Design Thinking & Project Management

I am honored to participate on a panel at the 2017 PMI Global Conference on the topic of  "The Digital Future and You: The Project Manager in Times of Disruption"

The chair of the panel, Kirsten Lora, PMP, wants us to explore the role of Project Managers in the current era of "digital disruption". Here are a few of my thoughts going into the conference...

New technologies allow us to innovate at record speed. I would call out three themes that have manifested themselves from this economic disruption:

1. Accelerating speed to market
2. Personalization of products and services and
3. Increased access to data & Too much data.

There was this excellent quote from Marc Andreessen in the WSJ (2011) “…all of the technology required to transform industries through software finally works and can be widely delivered at global scale.” Basically, the resources and infrastructure needed to start a new billion dollar company (i.e. via the Cloud) is widely available to anyone with a credit card and access to the web. Which is practically everyone.

So how do I see the role of Project Managers in this?

For companies to deliver value to their shareholders and customers, they in turn must embrace creative destruction of “digital disruption” rather than wait to become a victim of this unstoppable force. The creation of products and services, the production of something new is the end result of a group of people or disciplines working together to solve a problem. Project Management is the discipline largely responsible for guiding this effort from start to finish in an efficient manner to achieve the best possible outcomes, i.e. via projects. But Project Managers cannot continue to manage projects the way it was done 50 years ago, 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago.

Some have used the analogy of the Formula One race car, with a PM in the driver seat. I see the role of PMs is one who is to build the right working environment for their teams to work effectively and efficiently together. The PM may not be the F1 driver, but they help the entire team succeed on the race track. This requires establishment of a culture, governance and pace to allow more flexible processes, early engagement with the product or services end-users and laser focus on the customer’s/user’s needs. Yes, there will be more chaos and uncertainty, but I expect good PMs to thrive in environments where they come in and “tame” the chaos. (I know that is what gets me revved up about my work in healthcare IT!)

The impact on the PM profession is that we need to become more empathetic to our customers’ needs, our stakeholders’ needs and our teams’ needs. PMs who follow traditional methods that are closer to command & control will not be successful. PMs will need to allow some level of exploration and allow their teams to take risks and have failures.

I have a slide share that captures some of my thinking:

https://www.slideshare.net/brussik3/managing-innovative-teams

I look forward to others' thoughts on the role of Project Managers in the current era of Cloud and "digital disruption".

Connect with me on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter @brucegay

I am really looking forward to this year's PMI Global Conference in Chicago. This will be my first PMI Conference that I have attended outside of my regional chapter's professional development symposiums.

This year's conference theme "Making a Difference" asks us as professionals: Are you a Difference Maker? Who do you want to be?

I ask myself "Am I a Difference Maker"? -- "Miracle Worker"? -- "Bar Raiser"? -- "Game Changer" or even a "Deadline Crusher"? I probably could best describe myself as both a "Chaos Tamer" as well as a "Collaboration Wizard". Throughout my career, I endeavored to build working environments and team cultures that promote collaboration, innovation and fun.

I am also looking forward to the keynote speakers (Tim Berners-Lee, Nicholas Epley and Mercedes Ramirez-Johnson) at the Global Conference. They each have interesting background and experiences. 

Where you will likely find me at the conference...

Saturday, October 28th

• Coffee and First-Time Attendee Conference Orientation
• Opening Keynote with Sir Tim Berners-Lee
• I hope you can join my session from 3:30 to 4:30pm (New Timeslot) for my presentation "Design Thinking & Project Management". This session is for individuals who want to learn more about design (e.g. managing innovation) and who want to start incorporating design into their projects and programs. 
• How to Make Better Choices for You, Your Team, and Your Projects by Andy Kaufman or Transformation Leadership by Steve Mayner.
• And to close out the day with the Annual Membership Meeting and then dinner and networking.
• I plan on reviewing the PMI Global Standards Poster Sessions sometime on Saturday and Sunday.

Sunday, October 29th

• Morning Coffee and then Keynote with Nicholas Epley
• Organizing for Projects by Monique Aubry or Facilitating Effective Brainstorming Sessions by Brian Richardson & Katrine Maguire
• Leadership Lessons We May Have Learned... by Ron Kurtz & Melissa Panagides-Busch
• Adaptive Project Management by Andy Silber or Leading During a Disaster by Niraj Kumar
• And of course I plan to attend Karen Chovan's The Necessary Culture for Soaring Performance.
• Dinner and networking

Monday, October 30th

• Morning Coffee and then AI and Project Management by Prasanna Adavi 
• Creating an Enterprise Culture of Project Management by Beth Allen & Abby Frelich
• The Language of Leadership by Dennis Cummins
• Closing keynote with Mercedes Ramirez-Johnson

See you in Chicago!

Design and design thinking is "old news."  As Project Managers, we are late to this party. 

