Fritzerland

Sharing my excursion through life

Deadly Sins of Project Management. Well at least my favorites!

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We all make mistakes. Project managers are certainly no exception – though, as a profession, we tend to be placed under much scrutiny at times. Therefore those mistakes may become big news and can be, depending on the mistake, quite damaging and costly to the projects we are running. In the world of project management, so many things need to be done; when they aren’t done, they can damage our project engagements. Or things that we do or actions that we actually do take, that can really mess things up, too. Sometimes we dip into our past or into our professional past, where we witnessed someone else’s project go south to gain this type of insight. Either way, it makes an impression, likely because of the chaos and destruction it caused on our projects.

I have worked with, for, and hired many project managers throughout my career. Along the way, I have noticed that many challenges PMs face are shared across the industry, vertical, professional services, and in-house PMO organizations. A project manager is supposed to be a leader, a facilitator, an advisor, and an advocate, not only for the project but also for the team, the business, and the cause. However, clients and stakeholders see project managers as utility people rather than leaders. This led me to wonder how we got into this situation in the first place.

On Time, On Budget, and On Scope

I interview a lot of people for project management positions, and one question I always ask is: “How do you define project success?” Eight times out of ten I get “on time, on budget, and on scope.” This is a canned answer that in the heads of most project managers who have gone through PMI or any othwer Project Managemnt certification. I would argue that it is not about on time, on budget and on scope. It is about managing expectations, delivering on business outcomes, and ensuring both client and team satisfaction. The reality is that things change. Very rarely is anything delivered on time, on budget and on scope. The business climate changes, the details are revealed, complexity increases, priorities shift and new stakeholders are introduced (to name a few). A great project manager understands the business objectives and drives the project to deliver on those objectives, all the while proactively anticipating needs, managing expectations, facilitating engagement, and fostering satisfaction. It is about driving results and making people feel good about the results.

The Journalist

I recently read a book that portrayed project managers as Journalists. Journalists are people who detach the goal of accurate reporting from the goal of project success. We all know these project managers. They are so focused on accurately reporting the news (the report’s detail, the report’s cadence, the report, the color of the report) that they completely lose sight of the why, why are we doing this project, and how success is defined. Project Managers know that they have to understand their projects’ true state and report accurately on them. Sometimes, however, they lose sight of the reason for all this attention to detail: making sure the project achieves its objectives. They adopt, as their goal, the accurate portrayal of the state of the project at all times. They become, in effect, journalists. Like film critics, project journalists believe — if only subconsciously — that they can succeed even if their project fails. Great project managers don’t just report on the news, they drive the news. They drive the direction of the project toward a successful outcome. They are active participants in the process and not innocent bystanders. Next time you write a status report, make sure you are reporting the news and taking an active role in making the news. Be a leader who helps solve tomorrow’s problems, versus just reporting on yesterday’s problems, and take accountability for outcomes.

Say No

No one likes to be told no. Project managers have a tough job; sometimes, a “no” answer is the most reasonable response. After all, they are stewards of budget, time, scope, quality, and experiences for their clients (or internal stakeholders) and their teams. They constantly toe the line, managing expectations and trying to make everyone happy. So when life happens — there are hiccups on a project, changes are made, new stakeholders become involved, etc. — the “no” answer that was once expedient becomes a killing word in a world that is always in flux. The dialogue ends, collaboration falters, and innovation is stifled. Instead of managing expectations by saying “no,” think about using the “yes, and…” principle. For example, a stakeholder says, “I’ve done some research, and I would like to add a new module to the system.” The answer should be, “Yes, I understand how that can help you achieve your business outcomes sooner… and we may be able to de-scope some additional functionality that may not have as much impact on your goals. As a result, we would need to increase the budget by only 100K,” versus the normal freak out: “What? Do you want to add scope? No, we can’t do that. It will make us go over budget, impact our timelines and introduce an additional scope.” The idea is to get people to collaborate and understand that any idea brought to the table can be accepted, added upon, and made better. “No” shuts people down; “Yes, and…” gets people to collaborate and build upon an idea, suggestion, or request to improve it.

