Easy in theory, difficult in practice

A common complaint I hear from our customers is that they are frustrated with getting their staff to comply with a minimal set of project management practices.  Usually, this complaint is focused on the “accidental” project managers – those staff that primarily perform another function but on occasion are called on to lead projects.

While many times this is a result of PM procedures that are simply too onerous or that don’t scale, other times it is an issue of insufficient change management being exercised through the roll out of the new practices.

This can start with a basic assumption – “I feel these procedures are common sense and lightweight, so everyone else should too.”  Unfortunately, the creators of PM processes and procedures tend to be Type-A, process-oriented individuals.  To have the majority of employees follow procedures a few key change management practices are needed:

1. Change the bare minimum to meet your management team’s requirements for project planning, tracking and control.

2. Provide PM 101 training to all staff that do project work but don’t make  it theoretical – invest the time in finding a training provider that can make it fun and that can show attendees that a lot of what they are used to doing every day is project work (and how they can be more effective at it).

3. Use positive reinforcement to encourage compliance – spot awards or other such types of recognition go a long way towards developing advocates.

4. Receive and manage constructive criticism positively – consider this a sign of “engagement” and ensure that you acknowledge the feedback and try (if it is reasonable and feasible) to incorporate it within your procedures.

5. Explain (repeatedly) and demonstrate to staff how compliance with the procedures will help them.  For example, a project leader might find themselves getting regularly interrupted in their work by stakeholders or sponsors requiring updates on a project.  By having consistent, regular project status reporting practices, these interruptions should be reduced over time allowing the project leader to focus on their work.  For staff being asked to do time reporting for the first time, defuse the fears of “Big Brother” by explaining that capturing good time data over a time period can help reduce overallocation scenarios and could provide solid evidence for justifying resource augmentation.

6. Ensure that the functional managers and executives are supporting your procedures – this includes being willing to discipline staff that refuse to comply with procedures even after repeated attempts to coach and mentor them.

It is very easy, especially in the first few days of a PPM or PM capability improvement initiative to get frustrated when you encounter resistance or compliance issues.  It is also very easy to channel this frustration into defensiveness or into drawing conclusions about the professionalism or worthiness of the staff.  Always remember “It’s easier to catch flies with honey, than with vinegar“.

(Note: This very compliant article was originally published on kbondale.wordpress.com in August 2009)

As a teenager who had an eclectic taste in music, one of my hobbies was attempting to create the perfect mix tape to fit the theme of different activities I would do such as studying, working out or just relaxing.

So how about project management? To quote Barney Stinson: "Challenge accepted!"

1. Can I Play With Madness (Iron Maiden): You know those projects where it seems no one has a clue about what we are trying to achieve? "Can I play with madness? The prophet stared at his crystal ball ; Can I play with madness? There's no vision there at all"
2. You Can't Always Get What You Want (Rolling Stones): There is no better song to help set stakeholder expectations about focusing on their needs.
3. The Gambler (Kenny Rogers): This would make a good level setting tune for a risk response workshop, especially for those who feel the glass is always half full. "You've got to know when to hold 'em ; Know when to fold 'em ; Know when to walk away ; And know when to run"
4. That's Life (Frank Sinatra): After the team has just received some bad news or is recovering after a painful issue, this song helps to put things into perspective. "Each time I find myself flat on my face ; I pick myself up and get back in the race"
5. Nothing Else Matters (Metallica): This is a good song for building self-reliance, self-organization and the willingness to inspect and adapt in teams. "Trust I seek and I find in you, Every day for us something new, Open mind for a different view"
6. In The End (Linkin Park): "Time is a valuable thing ; Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings ; Watch it count down to the end of the day ; The clock ticks life away". 'Nuff said!
7. People Are People (Depeche Mode): When the team is storming and what makes us different is dividing us. "So we're different colours ; And we're different creeds ; And different people have different needs"
8. Three Little Birds (Bob Marley): What could be a more cheerful and uplifting song to kick off a daily standup for your team? "Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing gonna be all right."
9. Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (The Animals): Whenever you feel there has been a breakdown in the basic communication model, just sing "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good ; Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood"
10. We Are The Champions (Queen): A gracious project manager will always acknowledge the contribution of the entire team. "I've taken my bows ; And my curtain calls ; You brought me fame and fortune and everything that goes with it ; I thank you all"

So what would you add for YOUR project management mix tape?