If you have not yet seen my webinar on Design Thinking & Project Management, here is a link:  https://www.projectmanagement.com/videos/330087/Design-Thinking---Project-Management

Design thinking has emerged as a major trend for how innovative organizations are approaching problem-solving. Design thinking encourages innovative solutions by drawing on approaches from engineering and design, and combining them with ideas from the arts, social sciences, and the business world.

Design Thinking is ...

1)  People-centered. Empathy is at the core.

Empathy gained through user research is at the center of design. The PM and project team should strive to include all project stakeholders and customers in the process, starting from project initiation. The goal is to get immediate and timely feedback from the customer and make changes and revisions along the way.

2) Extensive interdisciplinary collaboration.

A common challenge across projects is communication. Words, and the meaning behind them are often misunderstood. Different people with different backgrounds and experiences use language differently. Design Thinking tools and methods, like sketching, mind maps or physical models, can be extremely useful. They force people to remove imprecise words and organize around a “synthesized” picture to describe the concept. Additionally, people are terrible at recall, but we’re awesome at recognition. Project Managers should utilize these tools and methods to bring people together and work more effectively.

3) Highly creative. Strives for diverse viewpoints.

As a PM, you should staff your project team with people that possess different perspectives for the best results. You absolutely need people who think differently, but to be efficient, you need to find ways to communicate, prioritize, share in decision making. Seek out staff that can “think laterally” and are willing to try connecting ideas that might not seem to intuitively go together. 

4) All about doing and being hands-on.

Design Thinking is about taking ideas and concepts and quickly giving them form. Whether a napkin sketch, a prototype carved from foam rubber, or a digital mock-up, the quick-and-rough models that designers constantly create are a critical component of innovation. When you give form to an idea, you begin to make it real and can elicit emotional responses from end users and customers. You have to make in order to learn. 

5) Iterative.

Lastly, Design Thinking is iterative. You and your team will never get it right the first time.

As part of your project management process, you need to embed the cyclical process of prototyping, analyzing, and refining a product or service. Your team needs to secure timely feedback from the customer in order to make iterative/incremental improvements along the way. My advice -- the iterative nature of design is not as costly as not doing it at all.

A few closing thoughts on this topic:

1. Design Thinking is not magic. There is rigor to it. You can learn it. You can practice it, you can get better at it.
2. There are many design models to choose from and no single process or toolkit serves every case. As a PM, you need to understand whatever model you are using and account for it in your project planning and execution. 
3. Design is a set of tools to solve problems. If you do it well, it is a sustainable activity that can transform your projects and your entire business.

I am passionate about evangelizing Design Thinking within the Project Management community. I welcome any feedback or comments below. 

Recently I was asked to present 30-45 minutes on the topic of "project management tips" to an IT operational department within my organization. Most of the analysts in this department already practice some level of project management, but are not well-versed in the traditional PMP methods. 

After reaching out to the community on PM.com for guidance, I received many excellent responses from colleagues. See the full thread at: 

https://www.projectmanagement.com/discussion-topic/52121/PM-basics-for-novices-

After reviewing the guidance and feedback, I thought about starting the presentation with basic PM concepts: What is a project, Project work versus Operational work, What is a program, Introduction to PM process groups, etc. But given the time constraints, I decided to dive in and start with my "tips and lessons learned", and to allow more time for Q&A from the group.

The final presentation can be found on SlideShare "PM Tips & Lessons Learned".

Here is a summary of my presentation to the operational department:

• Spend time up front to identify your stakeholders.
• Understand who the project champion (or sponsor) is. Typically he/she is not the project requester, but someone whose business will benefit from or be impacted by the project.
• Use a Scope Document to ensure everyone has a clear definition of the project. Review the Scope Document with your stakeholders.
• Have your project champion sign off the Scope Document at the start of the project results. 
• Create a Communication Plan to manage stakeholder interactions.
• Take time to do project planning - do not rush into execution.
• Stay focused on dependencies and their impacts on milestones. Set milestones for your team to rally around.
• Empathy and listening is key. Listen to you team and your stakeholders while managing the project.
• Teams do not communicate well. It is the job of the project manager to ensure communication is working and everyone is kept informed.
• Escalation is a powerful tool. Escalate issues/risks, in a timely manner and escalate the right things.
• Remain vigilant of scope creep. Be prepared to conduct Scope Change Management -  assess and communicate impacts of the change to the project champion or sponsor. If the new scope or request is quite different or larger than the original project scope, recommend a new project be requested.
• Make sure everything on your project plan has an owner. Do not end meetings without action items and clearly defined owners.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to share my project management skills with the operational department. Feel free to let me know if there are other tips that I should be sharing the next time I repeat this presentation.

Connect with me on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter @brucegay

I posted a new Slideshare on the topic of "Guidance for Project Managers". 

Here is the Slideshare Link.  Your feedback is welcome.

Connect with me on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter @brucegay