Flying High

Effective project managers cannot get stuck in orbit, hovering over the project like an observer and a reporter. When they do, they never truly understand the drivers behind a project and never truly understand the intricacies. I always say the devil is in the details, and project managers who don’t dive in and get their hands dirty shouldn’t be surprised when things go haywire. An effective project manager has to be able to go micro and then elevate to macro. You have to understand the ins and outs of the project, however, you can’t get stuck there. You also have to be able to elevate yourself above the project, staying ahead of your team, anticipating your client’s or stakeholder’s needs and addressing them proactively, versus reactively. You have to keep the team connected to business outcomes and drive decision-making to align and support those outcomes. When you “fly high” and are not really connected to outcomes and don’t understand the details, your team doesn’t need you and your client doesn’t need you either. You become an administrative artifact, just reporting the news (as mentioned above). Get connected. Get engaged. Submerse yourself. Elevate yourself. Don’t get tangled in the web of details, but don’t skip out of orbit either. It is a careful balance and one that is mastered through artistry and experience, not science.

Make it big: The Problem

Your team is miserable. You are up against tight timelines. Your client or stakeholders have unrealistic expectations. Everyone is complaining, including you. You are not doing anyone any favors, but rather you are contributing to the misery. As a project manager, you are seen as a leader (whether you are one or not), and you are held to those expectations. Leaders do not sit on problems; they are problem solvers. They help contribute to the solution. You may listen, you may sympathize, and you want to develop empathy for your team, but at some point you have shift your team away from problems and toward a solution. You are empowered and should have the skills of influence and persuasion to help shift your team’s thinking and mindset. Next time your team is sitting around and complaining, elevate yourself and drive them to take accountability of the situation. Ask your team, “What is one small step we can take to change the current situation?” When all is said and done, perhaps the problem lies in the title. Perhaps “manager” is the wrong word. After all, “manager” has had centuries of connotative and pejorative meaning attached to it. Could it be that simply changing the title could change the way others perceive the position? Advisor maybe? Facilitator? These things might be a start, but I think the most effective and immediate answer is for project managers to change the way they think of themselves and start to change their behaviors. They should cultivate the habits, attitudes, mannerisms and leadership qualities that will make them valuable assets to the team and not mere artifacts.

The secretary

I once had a project manager on my team complain to me about how business stakeholders only saw him as a note taker, and treated him as an administrator. My advice to him was to stop taking notes. His eyes widened, and he looked at me in shock. I imagine this reaction was because he’d been taught throughout his career that one of the major responsibilities of a project manager is to take notes, capture decisions and document, document, document. I don’t disagree that creating alignment and visibility to decisions is critical, but in today’s world there are better mechanisms for capturing this information than to waste the time of a highly paid project manager taking notes. Rather, I always give my project managers this simple advice: do things that empower you; do not do the things that relegate you. When you are taking notes in a meeting, you are not actively engaged in discussion nor are you actively listening. You are not seen as a leader, you are not offering insights and opinions, and you are not being strategic. You are being tactical and administrative. Project managers need to elevate their game and start driving value for their customers, whether internal or external. Think about your clients, stakeholders and users, and make them the center of your story. Do they get value from your notes, or are your notes only valuable to you ? Your value stems from your voice, your experience, your ideas, your planning, and your ability to lead a team. That is what drives value, not taking notes.

The Daily Stand-up: it’s time to ditch it 

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The daily stand-up has been the talk of the town in recent years. Seeing the buzz around it, you might have the fomo (fear of missing out) feeling if you haven’t heard about it before. Words of wisdom: Daily stand-up meetings might be the quickest way to waste your time as a leader. Here’s why this meeting doesn’t work and what to do instead.

