The Critical Path

Braden Kelley is an innovation and change specialist and an active contributor to the ProjectManagement.com community. He utilized our Contribute Content page and has since authored several articles here on our site.

He is the author of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire, an InnovationExcellence.com co-Founder, and is the creator of the Change Planning Toolkit™ and a book on the best practices and next practices of organizational change coming in January 2016.

1. How did you get involved in project management?

I first got involved in project management when I volunteered to build Symantec’s first web-based technical support and customer service capabilities back when support was provided on AOL, Compuserve, and BBS. This required me to scope, schedule, and sequence the appropriate activities and execute a series of organized releases utilizing Lean Startup and Agile type approaches before someone had given names to these types of collaborative, iterative approaches to building things. My approach to project management has continued to be somewhat non-traditional on the dozens of business projects I’ve managed over the years.

2. Who or what inspires you to be the best project manager you can be?

My clients (internal, external) inspire me to be the best project manager I can be because I want to help them change the world. We all change the world every day whether we realize it or not, and so I firmly believe that every day we choose to change the world for better or worse. I try to remain laser focused on the desired outcomes and achieving them as efficiently as possible.

3. What is one thing you wished you'd known when you first started out in project management?

In my early days as a project manager, I wish I’d learned about the concept of ‘fit for purpose’ sooner. ‘Fit for purpose’, ‘minimum viable progress’ (helps maintain a focus on momentum), ‘value source identification’ and ‘minimum viable product’ now guide my approach in nearly everything I do. Too often we don’t spend enough time defining what success will look like and figuring out where the value truly comes from. As a result we spend a lot of time on things that don’t make a proportional contribution to success.

4. You come in Monday morning to find that your most productive project team member is no longer with the company. You have been working together on a project for six months. What are your next steps?

First I would cry, scream and maybe throw something (preferably at the person who let them go). Hey, good people are hard to find, and sometimes the first to be let go! Then I’d probably go for a walk and get a hot chocolate. As I sat and sipped my hot cocoa (no whip and no foam – I live in Seattle after all), I would think about who else I have on my team, who’s not on my team that I wish were a member of the team, the tasks this valuable team member was working on, and which tasks are likely to deliver the most value and contribute the most to successful outcomes. Then I would start making a plan to replace that team member, and in the interim to redistribute the most value adding responsibilities to other people on the team.

5. You get a call from your project’s sponsor. You've been working on the project for a year and the two of you have a good business relationship. You're 2 months away from the project deadline and she wants the deadline bumped up by 3 weeks and indicates that this is a critical need. What do you do?

The first thing I would do is take a deep breath. Then I’d explore with the sponsor what changed. Perhaps this is a critical need, perhaps it’s a knee jerk reaction instead that we can talk through (trying to crash a project this late in the game often introduces a huge amount of risk). The result will be either a realization that this change isn’t as critical as the sponsor suddenly thought it was, or if not, we will have to look at a number of different elements of the project. These of course include:

1. What the sponsor is willing to do to help make this happen
2. Risks of crashing
3. Critical path
4. Available resources
5. Whether or not additional resources can accelerate remaining tasks
6. Whether there is budget for additional resources
7. Whether the scope can change
8. Etc.

Put my dinner in the refrigerator, I think I’m going to be home late tonight.

Please introduce yourself to Braden below in the comments and add him to your network.

Is there a community member who you think deserves some recognition for their contributions to the community? Let us know! Email the member’s name and a brief explanation as to why you think he/she should be featured in our Member of the Month to [email protected]. 

When some people think of the word "innovation", they might associate it with the word "invention." In fact, these two words are not the same. Innovation often acts as the spark that ignites change within an organization or business to foster continued relevancy within the marketplace. And these changes come about through the help of projects and programs. 

As you may have noticed, this month's community theme is innovation! Braden Kelley shows us how making innovation happen has a lot to do with the roles we play versus individual personalities in his article "Innovation: A Team Sport."

On 21 July, Bruce Harpham will deliver a webinar to the community that shows us how some of the greatest innovations in the history of technology came about during the webinar titled "Lessons from the History of Innovation." If you haven't already registered, make sure you do! 

And you can always find templates and other resources to help you by visiting the Innovation practice area right here on ProjectManagement.com!

Join in the conversation! Please share with us in the comments below some ways innovation has helped you drive a project forward. We'd love to hear from you!

We are super excited to reveal the first of a series of monthly posts recognizing our most active community members. Each month we’ll be posting an interview with a community member who has gone above and beyond contributing to and bettering the community on ProjectManagement.com.

Our very first Member of the Month is Bruce Harpham, PMP®. Bruce recently received his PMP® (congrats). I’m sure you’ve seen Bruce around the community – whether he’s answering questions, writing in his blog, or conducting a webinar, Bruce has been a major contributor. We recently sat down with Bruce to find out what led him to the project management community.

1.      How did you get involved in project management?

I became involved in project management for a few reasons. I had some projects assigned to me over the years and found that work highly satisfying. In 2014, I worked on a taxation project with a project manager with a PMP® – his disciplined approach made an impact on me. Finally, I started interviewing project managers and exploring the field on my website at ProjectManagementHacks.com.

2.      How do you stay inspired to be the best project manager you can be?

I seek inspiration and instruction from several sources. I believe in the power of professional associations - a topic I explore on my website and presentations. In addition, I make continuing education a priority (e.g. self-study, evening courses and PMI® Chapter events).

3.      What is one thing you wished you'd known when you first started out in project management?

Ah, where to begin? I would have to choose stakeholder management. It is an area that can make or break project success. For example, the stakeholder identification and analysis techniques explained in the PMBOK Guide® have been valuable. Absent that process and discipline, it is easy to miss important stakeholders.

