Communication Excellence in Project Management

Implementing policy is just as vital as creating the policy. Agencies need the ability to effectively execute and manage policies. In my research about how government agencies are designed and managed, there are three concepts that can be useful for understanding how agencies can successfully execute their missions and policies. Using organizational health, organizational agility, and network health is the best guide to reforming government agencies.

Technology and societal changes have created new types of private sector organizations that did not exist 20 years ago. New challenges like climate change and terrorism have also created new demands on governments to respond effectively. Agencies must evolve to meet citizen needs and demands. The question is how to help agencies evolve effectively.

Organizational Health

Organizational health is defined by Keller and Price in their 2011 book, Beyond Performance, as “the ability of an organization to align, execute and renew itself . . . so that it can sustain exceptional performance over time.” For government agencies, organizational health is how effectively the people, processes and technologies are aligned with the agency’s strategic goals. Under the Keller and Price model, agencies would be measured along three dimensions: internal alignment, quality of execution and capacity for renewal. In other words; is everyone in the agency working toward the same goals and can they achieve these goals now and in the future?

To answer, agencies should examine their performance on the following nine elements (adopted from Keller and Price):

Direction – a clear sense of where the organization is heading and how it will get there that is meaningful to all employees.

Leadership – the extent to which leaders inspire actions by others.

Culture and climate – the shared beliefs and quality of interactions within and across organizational units.

Accountability – the extent to which individuals understand what is expected of them, have sufficient authority to carry it out and take responsibility for delivering results.

Coordination and control – the ability to evaluate organizational performance and risk, and to address issues and opportunities when they arise.

Capabilities – the presence of institutional skills and talent required to execute strategy and create competitive advantage.

Motivation – the presence of enthusiasm that drives employees to put in the extraordinary effort to deliver results.

External orientation – the quality of engagement with customers, suppliers, partners and other external stakeholders to drive value.

Innovation and learning – the quality and flow of new ideas and the organization’s ability to adapt and shape itself as needed.

Organizational Agility

Organizational health is necessary but not sufficient. An agency must have organizational agility to maintain organizational health. Federal agencies have a long tradition of organizational structures with firm boundaries (established by organizational charts) and strict internal and external areas of formal authority (statutes, regulations, executive orders, policies, inter-agency working agreements, etc.). Increasingly, however, agencies are recognizing that they, too, exist in a complex adaptive system. Agencies have permeable boundaries that are impacted daily by external factors (i.e., budgets, social media, unexpected crises), which in turn affect how agencies achieve their missions.

Organizational agility has become and will continue to be a requirement for federal organizations as external environmental factors (e.g., budget fluctuations, changes in public expectations, unforeseen crises) become more complex and unpredictable. This continuous change requires that modern organizations acquire a flexible and responsive approach to managing people, processes and technology to achieve their missions. Agencies must now build capacity to manage change while pursuing optimal performance and mission accomplishment. Managing with agility incorporates the notion of being flexible and open to adopting new business processes, while adapting an organization’s mindset and culture to constant change. Agencies must enable leaders, managers and employees to align toward outcomes while constantly scanning for projected changes and preparing to adapt to new requirements and expectations.

Network Health

I am still working on the network health concept, but it has similarities to organizational health. In network health, healthy and agile organizations replace people in the people, processes and technology triad of organizational health. As Innes and Booher write in Planning with Complexity,

“[a]t its heart, adaptive governance is about harnessing the power of networks – networks that connect people, ideas, and knowledge in changing combinations across organizations and public problems.”

No single government agency, no matter how healthy and agile, can work alone in solving many of the larger challenges facing governments today. It will take a network to manage these problems.

The New Government Agency

I do not yet know what the ideal organizational design is for government agencies. Maybe there is an entire group of organizational designs specific to the mission. Maybe agencies will cycle through a series of organizational designs based on the challenges the agency faces. Whatever the design of the agency, the successful agencies will have organizational health, be agile and are valuable contributors in a healthy network of agencies and other entities.

(Originally appeared in PATimes.org at http://patimes.org/redesigning-government-agencies-organizational-health-organizational-agility-network-health/)

I've been spending the last six months researching the theories of "personal projects" and the "coordinated management of meaning."  I started this research because of my work at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management on employee engagement. Rather than go the usual route of research, I wondered if there was an alternative based on the changing workplace. Especially the shift toward a project-oriented environments.