Why a daily stand-up meeting doesn’t work

The original intention behind a daily stand-up meeting is exceptionally sound. Popularized by the Agile methodology of project management, daily stand-up meetings are meant to share progress and identify any blockers the team is facing. For the few teams who strictly adhere to only sharing status updates and blockers, a daily stand-up can serve them well. However, it’s a different story for most of us in practice. We get overly excited and cram other intentions into our daily stand-ups: We want them to be an energizing morale booster for the team, a time to reflect on what went well, an opportunity for team members who don’t regularly talk to each other to feel connected…. No wonder daily stand-up meetings start to run over, with folks rambling and people disengaging. The best meetings focus on sharing information, making decisions, or building rapport. Try to do all three simultaneously, and you end up having too many oars, and rowing in too many directions. A bloated, ineffective meeting manifests.

20 hours down the drain per week

Say you can miraculously, consistently hold 10 – 15 minute daily stand-up meetings with your team. “Great!” you think to yourself. “That doesn’t feel like a lot of time.” Is the cost of the interruption worth it? A study by the University of California, Irvine, found that it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back on track after being interrupted. This means the time a team member needs to recoup from the daily stand-up is longer than the daily stand-up meeting itself. That’s an irreversible 25 minutes taken away from every single one of your team members every week. So if you have 10 team members, that’s 20 hours poured down the drain.

Lack of recorded history

Someone calls in sick and can’t make the daily stand-up meeting. A remote employee can’t participate in the daily stand-up because it’s 1 AM their local time when it’s 9 AM for the rest of the team. How do you ensure everyone is on the same page, especially as your team grows and becomes more spread out? With daily stand-up meetings being in-person or over Teams, you need a shared recorded history of progress. This particularly becomes apparent when someone new joins the team. You’d love to be able to share the week-to-week progress the team has made to give them full context on a project… But with daily stand-up meetings, that history is scattered in a series of random notes at best and doesn’t provide the new hire a complete picture.

So what to do instead?

Automate status updates with a tool

Status updates are critical to ensuring everyone on the team is on the same page. But they don’t need to happen during an in-person daily stand-up meeting. (Remember the 20 hours down the drain!) Instead, you can ask folks to take 30 seconds to write a few bullet points on what they worked on yesterday, what they plan to work on today, and any blockers they have. They can answer on their own time when it makes sense for them – and it doesn’t interrupt their workflow. You can use MS Teams, Slack, and Sharepoint; the automated status update is easy to organize.

Use a monthly all-hands or weekly staff meeting to focus on other functions

You’ve likely realized that, although well-intended, you have too many varying purposes for your original daily stand-up meeting (e.g., you wanted to align the team around a vision and help build rapport in the team). Decide what specific functions are most important in your team to foster, and then devote other meetings, processes, or tools to fulfilling these functions. For example, here are functions you could incorporate into a monthly all-hands meeting or weekly staff meeting…

  • Reflection: Use a weekly staff meeting to encourage shared reflection about what could be better. For example, you could pose the question, “Knowing what we know now, what would you change about how we approached this project?”
  • Recognition: Take time during a monthly all-hands meeting to highlight positive progress that’s been made. You could ask, for instance, “What’s something you’ve been surprised or encouraged to see us accomplish?” or “When is a moment you’ve felt proud of working on this project, and why?”
  • Connection: Carve out some time during the all-hands or staff meeting to enable people to connect with what they enjoy most about working on the team. You could ask fun, non-work related questions like, “What’s the thing you bought with your own money?” or “Who’s the most famous person you’ve met?”
  • Vision: Use an all-hands meeting to align folks in your team around the vision and how each team member contributes to that vision. For example, you could ask your team: “If someone were to ask you what our company’s vision is, would a clear answer come to mind? How do you feel your work is contributing to that vision?”

Naturally, there is no one right way to share progress in your team – and you’ll know best what will work for your team. But least of all, I hope you don’t continue with daily stand-up meetings merely because you’re “already doing it.” The best process results from what is deliberate and thoughtful – not what is convenient and familiar. Daily stand-up meetings are an antiquated relic. It’s time to sunset them.

