Michael WoodProject Manager / Business Analyst / Business Process Improvement Guru| Independent ContractorGig Harbor, Wa, United States
Okay, we all understand that Corporate America is having difficulty with its leadership - Enron is the new posterchild for what can go wrong when a company loses its focus and puts too many eggs in rewarding executives based on stock pirce at the expense of its other stakeholders. So what are we to do? How do we get our organizations to adopt a balanced approach to stakeholder value?
Take the stage and voice your ideas. Saving Changes...
I don't understand your question - are you asking what Project Managers can do to "get our organizations to adopt a balanced approach to stakeholder value"? Saving Changes...
Michael WoodProject Manager / Business Analyst / Business Process Improvement Guru| Independent ContractorGig Harbor, Wa, United States
I think the question goes well beyond any specific role. Beneath our the roles we play in our organizations we are people first. Since organizations exist to provide value to its stakeholders, it only stands to reason that all the organization's activities, yes even projects, should be aligned to that overarching goal. So I guess I am asking us all to think outside our roles and take a moment to ponder more fundemental issues. Saving Changes...
Alignment to the ?overarching goal? implies governance and this takes many forms e.g the board of directors, stock exchange rules, the generally accepted accounting principles, the law of the land, oversight and compliance roles in an organisation and yes the PMO.
All of these structures have similar goals, including the alignment of practice with the stakeholder?s ?overarching goal?. The dilemma is that when these structures operate, they are not welcome (basic human nature resisting discipline), but when problems occur, the lack of or malfunction of them is seen as another negative aspect of the structure.
And yet, beyond asking people to be conscientious in following the rules, such structures seem to be the only practical solution. Saving Changes...
step 1) stop hiring criminals to run your company and step 2) when you find out the folks who work for you are criminals BEAT them, don't JOIN them. Saving Changes...
Wow. What a relevant article to my .bomb debalacle. Having just been laid off by incompetent managers who laid excuse after excuse on us, I was fed up seeing what they clearly wouldn't admit: they (the quasi-"Leadership Team") refused to redirect the sails in times of rough waters and chart a new course.
How can PMO's and Project Managers help out? By refusing to be puppets for one thing. How often do we whine or complain about budgets and timelines that are too short, only to be told, "do it anyway", only to have the project fail. By being diligent, and gather all the right information we can, we can play their numbers game just as well as they can. If management is truly money grubbing greed-mongers as they seem, then appealing to their cost-sub-conscious will make them see the light.
This means we, as PM's, need to be pushy on ROI, costs, and potential revenue for the projects we're managing. We need to understand the business impacts AND be able to translate scope creep, requirements, timelines, etc. into terms that the business can understand. For example, "Add that requirement and our project slips by two months. LOSE TWO MONTHS AND YOU LOSE $500,000 IN POTENTIAL SAVINGS"...
Sorry...hate to preach. But I've lived this situation and will continue to live it, I guess. But I'll never stop fighting it. Saving Changes...
Michael WoodProject Manager / Business Analyst / Business Process Improvement Guru| Independent ContractorGig Harbor, Wa, United States
Kevin, We need more warriors in this fight against the Failure Models of the late 90's. To chase greed is to grasp air. Keep up the fight Saving Changes...
The answer to Michael's question seems to be taking a stand on business value delivered by projects. How many of us take on projects that are unlikely to deliver any return to our company, or the clients we are working for? How much of our work is the expression of a bad business idea that got funding?
There are some very powerful ideas in the Six Sigma approach to quality, but it starts with having leaders who want to listen to the voice of the customer. Until we have leaders who expect us to do the right things, we aren't going to make much progress in these areas. We've been seduced into thinking that less project management and software engineering discipline is fine as long as we finish the project on time and within budget. Never mind that the solution we built was more than the client asked for and less than they needed.
If we can't have enough faith in our leaders to challenge the bad project definitions we take on - or get assigned to after they are already sold - then we don't deserve to be successful. And we get leaders like Kenneth Lay and others, because they know no one is going to challenge the half baked ideas they tell us to do.
Look in the mirror and tell yourself you are doing the right project for the right reasons. If you can't do that, you're as much to blame as the CEO who gets the huge bonus, because you didn't say anything until it was too late. Saving Changes...
Michael WoodProject Manager / Business Analyst / Business Process Improvement Guru| Independent ContractorGig Harbor, Wa, United States
John, Clearly you get it. We all make a difference the only questions is whether or not it will be a positive or negative one.
These are chaotic and challenging times. Yet history teaches us that through such times new leaders are born.
I encourage these future leaders to speak up, take a stance and make the value-added differences we all so desparately need. Saving Changes...
