Author: George Pitagorsky

George Pitagorsky, integrates core disciplines and applies people centric systems and process thinking to achieve sustainable optimal performance. He is a coach, teacher and consultant. George authored The Zen Approach to Project Management, Managing Conflict and Managing Expectations and IIL’s PM Fundamentals™. He taught meditation at NY Insight Meditation Center for twenty-plus years and created the Conscious Living/Conscious Working and Wisdom in Relationships courses. Until recently, he worked as a CIO at the NYC Department of Education.

The Caring Manager

Written by George Pitagorsky on June 5, 2013. Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on The Caring Manager

Pitagorski FeatureArticle June5 What does it mean to be a caring manager who is there to serve his subordinates as well as to make sure they perform and achieve organizational objectives.

Recent incidents reminded me of how easy it is for a manager to lose track of the importance of making sure his/her subordinates are properly cared for and respected.

In one case a manager verbally abuses and threatens her subordinates when they fail to meet her expectations.

In another case, a long time employee, who for several years, had been competently performing work well beneath her capacity had made it known that she would like a transfer to a role that was both needed in the organization and which she was trained to play.

Her direct manager, perhaps satisfied with the status quo or just too busy to take the effort to find a replacement and upgrade the employee’s role, did nothing about the request for over two years. Finally, the employee escalated the issue and with the help of others outside of her direct line of control, a transfer to a better position was arranged.

Servant Leadership

The simple idea that a manager is there to care for his or her subordinates is expressed in the work of Robert K Greenleaf on Servant Leadership. Servant leadership is a set of leadership practices and a management philosophy that begins with the idea that a manger is there to serve his subordinates so they are better able to perform.

Servant-leaders share power, put the needs of others first, and enable people to develop and perform optimally.

According to Lao Tzu:

“The best leaders are those the people hardly know exist.

The next best is a leader who is loved and praised.

Next comes the one who is feared.

The worst one is the leader that is despised.

If you don’t trust the people, they will become untrustworthy.

The best leaders value their words, and use them sparingly.

When she has accomplished her task, the people say, “Amazing: we did it, all by ourselves!”

Characteristics of a Servant Leader

Following are the principle characteristics of a servant leader. Managing in accord with these principles leads to a dynamic working environment that is effective, fun and free of the fear of failure.

Listening: paying attention to what employees do and say. The unspoken is as at least as important as the spoken. Using intuition and analysis to get what is communicated the manager identifies needs and uncovers issues that get in the way of optimal performance.
Empathy: employees are people who need respect and appreciation for their personal and professional development. The manager puts herself in their place to better understand their needs.
Healing: A servant leader tries to help people solve their problems and conflicts in relationships.
Awareness: A servant leader needs to be mindfully aware of himself, his environment with its values and people around.
Persuasion: A Servant Leader seeks consensus rather than dictating from an authoritarian place of power. Openness and persuasion are more important than power and control
Conceptualization: A servant leader thinks about short term day-to-day operational needs as well as the longer term needs of the organization, its people and its environment.
Foresight: The manager analyzes risk and integrates tactics and strategies to learn from the past and achieve long and short term goals
Stewardship: Managers are both stewards of their organizations and the society as a whole.
Commitment to the growth of people: People have a value beyond their roles as workers. The personal, professional, and spiritual growth of employees should be developed through training programs and involvement in decision making.
Building community: A servant leader seeks to create a community within her organization or project and across organizations and projects.[4]

These characteristics are meant to provide a framework for a leadership approach rather than a set of rules. Greenleaf stressed that it is each person’s responsibility to reflect on these and use them for personal development.

Practicality

What does servant leadership and being a caring manager have to do with project management?

Project management is all about performance. We manage so as to improve the probability of successfully completing projects. Success is measured by our ability to achieve objectives – satisfying stakeholders by getting things done within time and cost constraints. The stakeholders are not only the clients and sponsors but also the project performers.