On traditional projects, a project change management plan is supposed to provide guidance to project teams on the criteria that make a change significant enough to manage through formal change control.  On agile projects, change is an inherent component of the project as opposed to an exception condition, and hence such formality is rarely required.

The same degree of certainty cannot be stated about decisions - both agile and traditional projects spawn a variety of decisions, but how does a PM go about deciding what level of formality is required to manage those?

If the project team is aware of the triggers and thresholds that may require formalizing the decision-making process, then there should be alignment in approach.  One place to start is to understand the criticality of key requirements for the project - for example, if long term viability of a project deliverable is not necessary, decisions that impact sustainability may not require the same level of formality as those that affect a more critical attribute.

Having a brainstorming session early in the project's lifetime to identify those types of situations that may necessitate formality can help to build some "muscle memory" into the process.  Some risk identification techniques could be utilized for this purpose - for example, reviewing the project's WBS to attempt to identify the significant decisions that could emerge related to each key deliverable.

Of course, no approach is perfect, and it should be tuned based on the feedback from key stakeholders - if the stakeholders are pushing back regularly on the necessity of a formal decision request for a given situation, perhaps the thresholds are set too low.  On the other hand, a few too many "damage control" issues might teach a PM that a greater degree of formality is called for.

It's also important to ensure the decision making process is scalable.  Focus on who needs to be involved in the decision-making process as opposed to the specific mechanics.  A triage approach may work:

1. Decisions that are of so low impact that verbal decision making is sufficient, and informal communication to those who need to be apprised of the decision can suffice.
2. Decisions that are of moderate impact may need the formality of a verifiable audit trail - this could be an e-mail chain, or an e-mail confirmation of the decision to the key stakeholders followed by archival of the final outcome in the project control book.
3. Decisions that are of significant impact should require the use of a decision request document that is formally approved, logged and archived.

Having a peer-level support system, a mentor or a PMO could help a PM decide on a situational basis what makes sense.

The two process extremes are equally scary - a complete lack of formality increases the likelihood that critical decisions are made without involving all the right stakeholders and with insufficient analysis and communication whereas too much formality mires the project in unnecessary bureaucracy and reinforces negative perceptions about project management.

One more example of why judgment is one of the key differentiators of a great PM!

(Note: I originally decided to publish this article on kbondale.wordpress.com in March 2012)

I'm midway through Priya Parker's book The Art of Gathering and her insights into how to make an event a meaningful gathering rather than "just another boring meeting" are apropos to ceremonies. A common complaint many team members raise in the early days of an agile journey is that it feels like they are in too many meetings. This shows that they aren't perceiving the value of the ceremonies and, if these concerns aren't addressed quickly, the team members are likely to disengage.

One way to evaluate your ceremonies is to do a W5 assessment on them.

Why

Without a shared understanding of the purpose for the ceremonies, misalignment of expectations and behaviors may emerge. It is critical that a newly formed team understands why each ceremony is needed, but as the team evolves, the purpose of each should be reviewed to ensure it remains relevant. One way to gauge this is to ask each team member to summarize what they believe the purpose of the ceremony to be in three words or less.

What

Once there is clarity on why, we need to confirm that the outcomes of ceremonies are being realized and are in line with the purpose for conducting the ceremonies. Poll team members on their perception of the effectiveness and efficiency of producing those outcomes.

Who

A common challenge with agile ceremonies and most recurring events is that, over time, you might pick up a number of participants who "just want to observe" or "need to be kept in the loop". If everyone is needed, no one is needed. A self-disciplined, self-managing team will weed out those stakeholders who aren't required but will be equally diligent on ensuring the right participants are at each ceremony. For example, conducting a sprint review without adequate representation from those who will be consuming the outputs of the team is a waste of time. Who is also about the role each participant plays. While new teams might lean on the Scrum Master to facilitate most ceremonies, over time, this can become a shared responsibility, giving each team member a chance to develop their facilitation abilities.

When

It is a good practice to hold ceremonies at the same day and time but the timing that seemed ideal in earlier sprints may not suit all participants in later ones. It is also worth evaluating the duration of the ceremonies as they should be long enough to meet the purpose and achieve the expected outcomes and no longer. If certain team members are missing certain ceremonies, it is worth confirming whether the timing is still suitable for all participants.

Where

Whether it is physical meeting rooms or virtual video conferences or collaboration environments, it is important to ensure that the location supports the purpose and approach and doesn't detract from it. In physical settings, this could be as simple as the arrangement of chairs around a table and the availability of white board space for spontaneous collaborative activity. Consider alternative environments for physical ceremonies. Could it be possible to conduct some in a more dynamic manner - perhaps as a walking meeting? In virtual sessions, this means ensuring that the tools provided (e.g. polls, whiteboards) are functional and everyone knows how to use them in advance of the ceremony.

How frequently ceremony reviews should take place will vary and one trigger for a health check might be to have team members vote every few weeks or every couple of sprints on how valuable they feel each ceremony is.

To paraphrase Chris Fussell "If your team is trying to be more agile, stop and think, 'Are my ceremonies actually productive, or are we merely having ceremonies for ceremonies' sake?'"

There is no single recipe for how to best manage a project.

Culture (organization & team) and enterprise environmental factors all influence how a project gets managed but personal style and approach also plays a critical role. Within the constraints of the previous factors a project might be managed successfully but the degree of efficiency can vary widely between project managers.

It might not be advisable to invest a lot of effort in analyzing how we are adapting and executing each of the PMBOK processes, but we can lean (pun fully intended) on process excellence to help us identify common sources of project management waste.

1. Waiting: While we might complain frequently about how long they have to wait for others to approve deliverables, make decisions or complete in scope activities, how many times have we introduced unnecessary delays by avoiding conflict with a team member, procrastinating on having a difficult conversation with a key stakeholder or escalating an action or issue that was impeding our team’s progress? Do you always start and end your meetings on time?
2. Over-production: Do you print out copies of reference materials for all team members prior to team meetings? How many of these copies actually get referred to? How about reports for executive presentations? Are team members having to produce different status reports for you and their own functional managers?
3. Rework: Do you encourage your team members to ensure they are balancing quality with speed or is the message they are receiving that you are only interested in having deliverables out on time? Are you giving yourself sufficient time when updating forecasts or putting together proposals so that refinement is minimized?
4. Motion: Do you encourage virtual participation to avoid unnecessary travel when physical presence is not required to achieve a meeting’s objectives? Are you or your team members printing unnecessary materials and losing time in going back and forth from the printer?
5. (Over) Processing: How often are you guilty of staring at an e-mail message, presentation or report and tweaking it over and over again. Communication does consume most of a project manager’s day, but are you gold-plating your communications?
6. (Waste of) Intellect: Are you getting the best out of your team members (and yourself) or do you bog them down with low-value, soul-draining administrative tasks?
7. Inventory: Is your work breakdown structure decomposed sufficiently that work-in-progress is minimized? Have you leveraged tools such as Kanban boards to visually identify task inventory backlogs?
8. Transportation: Have you assessed the end-to-end flow of activities from requirements through to completed deliverables to ensure that time isn’t lost in unnecessary transportation? Do you still insist on “wet” signatures when e-mail approvals might suffice?

Is your approach to managing projects as efficient as it could be, or are you stuck in a WORMPIIT?

(Note: this lean & mean article was originally published in October 2015 on kbondale.wordpress.com)