Dr. Little's personal project theory seemed perfect. Personal projects are things like people vowing to lose ten pounds or learn a second language. Most people have 15 to 20 personal projects going on at any given time. By analyzing these personal projects, we can better understand what motivates the person.

Understanding motivations is also why I consider pairing Dr. Pearce's coordinated management of meaning (CMM) with personal projects. CMM essentially describes how people construct meaning through a series of communication episodes. I consider this especially relevant to how projects are communicated to project teams and stakeholders.

It is my belief that understanding the personal projects a person chooses and how they communicate these projects to others is the key to understanding what motivates a person. By aligning organizational projects with personal projects, employees will feel more engaged at work. I'm still in the early stages of my research but so far, my thesis is holding up.

College Park, Md. – The University of Maryland Project Management Center for Excellence has proudly named NASA Chief Knowledge Officer, Dr. Ed Hoffman, one of five keynote speakers for the second annual Project Management Symposium, taking place June 8-9, 2015, at the Stamp Student Union on the University of Maryland campus in College Park, Md.

During his presentation, "Creating Knowledge Services for Modern Technical Project Organizations: The REAL Knowledge Approach," Hoffman will discuss how organizations and practitioners can best leverage project knowledge and knowledge services to get things done in the modern complex project environment.

"Knowledge is the essential element for the creation of successful physical and virtual products and services," Hoffman said. "It should be viewed as an organized set of content, skills, and capabilities gained through experience as well as through formal and informal learning that both organizations and practitioners apply to make sense of new and existing data and information."

In addition to Hoffman, this year’s symposium will feature keynote presentations from Ms. Karen Richey (U.S. Government Accountability Office), Mr. Chip Hastie (Clark Construction), Dr. Harold Kerzner (International Institute for Learning, Inc.), and Ms. Jocelyn Davis (Nelson Hart LLC). Driven by the goal of “Connecting Academically Rigorous Research with Practical Applications,” each speaker will draw from his or her own experiences and focus areas to tackle some of the most pressing topics in project management today.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to customize their event experience by choosing from a selection of nearly 60 sessions and featured presentations on pivotal topics in sustainability, federal programs, risk and big data, public private partnerships, education and more. All those interested in participating are strongly encouraged to register before the early-bird deadline of April 1st to take advantage of reduced registration rates and to ensure a reserved seat at what is anticipated to be a sell-out event. Those attending this year’s symposium can also qualify to earn up to 15 professional development units (PDUs) toward maintaining a PMI credential.

As the Baltimore-Washington region’s premier project management symposium, this event is a high-value opportunity for project management professionals of all backgrounds and levels of experience. For more information, or to register, visit the UMD Project Management Center for Excellence website

Intriguing posting by the "6 Six Sig" blog where the author argues that "[p]olicy making . . . shares a lot of characteristics with Project Management." The author presents this chart as his main argument:

This is an intriguing idea and I look forward to future postings on this subject.

While researching organizational communication for studies on what makes successful communication, I have discovered there is very little empirical research on just what makes communication successful. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be any agreement on what is successful communication. There is good research on how communication flows in organizations and barriers to communication. However, I am just not finding the link between good communication and organizational outcomes.

I am studying organizational communication because I hope organizational communication research can help in understanding project management communication (PMC). As I discussed in an earlier posting, PMC is complex because it is a combination of interpersonal communication, coaching, mentoring, small group communication, negotiation, public speaking, and organizational communication. Probably more synergy than just a combination of communication method.

Two areas of communication research that seem promising are crew (or cockpit) resource management and surgical team communication. Both the cockpit and the operating room are high-pressure environments where good teamwork and effective communication are vital to preventing tragic mistakes. There is much research in both areas and even an attempt to combine CRM with healthcare teams. From what I have read of the research so far, CRM, and surgical team communication training have been highly effective in reducing errors and increasing success.

CRM and surgical team communication research are good places to start. My first question is if the techniques can scale from small teams working on a project that lasts only a few hours? Second, both the cockpit and the operating room have well-defined methods and processes. Would the same concepts work in highly dynamic and complex project environments?  The third question deals with the fact that airplane crews and surgical teams are highly-trained specialists. Would the same communication techniques work with generalists and minimally trained project team members?

Do you think studying airplane crews and surgical teams will help in understanding how project teams should communicate? What other high-performing teams should I study?