On a purely personal level, for most people, serving and caring makes the care taker feel good (there is scientific evidence that being kind is rewarding for its own sake). From a purely practical point of view, a servant leadership based approach is a means towards improving the way work is done.

The loyalty, trust and appreciation that arises in employees and team members who feel they are cared for and respected by their manager transforms itself into higher levels of performance. Commitment to growth serves the need of continuity of the organization while other characteristics promote a healthy culture that reduces undesirable turnover and enables optimal performance.

The Challenge

The challenge is to personally apply the principles of servant leadership and the advice of Lao Tzu in a way that balances caring with the ability to achieve project and business objectives.

The challenge is also to promote these principles in your projects and organizations to create a culture in which there is no conflict between getting work done optimally and the health and well being of the staff.

What does being a caring manager mean? It means that the manager takes the effort to express his or her appreciation of the good work being performed instead of taking it for granted and only expressing negative feedback when there is a slip up. It means giving constructive criticism. It means making sure that subordinates have clear direction and the capacity to do the work assigned to them. It means having their back when it comes to supporting them in conflicts. It means treating subordinates as adults and peers. It means considering what is best for employees when making decisions. And it means providing opportunities for growth in an environment that is pleasant to work in.

Are you up for the challenge?

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

Managing Superiors and Performance

Written by George Pitagorsky on May 15, 2013. Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on Managing Superiors and Performance

Some responses to last month’s article on managing incompetence led me to continue on the subject with a follow up about the word incompetence itself and how to influence superiors to improve performance.

Incompetence – A Strong Word

One reader commented that the word incompetence is a “turn off” and that competence has multiple dimensions – technical performance, collaboration and communication skills, etc.

Yes, incompetence is a strong word. Labeling a person as incompetent in a session to address their performance and competence level would tend to shut down the communication process and make remediation difficult, if not impossible. When we address issues with the people we are managing we need to be sensitive to their feelings and how words may affect them. In short, starting a performance review with a statement like “Your incompetent” is not recommended!

However, when addressing competence in an article or in a conversation about managing performance, using words that are direct, strong and meaningful, words like competence and incompetence, can add value. There is too much beating around the bush. While, being kind and considerate, let’s be direct, even at the risk of being politically incorrect.

Objectivity

There are many degrees of competence and many opinions. There is a high degree of subjectivity and need to be sensitive to the needs of each situation.

Objectivity is required. Base performance and competency assessments and discussions on clearly written and mutually understood expectations.

To say performance is deficient without a comparison of that performance against an established standard is unskillful. Unfortunately, it is not all that common to have clearly defined performance standards. To a degree, we can rely on collective subjectivity – several people agreeing that an individual or group is deficient without a clear, formal standard. But I is dangerous. A group can agree to a level of competence that is too low or too high.

We need to support subjectivity with concrete evidence, even though it may be anecdotal, that performance is deficient. What problems have been caused, what targets have been missed, what expectations not met? If you cannot point to specific instances then there is little hope of addressing the competency issue and improving performance. Recognition of competency shortfalls is a starting point for improvement.

Managing Up

If the need for sensitivity and objectivity is great when working with peers and subordinates, it is even greater when managing the competency of superiors.

Another reader wrote that “I understand the concepts of trying to manage those that are a direct or indirect subordinate. How would you deal with a superior? Are you just out of luck? I know for myself I conduct 360 reviews with my team and I tell them to be brutally honest if there is something I need to work on. I provide my team with a questionnaire based on my Job description and required competencies. I indicate that I know I’m not perfect and I only want to improve as a team leader. If only I can get my superior to do the same.”

Managing less than competent superiors is not easy. Sensitivity, subtlety, objectivity (are they really incompetent or just not living up to your expectations, for example), skill, resolve and courage are all needed. The courage is about taking the risk that you may upset your boss and suffer the consequences. Often direct confrontation is too scary and may be ineffective.