Project Management and Flying: learnings from the flight deck

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Some 50 years since the inception of project management, more than 50% of IT projects still fail because they run out of time, resources, funds, etcetera. If pilots flew aircraft like we run projects, no one would ever fly. However, every day millions of people fly for work or pleasure and flights arrive on time almost 90 percent of the time, delayed mainly by weather. Airline travel is also the safest form of long-distance travel with a fatal accident rate of .022 per 100,000 hours flown. We have been flying for just over 100 years, but project management has been around since the building of the pyramids and the Great Wall. Are there any learnings we can take from flying? I think we can.

Aviation has always fascinated me. I’m on a plane almost every week and there isn’t a take-off or landing that bores me. When wheels go up, a slight panic ensues as any morsel of control vanishes completely. I am always thankful for the days  when the only major task performed is to safely fly the airplane, and the biggest decision is whether to have the chicken or the steak. Those days – like a real project – rarely occur.  As both a pilot and project manager, I believe lessons from thousands of pilots can be applied to project management as well. If we’ve learned anything from years of leading projects, it’s that great leadership is an essential skill to being a good project manager. Our leadership role means we lead and manage teams;  setting the vision, motivating the team, serving them, coaching them and inspiring others. As project managers, we lead from both a strategic and operational perspective – we communicate the vision and get team (and organizational) buy-in, we resolve conflict, set goals, and evaluate performance and make sure team members have the tools, money, space etc. that they need to get things done.

Communicate

One of the essential skills for project management is the ability to communicate well – understanding and being understood. Great communication is the crux of any relationship and so the effectiveness of a project manager’s communication has an impact not only on the project team but the client and stakeholders too. ‘I wish my project manager would stop giving me so many project updates.’ – said no client, ever. The more touch points you have with your client, the more solid the relationship will be, and the more likely the project will be a success. Good communication gets you continually realigned, and if you’re doing it frequently enough you’ll ensure you are successful as you’ll never deviate far from where the project needs to be to be a success.

One of the principles of safe flight is to “keep flying” the plane when unexpected things occur. That’s why all pilots learn to address emergencies in the following order

Aviate – fly the plane.
Navigate – know where you are and where you’re going.
Communicate – inform others about your situation.

This order has saved many lives as it keeps the focus on the right things. What good does a may-day call (communicate) do if you do not have the plane under control (aviate)? These principles can also be applied to managing projects. When a project exception occurs (often defined as an event that will likely cause budget and/or time tolerances to be exceeded), the standard approach is to create an exception plan and report. But sometimes you will encounter disruptive events that were not foreseen and that have a major impact on your project (in terms of time and budget). As this has an impact on all involved, management usually demands a report right away. But don’t start to focus your energy towards this exception report immediately. Your team needs your guidance now more than ever – you need to ensure that the team members will be working on meaningful tasks while you draft your exception plan. In other words: keep running your project! Only after that has been ensured, should you start drafting the exception plan to addresses the event(s). So the aviate, navigate, communicate approach can be applied to your project exceptions:

  • Keep running the project – ensure all team members are working on meaningful tasks (Aviate).
  • Create an exception plan that will bring your project out of trouble (Navigate).
  • Inform the stakeholders about the possible actions (Communicate).

Plan

Project scheduling is a core project management skill, but one that surprisingly, many managers do not pay much attention to,. But really, what is a project manager without a plan? Our ability to organize tasks in the right order, to hit the right outcome at the right time is a major part of our jobs as project manager, isn’t it? It is absolutely critical that as project managers, we give scheduling the serious attention it deserves, and along with it, monitoring progress as the project moves forward and making tweaks to ensure that everything stays on track. Proper planning means everything from meta to micro. There’s the large scale obvious planning we need to get right to  create great meeting plans, statements of work, estimates, timelines, resource plans and briefs, to the more mundane – planning out your day, who you’re going to talk to first, and how you are going to make time to keep your status documents up to date. Planning is all about finding ways to do all that you need to do as efficiently as possible.

