.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

How to Avoid a Dark Project Fate

Now that you know what digital transformation is and the setbacks imposed by the COVID-19 crisis, what can you do?

1. Review your digital transformation strategy and reprioritize all projects and initiatives. If you don’t have an official strategy, start working on it now before it is too late.

2. Your organization likely already put in place business continuity plans, contingency plans and crisis management measures. As a result, you probably launched projects to enable remote work. Considering there was not enough time to conduct proper analysis, now take a step back and reevaluate these choices. Do they still make sense? How can they be improved?

3. Begin by understanding different organizational needs, since digital transformation starts with people and processes. Next, develop a teamwork architecture that encompasses people, processes and tools. Finally, create a roadmap to implement integrated tools that accounts for the total cost of the life cycle, including support, maintenance, training and more.

Final Thoughts

Digital transformation is platform-dependent, relying on common data and integrated information flows and workflows. On top of that, security, compliance and general data protection must be observed at all times. There are no shortcuts.

Digital transformation is a very serious strategic topic. Wrong assumptions might lead your organization into a dark future of low productivity, ineffective collaboration and potential issues and liabilities.

How is your organization navigating the digital transformation shifts brought about by the COVID-19 crisis?

By Yasmina Khelifi, PMP

Are you considering volunteering for a professional association or within your corporate organization? Almost two years ago, I did for the first time by joining the PMI France and PMI United Arab Emirates (UAE) Chapters—and I haven’t looked back since. What a transformational journey! Volunteering has helped me sharpen my leadership skills, unleash my creativity and broaden my professional network.

Whether you’re thinking about becoming a first-time volunteer or hoping to start volunteering again, here are some great benefits of giving your time to a larger project:

1. Volunteer to hone your project leadership skills

In November 2018, I joined the PMI France Chapter’s marketing communications team to contribute to an internal newsletter. Volunteering allowed me to interact with people from different cultures, countries, backgrounds, education levels, ages and professional experiences. I was able to collaborate with a diverse group of people, which is essential for any project leader.

Volunteering has opened many new doors:

• I have discovered new ways of working.
• I have found new energy and passion for projects.
• I have learned how to better communicate with people from different backgrounds.
• I have sharpened my writing skills in French and English, and learned how to be more concise in my communications.
• I have strengthened my skills in virtual project management, a key pillar in our globalized world.

2. Volunteer to experiment in a safe environment

Volunteering has pushed me outside of my comfort zone and given me the confidence to experiment in new areas:

• For the first time, I presented a webinar about leadership skills for the PMI UAE Chapter in collaboration with a friend there. Despite the bad sound during the presentation, I enjoyed the great learning experience, especially in preparing the slides, revising and rehearsing.
• For the first time, I managed social network posts and created accompanying visuals.

3. Volunteer to expand your professional network

Volunteering has helped me to broaden my perspectives and network outside of my enterprise. Having worked almost exclusively in an international environment, I wanted to expand my network more in France. Surprisingly, thanks to the PMI volunteers’ network, I ended up meeting new people within my own company! I now belong to a worldwide and strong project management community: We support each other during this tough time.

Looking back on this incredible journey, I cherish the gifts I’ve received. Volunteering provides an invaluable source of learning and growth.

Leave a comment below sharing how volunteering has benefited your project teams or your project leadership abilities.

By Marat Oyvetsky, PMP

Organizations often hire consulting project managers to help move their large, strategic projects across the finish line.

However, many companies still hold internal leadership planning sessions to discuss proprietary information that cannot be shared with external resources. This presents a risk, as external talent needs to be part of these discussions to plan for proper budgeting, shared resources and overall dependencies that may exist with other strategic projects.

It happened to me this year when a company hired me as an external consultant to manage a portfolio of their strategic programs and projects. The organization needed leadership planning sessions to properly balance resources and finances to reduce risk and align deployment with its 2020 business objectives.

The dilemma: Whether or not to include me on their internal strategic discussions, as I was not an employee of the company. In the end, the decision was made to include me, and I was the only non-employee who was invited to the leadership discussion table (with proper NDA signatures).

If you find yourself in a similar situation, here are a few tips on how to build trust with the client to get a seat at the table and help craft the future strategy:

Executive Leadership Sponsorship: As an external resource, consulting project managers need to work diligently to build trust with the customer executive leadership and stakeholders. Align with each executive stakeholder to ensure that the portfolio dependencies that you are managing are all documented and managed per their expectations. Each leader and stakeholder has a clear vision of their territory. As a consulting project manager, you must maintain a view of the entire field that includes all areas for each leadership team and stakeholder.

Communication: Create recurring meetings with all executive leadership stakeholders to ensure that they are aligned to the execution of the portfolio that you’ve been hired to lead. In this instance, over-communication is key to ensure that all leadership questions are answered, and all executive stakeholders know the status of each relevant project.

Reporting: Create an executive dashboard outlining all timelines, budgets, commitments, accomplishments and risks. Each executive stakeholder will have their own reporting requirements. You should be able to tune each dashboard to communicate the desired information in the format that meets each stakeholder’s requirements. This will help build additional clout with each executive stakeholder.

Fiscal Alignment: Align with the chief finance officer and chief accounting officer for all strategic projects. This will help provide transparency for the funding that they are currently spending on each project and help them plan for future projects and deployments.

By aligning with all executive leadership stakeholders, consulting project managers create the necessary communication, reporting, management and fiscal transparency that is required to get a seat at the leadership table for future planning discussions. These actions will help make you part of the leadership team and build trust with the client that you’re supporting.

What are some of the ways you work to get a seat at the table with your clients?

By Conrado Morlan

“A man may have wisdom and discernment, but that is not like embracing a favorable opportunity. A man may have instruments of husbandry, but that is not like waiting for the farming seasons.” — Mengzi

I do not know a project management professional who has not faced challenging situations during their career. The range of challenges can include unforeseen risks that quickly became issues, such as geopolitical events, acts of God or, most recently, a pandemic.

Those kinds of stressful situations help to forge the resilience skills and traits characteristic of the modern project management professional. Resilience is not about toughness; it is about equanimity. It’s about how you manage your temperament in challenging situations and move forward.

During these times, stakeholders expect you, the project management professional, to act and act fast. There is a desire for instant gratification and often a misinterpretation of the concept of “being agile” by both stakeholders and project management professionals.

I remember one time in which I was leading the negotiation process with a prospect in South America. On that Friday morning, I recommended that my manager hold off on sharing the final proposal until I met with the prospect in person on Monday. On Saturday morning, I received a text from my manager telling me that he was about to leave for South America for the Monday meeting, which was not in the original plan. Due to personal commitments, I was flying in on Sunday night. As soon as I landed, I already had two missed calls from the customer and a couple of texts asking for an explanation about the drastic changes in the proposal and why the purchasing department was copied in the email.

My approach, based on Fabian strategy—a military strategy in which pitched battles and frontal assaults are avoided in favor of wearing down an opponent through a war of attrition and indirection—was not successful. Much like when Fabius fought Hannibal, a third party involved took action without my knowledge.

When we met with the customer, I tried to regain control of the situation, but it was too late. Now the purchasing director was at the negotiation table, something that was not part of the original negotiation strategy. After several hours of renegotiation, the contract was signed, but the two parties left money on the table. The customer saw a reduction in their IT budget, as the planned spend was reduced by 15 percent.

History Repeats Itself

Similar to what happened to Fabius during the Second Punic War, my manager was hailed as the key negotiator who closed the deal, and my perceived lack of action was recorded in my annual performance review.

The desire for instant gratification was satiated, but it made the company lose sight of the future. When the contract was about to end, the customer called to notify us that they would not renew the contract for the second phase of the project.

My strategy not to share the proposal ahead of time was focused on the long term, and on building a strong relationship with the customer—which would later translate into more business for the company. After the contract ended, my manager and his boss realized the reason for my “lack” of action and changed their views.

Lessons Learned

This event was one of the best learning experiences in my professional career. It gave me the knowledge of how to bounce back and the strength to learn the lessons I needed in order to move to the next stage in my career.

Cultural awareness cannot and should not be ignored. Contract negotiations have strong ties to culture, and local and national business etiquette should be followed to be successful.

Recognition for your efforts may not happen at first. It may take some time, but it will help confirm that your decisions were for the best.

It was one of the many setbacks in my career, but I am grateful for the experience.