An alternative to direct confrontation as way to manage those above is to shine so brightly as an example that your managers begin to emulate you. Setting an example, particularly when it comes to how to lead and manage requires resolve and patience. The resolve is to keep doing what you know is right even though you are not getting support or recognition from above and possibly even resistance from your peers and subordinates. The patience is about being able to wait for results without requiring them. Do what you do and let the results emerge. Be objective. Are the results positive? Are they meaningful?

This approach does not directly address the problem of a weak superior but it does help to minimize the impact of suboptimal management performance. You are not pushing down the negativity, you are doing your best to create some resistance and create change within your scope of control and influence.

Often this is a long shot. If you make no headway and run out of patience, fire your boss! That means finding a new position and leaving. If that is not a practical possibility it comes down to making the best of it. Accept what you cannot change, change what you can and be wise enough to know the difference.

On the macro level – It’s All About Performance

Competency is a critical aspect of performance management and performance management is a complex process. Success in addressing competency and performance issues depends greatly on the attitude of the people involved and the organization’s level of maturity.

In addition to setting a positive example, you can begin to discuss management practices and the importance of performance assessment and continuous improvement with the goal to open the organization to a learning dialogue. A learning dialogue means communicating about improving performance by improving processes. In this dialogue the performance of individual players is not assessed and discussed. Instead the discussion is focused on goals, benefits, best practices and barriers.

In the absence of a culture of process awareness and assessment, what Peter Senge refers to as a learning organization, it is up to individuals to take the leap into the uncharted space of facilitating critical analysis of performance. Varying degrees of formality are possible. At the onset it may be very informal. Discussions arise out of specific incidents or interesting articles or comments. Individuals make a commitment to make the shift from complaining to the more productive direction of cause analysis and problem solving. Often the dialogue begins without the performance challenged person or people involved. Ultimately they must be drawn in to create change.

As a core group begins to recognize the benefits of and possibilities for improvement they enlist others. Once there is a sufficient argument, recommend greater formalization of process improvement/competency improvement to senior management. This may require a business case at some point but can begin with a good oral argument to a friendly and receptive leader. In effect, the dialogue plants the seeds of process awareness and that leads to learning and improvement.

Again, patience comes into play. Dialogue is about the exchange of ideas without attachment to changing anyone or anything. Let go of judgment and disappointment. Once the seeds begin to take root and the ideas spread and are more widely accepted there is the need to shift from dialogue to planning and action. Action is most likely to be effective if it comes from above and is institutionalized. It is a long haul.

When patience runs out or when it is clear that the long haul is measured in life times rather than years – move along. Fire your boss. Until then, stay positive, do what you can in your scope of control to be part of the solution.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

Managing Incompetence

Written by George Pitagorsky on April 10, 2013. Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on Managing Incompetence

Incompetence is a strong word. It means the inability to perform; a lack of competence.

There are degrees of competence – master, expert, competent, marginally competent, marginally incompetent, incompetent, disruptively incompetent, … .

Competence goes beyond the relatively easy to measure performance of concrete skills to include behavioral /relationship competencies, emotional intelligence, thinking skills, mindfulness, concentration and self awareness.

Someone who is highly skilled and able to perform competently when working on his or her own can be incompetent when working in a team. A person’s level of competence is influenced by a complex of communication, collaboration, conflict management, emotional intelligence, and concrete skills.

Another person may be less than competent in applying concrete skills, for example a programmer who can’t program very well or an analyst that gets the numbers wrong, a teacher that doesn’t teach well. But that person may be competent in the sense that he/she communicates and collaborates well and is open to learning to acquire or improve skills, and , in the extreme be ready to acknowledge the need for moving on. Others are incompetent across the board, with neither concrete nor behavioral and awareness competencies.

How often are your projects and operations burdened with less than competent players who may be on management, technical performance, administrative or executive levels?

