Voices on Project Management

By Peter Tarhanidis, PhD

As the pandemic stretches on, work-from-home programs continue to keep teams working virtually. During this time, we have performed courageously to deliver our strategic and business outcomes. Here I will share a select review of advice from industry experts as they explore how to build a post-pandemic response strategy.

According to McKinsey (2022), organizations have pivoted to deliver sustainable and inclusive growth toward building a better world. And Harvard Business Review (2020) notes that all types of companies have navigated the pandemic by pivoting their business models in the short term to survive—becoming more resilient in the long term.

Yet not all pivots generated an improved business outcome. Three trends in particular can help ensure a successful pivot:

1. Align the pivot to a long-term trend driven by the pandemic
2. Extend the firm’s existing capabilities, further solidifying the strategic plan
3. Sustain profitability, which preserves and enhances the brand’s value to the customer

PWC’s Global Crisis Survey identified three key lessons that businesses can adopt for long-term resilience:

1. Plan and prepare for inevitable disruption by establishing a crisis team
2. Integrate teams and cross-company competencies to enable effective responses
3. Build resilience governance into the organization’s culture

An opportunity, therefore, exists to consider how to prepare your team’s competence in driving synergy and resilience in order to lead post-pandemic growth strategies—and simultaneously pivot from those same strategies.

Here is a shortlist of what leaders can do to prepare for a post-pandemic recovery and support an organization:

1. Develop mental agility to pivot among key strategies and deliver business outcomes as key shifts and business challenges arise
2. Allow the process of learning to take effect across key leadership levels
3. Integrate PMI and agile frameworks to ensure flexible planning activities
4. Employ data analytics to support key insights in customer and marketplace forecasts
5. Clarify the governance of key plans and what event would trigger a decisive strategic pivot
6. Develop talent to migrate into new areas of company strategies and projects
7. Gather teams in person in order to create synergy and move from “norm” to “perform”

In the end, the teams that are ready to execute and can pivot as necessary will be ready for the post-pandemic competitive environment.

Let me know if you have uncovered additional successful strategies—or any pitfalls to avoid—in building team synergy and resilience.

References

1. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/risk-and-resilience/our-insights/covid-19-implications-for-business
2. https://hbr.org/2020/07/how-businesses-have-successfully-pivoted-during-the-pandemic
3. https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/crisis-solutions/covid-19.html

By Peter Tarhanidis, PhD

Technology has demonstrated tremendous benefits and efficiencies (many of them unstated) over time. The technology lifecyle enhancements that started with our initial computers, software programs and the internet of the past have given way to the modern-day cloud, Big Data and artificial intelligence.

Throughout this maturing landscape, technology has affected all industries—especially how we collaborate. According to Peng (2021), here are some key impacts to consider:

• Digital transformations spending will exceed an estimated $2.39 trillion by 2024.
• Collaborative tools and technologies increased operational efficiency by 131%.
• Technology will displace an estimated 85 million jobs globally by 2025.
• AI augmentation will increase global worker productivity hours to an estimated 6.2 billion hours.

Project management has benefitted from the overall technology lifecycle, either by implementing aspects of it or by being a user of its collaboration outputs. Yet project managers are at the doorstep of being part of the next wave of AI disruption.

What a PM organization must consider is the methods and concepts used in managing past programs and become proactive in shifting to an AI-enabled PM organization. There is no doubt that the role of PMs and our methodology will be augmented with AI-enabled assistance.

PwC identified five areas of AI disruption and decision making in project management:

1. Business insights: Filter data to gain actionable perceptions
2. Risk management: Develop the ability to run multiple risk scenarios and outcomes
3. Human capital: Optimize teams and leverage staff skills or new areas of training
4. Action-taker: Provide analysis and optimization of schedules and staffing needs
5. Active assistant: Augment the collection process of information to generate progress reports

To prepare for these changes, project managers should:

• Invest in data sciences and digital skill sets
• Create a culture that adopts digital disruption
• Enable the use of digital tools and approaches to limit manual efforts and drive value-added work.

In order for these changes to emerge, there are a few considerations that may hold one back from the changes—such as organizational readiness, employee skills assessments, and the state of technical tools.

PwC outlines a change approach to assist in the transition that relies on updating project management strategy, leveraging technology investments, integrating digital and AI, and a comprehensive communication plan to generate awareness through adoption by the future project management workforce.

What other approaches have you used—or should be considered—to manage AI disruption in project management?

