Imran ManirSenior Project ManagerBurton On Trent, United Kingdom
As a PM, what do you lean towards more, managing people or managing processes as part of delivering a project? Is there a balance between the two and how do you create that balance? Saving Changes...
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Russell GeakeProject Management Consultant| Deciduous Partners LtdLostwithiel, Cornwall, United Kingdom
Hi Imran
not much of a scenario to go on here... but, here's my first response.
A few years ago (2002) I wrote a series of articles for the Project Managers Union of China, the first article started with the same question. It was a hotly debated issue over there, and see what has changed since then. I'm sure I'll have a copy of the article archived somewhere. If I can rediscover it I will post it here too.
It will vary throughout the project - at times people issues are greater and require more intervention, other times processes - remember that principally, processes are tools to help people achieve an outcome.
Processes enable greater monitoring and accountability and to a degree offer a level of protection for stakeholder organisations. Yes, you can go around a process to produce a faster or better result, but at what cost if it goes wrong? You must balance the process, the opporunity and the associated risks and consequences. Excercise DUE DILIGENCE. the people who came up with the process will have generally (but not always) put a lot of time and effort into considering it before implementing it. It may be that a particular process is not appropriate and you can use the "It's A Project" Joker card to adopt a fresh approach.
Bear in mind that in some industries (such as aviation/aerospace, food, health, defence, nuclear energy etc. ) i.e. those where the wider safety of others or the environment is of paramount importance there are some processes which MUST be adhered to. In which case it would be tickbox management, and people will do what they are told to do within the process to acheive a result.
As for creating the right balance - balance is natural, use your instinct and intuition and you will sense when you have it right, people will tell you when you don't. Sounds a bit Zen, but this can be paraphrased as Gut-feeling.
If you are able to do so (technical or subject matter expert), assist the people (team) to accept process (task) to create the product (target). Saving Changes...
Linda HillProgram Manager| MicrosoftRenton, Wa, United States
I lead the people and manage the processes. Saving Changes...
Hi Imran. Linda has it right. People and processes are different sides of the same coin. Without people, you won't deliver anything. Ditto with process. As Yogi Berra once said "if you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else". Saving Changes...
Josh NankivelEngineering Project Manager| AppleSioux Falls, Sd, United States
Neither.
Or rather, I look at this question from a different angle.
Good project management is good systems engineering.
Projects and the organizations in which they live are a collection of systems. Those systems contain a diversity of people, automation, processes, materials, and other resources.
A good systems engineer gives these different aspects of processes their due diligence, and it changes over time and with the interactions/interfaces between systems and within them.
The balance comes from applying your focus where it is needed - on a mature project team who works well together you can lean towards optimizing other parts of the system since the human resources aspect requires less.
Looking at the project as a system, end to end, focus on the weakest link in the chain - the bottleneck. When you elevate the capacity of the bottleneck, you increase the throughput of the whole system (and the bottleneck moves somewhere else). That's continuous improvement.
Saving Changes...
Wai Mun KooPMO Director| Intergraph PP&MSingapore, Singapore
If people are actors while processes are the scripts, as a movie director, what would you do? Which one is more important to you? If you can only choose one from the two, would you rather have good actors or interesting scripts? Saving Changes...
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Great post and replies. I am reminded of Deming, "95% of the problem is process, 5% is people." And a frustrated IT exec who in response to hearing the Deming quote replied, "Deming never met Bob!" Saving Changes...
Wai Mun KooPMO Director| Intergraph PP&MSingapore, Singapore
From James Collins' book "Good to Great", it says that, "First Who, Then What: Get the right people on the bus, then figure out where to go." Saving Changes...
PAOLINO MONTANINOExecutive, Head of European ERP Business Application| AVANADERome, Italy, Italy
People run processes so that's why both are the same importance.
Quoting Linda: to lead people and to manage processes is the key. Saving Changes...
Maya KalachHead of PMO, IT| Middle East AirlinesBeirut, Lebanon