A few weeks ago I shot an instruments approach with low ceiling and low visibility. I am perfectly trained to fly in the clouds and bad weather and the plane has great instruments so weather isn’t really a problem. I was entirely prepared to go around and execute the published missed approach. I planned for it and reviewed in my head a few times what I had to do: at my instruments minimum if I don’t see the runway I go “pitch up, maximum take off power, flaps to approach, positive rate of climb gear up, flaps up, navigation missed approach, autopilot on, announce going missed on radio”. That’s a lot to remember but if you’re well trained, fly enough and repeat it a few times as you approach, it’s going to be a piece of cake. I ended up landing at the planned airport as I saw the runway way before reaching my minimums, but I was ready for the alternate airport.

Lead

Project managers are always an easy target when projects don’t go to plan. Regardless of the circumstances, everyone wonders whether the project manager could have foreseen and prevented the risk before it became an issue. Project sponsors hate surprises and good risk management is one way of avoiding surprises, especially the nasty ones. Risks are often not urgent which means many project managers fail to consider risks as seriously as they should. You can stay on top of your project by controlling risk, and actively mitigating against it as far as you can. If we’ve learned anything from years of leading projects, it’s that great leadership is an essential skill to being a good project manager. Our leadership role means we lead and manage teams;  setting the vision, motivating the team, serving them, coaching them and inspiring others.

Don’t assume you always know best:  the “know-it-all” pilots can get themselves and their passengers killed. Consider the pilot who argues with air traffic control or ignores weather forecasts… or even ignores indications that the airplane is not performing optimally.  Business leaders make the same mistakes based on the premise that “I already know everything there is to know and the directive conflicts with my already established knowledge.'” The problem, of course, is that nobody really knows it all. There is always more to learn and there are always people who know more than we do,” Glenner notes. So when someone gives you a piece of advice, or tells you to follow a rule, at least take the time to consider that person may know something you don’t.

Don’t react to problems too quickly. When a flight goes wrong, it’s natural to feel compelled to do something immediately to fix the situation. But an overly fast reaction can do more harm than good. For example let’s say the pilot has discovered that his plane is losing altitude. An impulsive reaction might be to pull back on the yoke. The problem with this is that pulling back (without doing anything else) decreases airplane speed and may in fact cause a stall/spin reaction. There are many situations, in flight and in business, when something goes wrong and a quick response is needed. But it should always be a well-thought-out response. The remedy for impulsive behavior is the realization that there is time to think and then implement appropriately.  A pilot needs to check all his instruments (quickly) to identify what the real cause is. It could be that power was cut inadvertently, or weather may be causing the unexpected descent. Once the pilot has determined the cause of the problem, he or she can take appropriate action without risking making things even worse.

Don’t believe you’re invulnerable. It’s human nature to think that because nothing has gone wrong so far, nothing ever will, but that’s the kind of thinking that causes planes crashes. There are three sides of a rectangle that a pilot must fly to land properly on a runway. Each corner requires the correct turn and altitude, but these can be thrown off by weather and other conditions. Many pilots believe this can’t happen to them. Over time they fail to be as diligent or continue to educate themselves on the potential dangers. This complacency has caused many an accident, often with tragic results. In the business world the same kind of thinking can lead companies to either dismiss a risk, or have only vague plans for dealing with it. That creates a greater risk: the risk that something can derail a project without a set plan to remedy it. Instead a formal risk assessment discussion, resulting in a written plan for dealing with adverse contingencies. While you won’t be able to anticipate every problem, you can give yourself the best chance to come out all right if a problem does occur.

Don’t go it alone. Some pilots–and some entrepreneurs–develop a macho, I-can-do-it attitude that leads to trouble when they try to take on more than they can handle. For example: Consider a pilot who only had three hours of sleep the night before a flight. For commercial pilots, this would likely be a no-go factor. For private pilots, it should also be a no-go factor, except some pilots believe they can make the flight, lack of sleep notwithstanding. The dangers of this behavior in an airplane are obvious, but it’s dangerous in business too. If you are struggling with too much responsibility, too many hours of work, or tasks that you don’t have the know-how to do–get help. 

Hello 2023, what to expect!

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Just think of what the project management industry looked like ten years ago. Fewer methodologies, lesser tools, smaller teams, and simpler projects. Cut to 2023, and things have changed tremendously as the teams are no longer smaller, and the projects are no longer simpler. Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, said,” Change is the only constant in life.” The project management landscape is changing rapidly with evolving technologies, tools, and the latest trends. And the change doesn’t seem to slow down. Let’s cut to the chase and take a look at 2023.

Becoming data-oriented with BI and BA

As technology advances, project managers are increasing their use of data insights to make informed decisions to handle projects better and escalate business growth. In 2023, data has a high chance of becoming a significant protagonist in guiding project management measures and activities. We predict project professionals will rely even more on relevant insights using Business Intelligence (BI) and Business Analysis (BA). BI is considered a descriptive form of data analytics, responsible for presenting past and present insights into what has happened or is currently happening in a particular process. These pieces of information give managers access to realistic metrics to operate with and better visibility into projects, processes, and their results. On the other hand, BA is aimed at the future, and it analyzes data to predict challenges better and adapt to provide improved outcomes.

Inclusion of hybrid project management approaches

In the post-pandemic era, there have been renewed efforts to find a more reliable and efficient methodology for project success. To that end, organizations have begun experimenting with a hybrid approach in which different elements from two or more methodologies are brought together. It is no longer about agile, scrum or lean only but rather about bringing specific attributes together for increased flexibility in driving project success. This has enabled organizations to find unique approaches to suit specific industries and projects. The hybrid concept extends to the development of project team structures as well. In her article “The Future of Project Management is Hybrid,” Olivia Montgomery found that 37% of teams are cross-functional and led by a dedicated PM. In addition to leveraging untapped skills from new team members, cross-functional teams can share their department’s best practices for the project team to decide whether they want to incorporate them into their own processes.

Business demand will spike

Last year Mulesoft interviewed 800 global IT leaders from organizations of 1000+ employees. Their report found that only 37% of IT teams could complete all the projects asked of them in 2021, and they were asked to complete 30% more projects in 2022. IT teams can expect this to increase in 2023 as the pressure on organizations to digitize services quickly at scale, innovate boundlessly, and create new revenue channels shows no signs of easing. Indeed, in a study by Forbes, when asked which trend is having the greatest impact on their business, CEOs put ‘Accelerating technology and digital transformation’ at the top of the list, and 71% said they are planning a major new transformation initiative. It’s excellent news for the end-users who will benefit from these advances. But if you are charged with delivering these initiatives – with ever tighter deadlines and limited access to resources – you’d be forgiven for feeling a mild sense of dread.

Adapt Disruptive Technology

No one in the business world needs to be told about technology and disruption. It’s happened and is still happening in every industry worldwide. A 2018 report from Forbes Insights and the Project Management Institute (PMI) titled “The C-Suite Outlook” found that while 80% of organizations surveyed around the globe had experienced “significant transformation using disruptive technology,” only 25% of those initiatives yielded tangible results. In its latest 2019 Pulse of the Profession® report, PMI digs deeper into the issue. Disruptive technology and the rapid pace of change it causes is “the new normal,” according to the report. Disruptive technologies force businesses to change what they do and how they do it. Technological advances like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and predictive analytics have disrupted businesses positively by offering organizations a way to increase efficiency, reach new markets and make better, data-driven decisions. Print media outlets, music record stores, and travel agencies are examples of businesses disrupted by technology. However, businesses that are committed to restructuring their strategy based on the rise of disruptive technologies can thrive in an era of constant change. Technology has become a central part of project management. The theme throughout the Pulse report is that project managers need a high PMTQ – project management technology quotient. In other words, they need a firm grasp on integrating technology into project management for improved results. This situation – driven by disruptive technology and the need to understand and put it to use – has led to “the new normal.”