The Impact on the Team

A less than competent player on the team places a burden on the other team members and jeopardizes the team’s success. The work needs to get done and done well. That often means that the more competent players must take on work they may not have had to take on had the full team been highly competent. This may lead to dissatisfaction among the team members, particularly the higher performing ones. It may lead to cost and schedule impact as errors and omissions occur, rework is required and performers are over worked. When competency shortfalls are in the behavioral realm, emotion based interpersonal conflict and misunderstandings sap team energy.

In some cases incompetent players in influential positions can be the cause of poor decisions which lead the team into in misguided directions.

Take for example a person assigned to a team responsible for selecting a vendor for a large complex program. The person failed to read and/or understand the Request for Proposal and the project charter which clearly (for the other members of the seven person team) stated the nature of the program and the role the procurement would take. The person, instead of asking questions during briefings and Q&A sessions, he began to raise issues with senior managers on the program’s steering committee, making statements that were inaccurate, based on a serious misunderstanding of the program. This led to a flurry of activity to dispel the misconceptions. The positive result was to have an opportunity to inform people and clarify understandings.

Depending on the individuals and their process, the person, continuing on as a member of the team might harbor resentment because he felt that he was made to look foolish for having missed the point of his assignment. The other members of the team might lose respect for the person but have to continue to work with him and his slowness to understand and unwillingness to acknowledge his need to ask questions, listen to the answers and do the required reading.

Cause

When we analyze this incident, we can find a generic cause that underlies many such incidents. The person’s performance capabilities and shortcomings in this case were known, yet no-one, neither his superiors, nor peers, no-less his subordinates, had ever confronted the issue. The organization’s weak performance management process and a culture that accepts marginal if not incompetent performers as a norm contributed to the problem.

While failings in the hiring process contribute to the presence of incompetent performers, the lack of an effective accountability based performance management process is the root cause of having incompetent performers on teams.

In some fields there are structured evaluation or assessment programs to track the competency of individual practitioners, but even in those fields incompetent performers slip through. Often, there are little or no defined objective criteria and many of the criteria are in the interpersonal/behavioral realm and are hard to quantify.

Competency assessment and competency improvement through training, coaching, mentoring and on the job performance reviews are means for managing competency and ensuring that an organization’s staff is made up of competent players and that incompetent players are identified, remediated and, if necessary, eliminated.

Managing the Work at Hand

But, these are long term solutions that do not help an individual project manager (PM) who is faced with an incompetent team member. What options does the PM have?

He/she can confront the issue directly by creating a clear case with objective proof of incompetence and bring it to his superiors for action. This, in a healthy environment, seems the best course of action. It would ideally lead to a replacement or at least some leeway regarding meeting tight deadlines and budgets. It would lead to remedial action to train, retrain or eliminate the poor performer.

What if the culture or the PM’s manager does not support such a direct approach? What if the manager says something like “He’s been around for years and no one else complained, just make due and don’t bother me with this.”? Or, “He’s the boss’ brother in-law and he’s not going away?” What if the incompetent person is an employee of the client firm for which the PM is working as a consultant and there is no mechanism for performance review?

In one case a person in a technical position was not able to perform his work competently. There were errors, delays and poor quality results. There was no time or budget for training and the performer’s manager did not acknowledge the shortcomings. The project was being managed by consultants and the marginal performer worked for the client. The approach was to assign the person to tasks that were administrative, short, and non-critical, and to closely supervise the performer or team them with a peer who would make sure quality was acceptable. If the performer’s work was so poor that it had to be redone, it was given it to someone else and the complexity of tasks assigned was reduced.

We found a right balance and made the best of it.

It seems that finding the right balance and making the best of any situation is key to managing anything. With competency issues, it is important to objectively assess the situation, putting aside “should be” thinking. Focus on the situation and what you can do about it.

What is happening? How is it effecting the project? What are the time and cost constraints and risks? How has this issue normally been handled? What is the environment like? How aware and mindful are the players? How emotionally intelligent?

What are the options for remediation, elimination, and managing current work and its effective performance?

