I feel many of the foundations of project management are taught without urgency and as if things were frozen in time. We actually work in a very dynamic environment.
Though I have been teaching project management for years, I have changed my focus to one of teaching project delivery instead of just project management in the past few years. Knowing how to deliver a project is much more valuable in today's environment than just knowing how to manage a project. The Project Delivery Expert (PDE) or Project Execution Expert (PEE-ok, this may be a tough sell!) needs to have the skills, acumen, and confidence to actually deliver a project with the constraints of a tight scope, a finite budget, a tight timeframe, with limited resources from a matrixed organization, with a focus on quality, trying to keep everyone informed at all times with information they feel pertinent, and having to delivery within the confines of a siloed organization. Though that doesn’t fit all environments, it is the combination of the environments I have seen over 27 years in project management. The focus on project management lacks the urgency of inertia and "getting it done!" If we changed the title from PM to PDE, I think people would be more accountable and we would see a lot more results. I would also pay PDEs for what they deliver within the constraints above.
I have worked to provide many solutions in the areas of PMO, PPM, Governance, project/program management, and project management tools. Most are focused on looking back to see how you have done or looking at today, hoping you know where you are. I think we need to change our focus to be more of looking ahead. I want to know what you have done, of course, to be sure we are managing to expectations; but I also want to plan ahead to avoid issues and risks. I want to plan a project as a military exercise and plan out all areas of uncertainty and train to deliver by actually providing exercises to expose areas for skill development and the ability to act as an autonomous team to accomplish what needs to be done without having to go to a senior team for guidance or coaching on every aspect of the project.
I believe if companies actually want project delivery, they need to invest in delivery skills for their teams. The PDE needs to be given skills and the authority to lead team through challenges and deliver to scope. The project teams should be trained as a team and develop the confidence in their team members to deliver what is called for. If a team is trained as a team and is given challenges to solution as a team, they will succeed in ways many countries and companies haven’t ever seen.
We can combine the energy and enthusiasm going into Lean and CPI efforts to deliver projects. The teams will plan, design, and deliver as teams and continue to develop their skills and experiences as they deliver projects. I have seen many teams created, only to be torn apart as they reach their highest potential for delivery as a project completes.
In many projects, I have seen this enthusiasm and confidence only from consultants and contractors because they have had the fortune to have the right training or exposure to situations to learn necessary skills. Many internal project teams lack the same confidence because they don’t have trusted leaders, don’t know the skills of their team mates, or haven’t been exposed to an environment allowing them to actually provide project delivery instead of just project management. They need to try new approaches as a team and stay together to learn and grow from experience.
I really believe companies will be able to finally achieve “more with less” in this environment because people will be at the highest level of Maslow’s hierarchy and not working at the lowest levels as I have seen in many project management teams. They will actually become project delivery teams and they will be led by a Project Delivery Expert. Some teams may be able to grow to the state of self-actualization and be able to rotate team members into the PDE position for different projects.
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Stephanie JaegerLead Consultant| Jaeger Consultants LtdNairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
Thanks for sharing this thought provoking article, John.
I agree with the urgency of project delivery. Especially if you are managing client projects in an environment, where your core business is installation projects. In this kind of situation the project manager often does not have much input on the project processes used and the project management strategy. Often these will be developed by a senior manager, who does not manage client projects (any more), but gets the input from the client facing project managers. In this kind of situation Project Delivery expertise is what is required most by the project manager more than anything. He does not have the time or mandate to get caught up in developing new processes and papers etc for each project, yet all the projects are similar. These projects just need minimal client specific adjustments of the basic methodology. Saving Changes...
Jufran HelmiProject Management Consultant| CEO of PT. Telaga Cipta IndonesiaDepok, Indonesia
There are three terms: Project Delivery, Project Execution, and Project Work. Are there similar? What is the difference? Saving Changes...