4.      It's Friday at 4 pm and your boss just told you that you've been assigned to work on a project - on a different continent! You leave at 9 am tomorrow. What are the next five (5) things that you do?

Wow! Thankfully, this has never happened to me. Here are the some of the ideas that come to mind.

1.      Communicate with my family. I share as much detail as I can and think through how this assignment will impact family plans and responsibilities. If I will only need to travel for a week, that would be manageable. Longer travel requirements would require more analysis and negotiation.

2.      Start information gathering. Specifically, I would seek high level answers on the following point: project purpose, project budget, project duration and prior relationships. If I know other people involved in the project, I get in touch with them.

3.      Complete travel preparations. I would check with my organization’s travel provider to obtain the best flight and accommodation possible under the circumstances.

4.      Evaluate impact on my current context. How does departing for a new continent impact my family? How does it impact my colleagues? In all likelihood, I would start to delegate work to other people so that I can focus on the new assignment.

5.      Get an early night. It’s a simple practice that makes the difference.

5.      You’ve come to the realization that an important project you are currently managing is going to be a massive failure. Somehow, every red flag has been missed or ignored and it’s far too late in the game to turn things around. Maybe you inherited the mess, maybe you’re the cause of the failure, or maybe it’s just the way things turned out. Either way, there’s nothing you could have done to prevent it. What types of things do you do, mentally, physically, or even spiritually, to cope until the project is over?

This is a challenging and frustrating situation to be in.

Here are a few of the practices I would use in this context:

1)      Discuss the status with the project sponsor. If the project is truly beyond recovery, then it makes sense to discuss options with the sponsor (e.g. project cancellation, significantly adjust deadlines or scope)

2)      Maintain my Weekly Review practice: If my personal management system falls apart, the crisis will only get worse.

3)      Reach out to my network: There is great value in getting an outside perspective, when feasible.

4)      Proactively manage stress: Remind myself to continue exercise and healthy eating. In fact, I would increase my physical activity if I could (e.g. go for a walk during lunch each day).

5)      Ask for support from the project team. As project manager, I rely on the project team. I may ask the project team for their suggestions and ideas on recovering the project before making a decision.

Please introduce yourself to Bruce below in the comments and add him to your network. To connect with Bruce outside of the community, you can find him on Twitter at @PMPHacks and on LinkedIn.

Is there a community member who you think deserves some recognition for their contributions to the community? Let us know! Email the member’s name and a brief explanation as to why you think he/she should be featured in our Member of the Month to [email protected]. 

There's still time to register for PMXPO 2015!  

Join us Thursday, April 30 for six sessions full of informed project management viewpoints from leading industry experts that will cover areas like requirements management, agile, process management, PMOs and marketing strategy. The day kicks off with our keynote presentation and includes five more enlightening sessions…

SESSIONS

• - Why You Need to Consider Redefining the PMO (Mark Price Perry, Andy Jordan & Dave Prior)
• - PMI's Annual Pulse of the Profession: An In-Depth Look at Requirements Management (Tricia Cabrey)
• - PPM Process Management and the Role of the PPM Process Owner (Steve Romero)
• - 10 Ways to Market Your Project (Elizabeth Harrin)
• - Do or Die Agile Leadership Practices for Today's eXtreme Projects (Doug DeCarlo)

KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: From Leading a High Performance Team to Landing on Mars

Adam Steltzner
Lead Landing Engineer of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover Project

With a rich and varied background, Adam Steltzner had many of the needed skills to lead the landing team for the Curiosity rover. That said, his team would struggle for almost a decade with design challenges and setbacks. How did he keep the team focused and on task? What makes a team gel and enables truly innovative thinking? How do team dynamics drive that process forward or inhibit it? And how can organizational culture create an environment for sustained performance? The challenges he and the team faced and the lessons learned from those struggles can help audiences understand how to better lead their high-performing teams, manage innovation and drive toward excellence.

Now in its eighth year, ProjectManagement.com's PMXPO is an annual virtual conference and exhibition that presents a day of informative sessions featuring industry experts, along with booths full of valuable takeaway materials. Sign up for the free event today!

April 2015’s focus on ProjectManagement.com is sustainability and green project management. Not sure what that is? We have a diverse offering of articles and resources to help you learn more and implement sustainability and green project management into what you do.

Green PM: How Have Things Changed?

Michael Wood last wrote about green project management in 2012. But how have things changed since then? Take a few moments to read his article which takes a look at certifications, resources, and other tools to help keep you sustainable.

Project Manager’s Sustainability Checklist

Tom Baker and Pedro Echeverria came together to create a checklist that is specifically design to help meet sustainability needs that project teams and project managers face. This checklist can be considered a template to be modified by an organization, or even by a project team, as needed.

Sustainability Survey

Around the world, people, communities and organizations have begun a profound transformation toward Sustainability. Sustainability is sometimes called the Triple Bottom Line,  referring to long term viability not just from a financial standpoint (“Profit”), but also from environmental (Planet) and social (People) perspectives.  This survey will gather important information about project managers' motivations, skills, and needs with respect to Sustainability. This data will help PMI and projectmanagement.com gain a baseline about this field and create the possibility of assisting project managers who have an interest in Sustainability.

Thanks to Tom Baker, Kris Kohl, and Pedro Echeverria for collaborating to bring this valuable survey to the community.

Keep your eye on the homepage throughout the month for more sustainability and green PM information. You can also visit the Sustainability practice area for additional information and resources.

Don’t forget that 22 April is Earth Day!