With answers to these questions you can craft a practical solution while considering the personal feelings of all parties.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

When to Adapt and When to Resist

Written by George Pitagorsky on March 20, 2013. Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on When to Adapt and When to Resist

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society” J Krishnamurti

Pitagorski FeatureArticle March20 Adaptability is an important trait. It is what one needs to be effective in changing situations or when moving from one environment to another. For a consultant, new employee or anyone who is working in an organization that is undergoing change it is necessary to be able to adjust to current conditions in order to manage projects or simply to be an effective team member.

But what if the environment is unhealthy? Does one adjust to it and become part of the problem? Or, does one resist and attempt to inject health?

Of course there is no single easy answer. As with all complex issues the answer is “It depends.” It depends on just how sick the environment is, what one’s level of authority is, ones role, skill level as change agent or facilitator, and more.

Behavioral Issues

Take a situation in which a new employee, an experienced project manager, finds himself in a position reporting to a verbally abusive boss, who gives incomplete and fuzzy direction and then loudly berates, using vulgar language, those reporting to her for making errors when they fail to meet her unstated expectations.

This has been accepted as normal behavior. The staff has adjusted to it. The new guy is appalled. He is faced with a tough decision. Does he confront his boss and make it clear that their behavior is unacceptable? Does he go to the HR department to register a complaint when everyone tells him that the HR department won’t do anything and the situation has been going on for years? Does he adjust to the sick society like everyone else?

Some project environments are only interested in result, successfully completed projects. If the bottom line results are good then senior management doesn’t want to rock the boat and deal with things like abusive behavior. Behavioral issues are just too touchy-feely.

Other environments lack the transparency that would let senior management know about such behavior; nobody complains so no one knows. If anyone does complain there must be something wrong with them; they’re just trouble makers.

In this situation the new guy resigned after confronting the abusive boss and getting more abuse. Upon leaving he was given a rare exit interview during which he reported the issue. There was no change. The guy was seen as a trouble maker and the boss was not held accountable. Perhaps verbally abusive behavior was not important enough to rate as an issue alongside sexual abuse or discrimination. The job was getting done as well as it ever had. No one else was complaining.

Process Dysfunction

Process dysfunction is another form of organizational sickness. Here the situation is exemplified by operating procedures and policies that get in the way of progress or reduce productivity and effectiveness.

For example, a manager who controls application development and who reports directly to the CEO unilaterally decides which requests for automation are to be brought to the application development group for estimates and ultimate action. He views requests for the elimination of unwieldy manual processes as whining by department heads who can’t justify their requests with hard dollar savings or impacts on sales. In one instance a relatively easy to automate process, a work flow, was quickly dismissed without even determining how much the development activity would cost. This dismissal was done in the face of input from three departments that said there would be elimination of frustrating effort, much rework and the probable ability to take advantage of vendor discounts for early payment that were being missed because of errors and delays arising out of the manual process.

The department heads have adapted. They adjusted their expectations to the current situation, feeling as if they had no recourse but to continue doing business as usual. They could not justify their request based solely on bottom line savings or increased revenues.

Consultants working for the manager as well as his direct reports see the problem for what it is but have no recourse other than to go over the bosses head and suffer the consequences for doing so.

Adjusting in this case means allowing a dysfunctional process to perpetuate.

Change the System

In both of these situations the problem is systemic. The individuals involved are caught in a sick system. How do we manage such situations?

From within it is very difficult without support from the very top and even then one must be careful not to move too quickly or directly confront entrenched people in influential and important positions.

In the first case candid 360 degree appraisals would bring the abusiveness issue to light, confront the abuser and possible get them to change their ways or be eliminated. Implementing 360 degree appraisals is a major change, often taking years of well managed facilitation. It takes time for people who have adjusted to a “sick society” to un-adjust and readjust to new paradigm for health.

In the second case, a portfolio management process, in which either the department heads or someone representing them has a significant role in deciding which requests to consider and act upon, will resolve the problem.