Reference:

1. https://www.pwc.com/m1/en/publications/documents/virtual-partnership-artificial-ntelligence-disrupt-project-management-change-role-project-managers-final.pdf
2. https://writersblocklive.com/blog/technology-in-the-workplace-statistics/

During the long duration of the pandemic, each of us had to shift our work/life balance. We had to curate a new workday schedule, perhaps adding more flexibility to support multiple needs between work and family. A changing focus with customer and colleague engagement, repurposing commuting time, tending to family needs, caring for those affected by COVID-19, and supporting relief efforts are just some of the changes we had to adapt to. The pandemic forced each of us to make personal and conscious ethical decisions on the tradeoffs, but most have of us have set into a new work/life balance.

After almost 20 months, the world is deploying COVID-19 vaccines under health authorities like the U.S. FDA and Europe’s EMA, who have expanded access protocol for emergency use. The world is hopefully on a trajectory toward a post-pandemic world. Many organizations have established their return-to-work policies, criteria, and expectations of colleagues. One may observe a continuum of return-to-work guidelines built by organizations as a highly collaborative model focused on high-touch customer experience, an innovation-driven design model, or task-based transactional work. Each organization is calling to us to spend some time back in the office or in front of our stakeholders.

How does this affect us, and what do we do to prepare? Our choices can be to simply go back to a pre-pandemic “normal”; stay in the work-from-home pandemic style; or re-engage in a post-pandemic style. Regarding this last choice, we should consider how to maneuver ourselves into a post-pandemic style while still maintaining the agility of working from home. This disruption to our current way of working creates a sense of stress and anxiety as it asks us to re-engage. One must re-learn and adapt to new behaviors and approaches.

One opportunity to be better prepared may be to create a personal contract for the post-pandemic work world. The contract can be a statement or a list of priorities. Here are some tips that I will use to help make the transition better and reset myself:

1. Revisit what you and your colleagues are professionally devoted toward, and why.
2. Curate the difference of a workday at home versus in the office (or traveling).
3. Coordinate specific dates and times for in-person versus virtual meetings.
4. Make lunch plans with newly hired colleagues.
5. Start a back-to-work focus group to help facilitate colleagues’ transition back.
6. Be clear about your constraints on social distancing, work hours, and time off.
7. Schedule healthy eating times, sleeping and exercise habits, family needs, etc.
8. Identify your new peeves and triggers; be mindful of behavioral changes (from both you and your colleagues).
9. Start a journal and chronicle your path and learnings.
10. Remember: Everyone has a different path—but together we will get through it!

What would your list include to enable a post-pandemic transition back to work?

By Peter Tarhanidis, Ph.D., M.B.A.

Today, developments in emerging technology, business processes and digital experiences are accelerating larger transformation initiatives. Moore’s Law means that we have access to exponentially better computing capabilities. Growth is further fueled by technologies such as supercomputers, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, Internet of Things (IoT) and more across industries.

Emerging Tech
The global IT industry is valued at $5.3 trillion in 2020 and is poised to grow 6.2 percent by 2021, according to tech market research firm IDC. Emerging technology like augmented reality and robotics will make up an increasing share of that growth.

Business Process Maturity
Organizations are improving the maturity of their business processes. They’re doing this by automating tasks, eliminating them, improving performance or finding the lowest-cost way to perform a task. Organizations are connecting with experts to collaborate across a wider network of colleagues. This enables strategies to be integrated across the value chain to quickly drive business outcomes.

According to market research group IMARC, automation and the IoT are driving growth in business process management (BPM); the BPM market is expected to grow at a 10 percent compound annual growth rate between 2020 and 2025.

Customer Experience
In addition, having a formidable customer experience strategy can make the difference between customers choosing your brand or your competitors in 2020. That’s according to Core dna, a digital experience platform vendor.

Customer experience is redefining business processes and digitizing the consumption model to increase brand equity. Gartner reports that among marketing leaders who are responsible for customer experience, 81 percent say their companies will largely compete on customer experience in two years. However, only 22 percent have developed experiences that exceed customer expectations.

Economic Forces
Lastly, the potential for cash flow growth remains high in 2020, despite economic risks, according to the U.S. Corporate Credit Outlook 2020. This will likely lead to capital investments and a fair portion of companies funding transformational projects.

The Way Forward
While transformations have evolved, they encapsulate the way we think and operate. Old methods may seem encumbering and administratively difficult, creating bureaucracy and delays in decision making. The challenge is the velocity of change, which is very disruptive to organizations.

I’ve developed a few guidelines to help navigate this change:

• Work with an agile mindset.
• Fail often and fast to ultimately filter out winning initiatives.
• Define the cultural attributes that propel staff and colleagues to succeed on their endeavors.

Change is now inherent and pervasive in the annual planning process for organizations. Given that, I like to ask: What is the plan to prepare staff and colleagues to compete in this hyper-transformation age?

What observations have you made to keep up with this new era’s velocity of change?

By Jen Skrabak, PMP, PfMP, MBA

As we close out 2019 at work, wrap up projects, and plan to spend time with our families for the holidays, sometimes we forget this is the best time to prepare for the year to come. Here are my five tips to get you in the mindset:

1.  2020 starts now. 

The traditional thinking is that nothing happens from Thanksgiving to New Year’s since hiring managers and companies are preparing for the holidays. 

The real situation is that everything happens at the end of the year. Companies are busy preparing for next year, and, from personal experience, November/December has been the busiest time for recruiting senior-level portfolio/program executives. Hitting the ground running starting Jan. 1 means that 2020 starts now. 

Key questions for you to start your 2020 planning:

• What are your career goals for 2020? 
• Are your CV or résumé and LinkedIn profile up to date with key accomplishments and aligned with your career goals?
• What are your development plans? Do you have training scheduled, books to read or people you need to consult with to gain insights?

2.  Ladder up your experiences and skills. 

The traditional thinking is that a career ladder is about getting a new title at the next level with a higher salary.

The real situation is that building your career is about learning agility and building a repertoire of experiences and micro roles. If you’ve been in program or portfolio management for seven years or more, it may start to feel that you’ve “been there, done that.” To get to the next level of experiences, ask yourself: In 2020, how will you learn a new skill, gain a new experience or learn from someone?

3.  Transformation must be visible. 

The traditional thinking is that transformation is about organizational change management, which is mainly instituted through a variety of communication methods and channels (memos, town halls, workshops, staff meetings, etc.).  In a recent viral stationary bike ad, the woman depicted before and after the transformation looked the same—many people had issues with the cognitive dissonance where she said that her life changed so much, but the change was not visible.

The real situation is that transformation is more than just communication.  Instead of telling people what the change is, the approach should be to actively demonstrate the change so people can experience it.  Transformation at the organizational level is about behavior change.

When I implement a large-scale organizational change, I personally lead up interactive training sessions to teach people about the change, as well as follow-up sessions where I’m hands-on in mentoring and coaching people on the new skills. It’s a great way to get real-time feedback about the change, and most importantly, to be seen as the expert coach within the organization enabling the change. This has been very effective in building trust and credibility in the organization.

4.  Create space. 

The traditional thinking is that when you see a good idea for a program, go implement it—quickly—to take advantage of speed to market. 

The real situation is, just like a cluttered drawer that you keep adding to, a portfolio can be cluttered if not systematically managed. From a personal standpoint, I had to move recently, and I was surprised at how many things I found in the back of the drawer that I forgot existed. When I emptied it out and scrutinized every item, I discovered that 30-40 percent of the items were not needed or were no longer useful since they were damaged, broken or just plain outdated. By getting rid of items, I created space for new items and technology, just like in an organization.

The steps to portfolio management in an organization are: 

• Inventory: Create a complete listing of all programs, projects and activities that consume resources.
• Rationalize: Scrutinize and prioritize every item. Does it have ROI? Is it really going to move the needle on the strategy? You can even develop simple project scoring to prioritize—key criteria can include value, resources and alignment to strategy.
• Start, Stop, Sustain: Make decisions and tradeoffs about what to start, stop and sustain. In an organization, teams sometimes continue to do what they’ve always done for years, and it takes a thorough review of the portfolio to surface work that is not needed or useful—just like the drawer example.
• Quarterly/Annual Review: Portfolio optimization is about doing Step No. 2 above regularly, not just one time. Conducting a performance review at least quarterly is the best way to ensure that the decisions initially made in Step No. 3 haven’t changed due to environmental factors (internally or externally).

5.  Volunteer for your next role.

The traditional thinking is that your manager assigns you the next program or role.

The real situation is you are responsible for actively managing your next role. You should tell the right managers and other leaders what you would like your next program or role to be.

Key steps:

• Clearly state your desire: What type of program or role would you like? Be as specific as writing your own job description, including responsibilities, skills and experience needed.
• Develop a plan: What steps, dates and resources do you need to get to your desired role from where you currently are? Do you have the skills and experience needed or do you need to develop them? What support or resources from leaders or others do you need to accomplish your plan? Treat this like any other project you would manage, with a project plan and project schedule.
• Track your progress: Check in with yourself every week and key supporting leaders monthly or quarterly. Hold yourself accountable and adjust as needed.

Don’t wait: What is your plan for starting 2020 now?