As a project management professional, what events or situations have forged your resilience?

A program manager must work with several cross-functional teams, facilitate many meetings, and drive and motivate team members to achieve business outcomes.

While this sounds like a great fit for extroverts, introverts can also shine in this role by playing to their strengths. Introverts tend to be good thinkers, great listeners, observant and detail oriented. They are also generally skilled at forming meaningful connections and adept in small groups.

If you consider yourself to be an introverted program manager, here are some strategies you can employ to tap into your strengths as you execute your responsibilities.

1. Meetings: Program managers facilitate a lot of meetings, sometimes with a large group of participants, which can be daunting for introverts. These tips can help:

• Keep the list of participants just large enough to achieve intended outcomes. If the list of participants is long, evaluate if there is an opportunity to break it down into multiple meetings with smaller groups. For example, if you currently have program status meetings with all the program tracks, divide it into multiple meetings with each of the tracks or a smaller group of related tracks.
• Before large meetings, meet with a few key stakeholders in a one-on-one setting to gain an understanding of their perspective.
• Introverts prefer to be well prepared before they speak up. So prep as much as you can in advance of the meeting, including sending the agenda and any reading material. This not only helps you as the meeting facilitator, but it will be appreciated by other introverts on the team, too.
• When facilitating a meeting, be sure to amplify the voices of introverts in the meeting by calling out their names or by having a round-robin format of voicing opinions and asking questions.
• Don’t schedule too many meetings. Block time on your calendar at regular intervals to be alone and recharge.

2. Self-promotion: Advocating for yourself can be one of the hardest things for introverts. Here are some ways to do it gracefully:

• It is important to highlight your accomplishments to your manager. During one-on-ones, talk about the program challenges and how you overcame those challenges. Highlight these to other key stakeholders in smaller group settings.
• Talk about team wins and give credit to the key team members who contributed. Lifting your team up is lifting yourself up, too.
• In program updates or project closure reports, highlight the challenges the team had to face and what was done to overcome those challenges, such as creating a new process or streamlining an existing process.
• Write a blog. This is a great way to share your knowledge, help others and promote yourself. This should be in an introvert’s wheelhouse, since you can do it with self-reflection and in solitude.

3. Networking: As program managers, we have to exert influence without authority. We need to work with different types of personalities and get things done. Networking is key. Here’s how to build and sustain meaningful connections as an introvert:

• Form strong relationships with the key program stakeholders by scheduling regular one-on-one meetings with them.
• Make it a point to meet with one new person on your program team, chosen at random, every two weeks. During these meetings, discuss their concerns and any opportunities for improvement with the program.
• Organize reading clubs or brown bag sessions. Not only will you have a chance to network, but you’ll learn something new, too.
• Volunteer to help with company-sponsored initiatives. You’ll get to network with people across various organizations and contribute to something you are passionate about.
• Keep in touch with your connections at a cadence with which you are comfortable.

4. Communication: Introverts tend to speak up less often than others. If you are generally quiet in meetings or other situations, it tends to create a misconception that you are not assertive. Here’s how to communicate better as an introvert:

• Thoroughly prepare for meetings so you feel confident in speaking up. Make it a point to ask at least one thoughtful question. This helps with getting visibility.
• If you are uncomfortable sharing your views in meetings, make sure to send an email or talk to the relevant people after the meeting.
• When someone does not deliver on their commitments, don’t let it slide. Have a one-on-one conversation with that person, understand why they missed the commitment and agree on recourse. Hold others accountable for their commitments.

5. Motivating teams: Motivating program teams is another key responsibility of a program manager. Here’s how to handle it as an introvert:

• Recognition is key to motivating team members. Be compassionate about other introverts on the team, and ensure there are processes in place to recognize team members based on their contributions.
• Team events are morale boosters. If your company budget allows, organize team events at a scale that you’re comfortable with. If you’re not comfortable organizing, find someone within the team who enjoys organizing events. Alternate between introvert- and extrovert-friendly type of events and attend them to show solidarity.

Lastly, if you are an introverted program manager, be authentic to your true self and stretch yourself in ways that are reasonable. Trying to be something you are not will only lead to burnout in the long run.

What tips have you found most helpful for yourself or for introverts on your team?