This requires a commitment from above to change the status quo. The person in charge must give up dictatorial authority and open to a value system that includes making life easier for the people working in the organization, even when that doesn’t directly lead to bottom line savings.

There needs to be recognition that eliminating unnecessary manual effort and the inefficient work flows that go along with it is a valuable end in itself because it frees people to think and shift their attention to quality and to serving internal clients more effectively.

Values Based Cultural Change

In both cases a cultural change is needed. Cultural change must be motivated by something of value. Increasingly it is being recognized that working in a healthy environment leads to better performance. Happy people work better than unhappy people. Chronic “sickness” along with its less than optimal performance becomes unacceptable as a norm.

Theory X (command and control, no-feedback allowed) management styles have long been viewed as dysfunctional, yet they persist, often because there is a lack of transparency and a fear of disrupting the status quo. This is even more pronounced when the job market is tight and fear of the consequences of job loss is high. It is exacerbated by systems, policies and procedures that are antiquated and focused too heavily on immediate bottom line results rather than medium and long term benefits.

It is each individual’s responsibility to at least think twice about adjusting to a sick society/system. Have the courage to find appropriate ways of bringing health to your situations. If you are in a position to do so, institute regular process reviews and promote candid feedback regarding management performance. If that is above your level of authority, see if you can begin dialogue with peers, subordinates and superiors about what it means to approach optimal performance and what stands in the way of doing it.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

Avoid Unskillful Multitasking to Estimate and Perform Optimally

Written by George Pitagorsky on February 13, 2013. Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Avoid Unskillful Multitasking to Estimate and Perform Optimally

Pitagorsky FeatureArticle Feb13 It seems that there is a never ending flow of work and that new work is almost always higher priority than old work. This leads to multitasking and “thrashing”.

Thrashing is the constant shifting from one task or project to another as priorities change. In the extreme, it gets so bad that nothing ever gets finished. More often, everything takes longer to accomplish and with more effort.

Portfolio management and the management of ad hoc work, when done well, will resolve the problem by moderating the flow of work to permit efficient and effective performance.

Unfortunately these management activities are often not done so well, if at all. That is because those with the power to change the system do not understand that a “pull” based approach is far more effective than the typical “push’ approach. In a pull approach work is pulled from a queue by performers when they are ready to take it on as opposed to one that pushes work to performers as it is identified.

Eliyahu Goldratt addressed this issue in his work on Theory of Constraints and Critical Chain. The gist of the Theory of Constraints is that in any situation in which resources are a constraint for getting work accomplished it is better to moderate the flow of work so that the resources are not overloaded and forced to multitask. This is so because multitasking leads to inefficiencies. The inefficiencies are caused by stopping and starting tasks rather than completing them before moving on to the next task and/or by overtaxing the resources and forcing them to perform poorly.

Working too Fast

There is a famous comedy bit from the I Love Lucy Show in which Lucy, working on an assembly line that keeps increasing its speed, is overwhelmed with chocolates to package and much of the product ends up on the floor or in her mouth instead of the box.

Her panicked attempt at keeping up with the pace set by the conveyor belt is not unlike the attempt by software developers and other project performers to keep up with an unmediated flow of work that exceeds their capacity.

Given more work than they can handle, performers increase their speed. Working too fast is a primary cause of poor product quality. Performers cut corners, eliminate quality assurance and control steps, and make more mistakes than they would if they were working at a more reasonable pace. Note that this does not imply that performers should work slowly. There is an optimal pace that is neither too slow nor too fast and that is sustainable. Find that pace and keep to it. If there are emergency situations that call for high speed and they occur infrequently, that’s ok. If they occur chronically then the pace will not be sustainable and there will be failure and/or burnout.

Multitasking

In addition to working too fast, performers multitask to manage an unmediated flow of work. Unskillful multitasking is inefficient. Starting and stopping a task in the middle and then coming back to it requires ramp up and ramp down. Ramp up is the process of reaching the optimal pace for the work. