Voices on Project Management

When my son was a little boy, he was a great enthusiast of world-class soccer players and enjoyed questioning me: "Is a great soccer player born with talent, or did they practice harder than the others?"

Being the native consultant that I am, I replied to him with another question: "What do you think?" From then on, I was amazed by his train of thought being developed through this old yet complex question.

Through my many years of experience in consulting (and my licentiate degree), I got close to many people who were interested in growing their careers as project management professionals. I acknowledge a sense of pride in having collaborated in different ways with many of these stories. But, as an outside observer, every now and then I find myself asking the same well-grounded question brought up during that talk with my son: "Can a project manager achieve excellence through training and experience, or are there innate characteristics to this professional?"

Perhaps I should begin this reflection by attempting to identify what makes a project manager a successful professional. As it has already been written about before by many others, and aware that the list takes many characteristics into account, I will stick to those traits that I most like to see in a professional:

1. As I like to put it, "projectized thinking," which is basically a mental model where one considers the actual risks and ramifications of these paths. This is someone always seeking to look at what is expected to happen next—they envision a sequential view of activities that consider the troubles inherent to the path and serve as balance points.
2. I also like to emphasize the mental organization capacity of the professional. This ability keeps topics from being forgotten, or having their importance miscalculated.
3. Interpersonal skills are also vital—such as common sense, negotiation capacity and politeness—in addition to other techniques such as communication and technical expertise in project proposals.
4. All of that—as if it were not enough—must be supported by a strong skill to "read" other human beings, which enables us to minimally understand what is going on with stakeholders and what their real interests are.

We probably think that we have some (or all) of these skills. By admitting shortages, it is also natural to imagine that these skills may be developed through some specific training. I agree with that. However, I believe that we may recognize how rare (and challenging) it is to identify all of these characteristics at a high-level within the same professional.

The truth is that there are no effective tools to identify how great we really are in these skills. That's probably why it’s so difficult picking the ideal professional for the job. This is neither good nor bad. Bottom line: We were not born with a binary code that always allows us to go beyond expectations and break the simplistic view that we were destined to become something that we will be until the end of time.

By Conrado Morlan

As a project management practitioner, I’ve been lucky enough to deploy programs and projects across the Americas, supported by teams in South Asia and Europe.

Working on those assignments enriched my multicultural background and helped me learn and become proficient in Portuguese. But as I’ve learned throughout my career, language is just the tip of the iceberg.

Based on my personal experiences, here are three key areas of focus I recommend that practitioners consider before, during and even after their next global assignment:

1. Gain Cultural Awareness

It is imperative that global project management professionals understand an individual's personal, national and organizational cultures, so they can better align the team and gain greater influence.

Learn about the country’s culture—do your research and find out similarities and differences. Include cultural differences as one of the topics on the agenda of the kick-off meeting. Use that time as an open forum for everyone to share and record their cultural experiences. Keep those cultural experiences in a repository with documents and useful video clips that can be later used to induct new team members.

Cultural awareness is a skill that should be developed and mastered. Incorporating a cultural differences exercise establishes respect and empathy for diverse values and behaviors, which in turn creates an open and accepting team environment.

2. Embrace the Chinese Army Approach

As a global project management professional, you may worry about resource planning. Resources may not be your direct reports, meaning you don’t have control over their schedules.

Instead of struggling, apply the Chinese army approach: Imagine you have unlimited resources available. Assume you have resources with the right skills who can be assigned to the different roles in your project. Do not worry yet about assigning names to the roles.

You may find that the roles can’t be filled with internal resources because of a lack of required skills or capacity, so your solution may be to outsource resources.

To complement the approach, you’ll need to adapt and remaster communication and negotiation skills, which will help you get the best resources.

3. Be SMART

The project management profession now goes beyond just managing projects. The profession helps to achieve business objectives and explore new ways to lead, execute and deliver. Technical expertise in project management is not enough; global project management practitioners must adopt a business-oriented approach.

My suggestion is to become SMART. The SMART concept includes a portfolio of skills the global project management practitioner must master to meet the needs of the organization in the coming years.

Being SMART means you are:

• Strategic. Demonstrate an understanding of the organization’s business goals to help it get ahead of the competition.
• Mindful. Develop cultural awareness and leadership styles to influence and inspire multicultural and multigenerational project teams. Foster strong relationships across the organization’s business functions.
• Agile. Business strategy is not static and is frequently impacted by internal and external factors. Projects will need to be adjusted to remain aligned with the business strategy, so embrace change.
• Resilient. Remain committed and optimistic. Demonstrate integrity when realigning or repairing projects facing hardships because of miscommunication and problematic behaviors, as well as cross-cultural issues and conflicts.
• Transparent. Whether the project is in good shape or facing challenges, the status needs to be shared promptly with relevant parties.

To become SMARTer, global project management professionals need to continually strive for excellence and master new skills to support professional growth and help the organization achieve its business strategy.
 

If you’ve been exposed to global programs or projects, what advice would you offer to other practitioners?

By Ramiro Rodrigues       

Among consultancies it’s common to reward project teams for good results with financial incentives.  

The question is: Does this practice lead to better results? There’s a clear difference in position depending on which side the respondents are on. The dilemma is easy to understand.

When you’re in the position to be rewarded for the results achieved, it’s natural to see the positive side of this approach. But when you are responsible for delivering the bonus, some doubt will naturally exist. After all, what guarantees that this strategy will lead to projects with better results (regarding time, cost or quality)?

Many feel these rewards act as great incentives for project teams, thus leading to better performance. But one should also consider the concerns of those who fear that, in the name of this search for metrics, some values—such as professional ethics, transparency and lawfulness—may be compromised.

To find out if the bonus strategy should be implemented at your organization, have a look at the following four steps:

Step 1: Evaluate your organization's values.

More aggressive companies that encourage internal competition tend to favor this strategy. Knowing your organizational environment well will help you determine whether to adopt the financial incentive strategy or not.

Step 2: Define quality metrics.

Interpreting success only by the results related to project time or costs may lead to short-sightedness regarding customer satisfaction. Therefore, develop templates for satisfaction surveys that can help measure the quality of the delivered product and the opinion of the customer who receives the final result.

Step 3: Encourage mutual collaboration.

Dividing the bonus between specific members or projects creates a great risk of dissatisfaction among those who have been excluded. Thus, sharing the bonus between all team members, depending on the results of the overall project portfolio of the organization, is an interesting idea to consider.

Step 4: Start slowly and measure results.

Treat the implementation of this assessment as a project and aim to progress gradually, so that you can evaluate any impacts of this strategy on the culture and value perception of your company.

Good luck and much success!

By Ramiro Rodrigues

Is risk management just an exercise in paranoia? 

That’s the question I’m often asked. I like to respond by saying there are both negative and positive risks.

A risk is a situation in which it cannot be certain whether a specific result will happen. That potential cannot be discounted. Thus, any risk hypothesis—whether for small or large risks—is subject to some sort of management strategy. While we often think of negative risks, positive risks present opportunities for organizational or project gains.

Risk management strategies can be applied to our daily lives. Take, for example, my own experience.

A few years ago, I was invited to hold a workshop on project management best practices for a service company. Concerned about the event, I decided to invite a colleague whom I trust to share the work (strategy: share) and increase the chances of the workshop being successful (strategy: improve). When checking his schedule, my colleague realized that he would be returning from a trip at 6 a.m. on the day of the workshop, which was scheduled to start at 9 a.m. Even knowing that flight delays are more common than we would like, we decided to take the risk (strategy: accept).

In the weeks leading up to the event the preparation flowed well. We met with the client and tested the presentation dozens of times (strategy: explore), but the possible flight delay did not leave my mind. For this reason, I studied not only my part of the presentation, but also that of my colleague (strategy: eliminate).

When the day arrived, I woke at 6 a.m. to find two messages from my colleague on my phone. The first one said, "I've landed?” This gave me a sigh of relief. The second said, "I'm really ill. I'm going to a hospital.” I called my colleague and verified the illness.

What a great irony! All my fears arising from my colleague's risk of a delayed flight were realized, but not because of that event.

Some changes were necessary. First, I had to substitute the car journey with a taxi (strategy: transfer). Second, I had to remove specific parts from the presentation to reduce the impact of my colleague’s absence (strategy: mitigate). Even without doing so through a documented plan, I had used all of the recognized risk response strategies.

For me, it became clear that the great gain from risk management is in the exercise of thinking beforehand and being able to choose the best options available.

The outcome of the workshop? I imagine it would have been better if my colleague had been able to attend. But judging from the applause and words of praise, I believe that it was a success.

by Christian Bisson, PMP

Project success is typically defined as being completed within budget, schedule, and scope, and that has been imprinted so much in project managers’ mind that it blinds them to other important aspects that defines a project’s success.

Client Satisfaction

This aspect of project success seem to be more and more popular, and with reason, if clients are not happy, they will shutdown the projects, or proceed with another organization. If your project is on budget, delivered on time, and does exactly what it should be doing, but the client is so unhappy that they ceases to work with the organization, can you consider the project a success?

For example, if you focus so much on being on budget/schedule/scope, that you decline everything the client asks for without a second thought, chances are the client will not want to work with you long term. On the opposite side, giving everything the client wants and ending up late or 200% above budget is not an acceptable alternative. You or the team will often need to be creative to find ways to balance things out, and properly managing the client’s expectations is also key top this.

Project value

Another very important aspect of project success is the value it’s adding. A project that is doing what was planned, but ends up being useless, is not a success.

For example, if you create a great website, the client loves the design, the development phase had only few minor issues that were fixed rapidly so the team is happy, the project is delivered on time, on budget, and does what it’s supposed to do, however, users that go on the website are completely incapable of finding the information they need, and they end up always calling customer service instead, then is that really a success?

It’s important to identify right from the start what metrics will be used to calculate the project’s success, and tie those metrics to features of the website as you go to make sure a feature is not useless or solves an issue that has nothing to do with the project’s objectives..

Organization Satisfaction

The organization that has provided the services needed to make the project happen is also a key aspect to look at to define the project success, and unfortunately often due to lack of transparency from management, can be a challenge.

For example, there are projects that the organization’s management know they will lose money on, but for them it is considered a long-term investment to bring more business. If that’s not communicated, the project manager will see the project as a failure because it’s over budget.

It’s important to have visibility on the organization’s goals and expectations around the project in question.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you use other aspects to define project success?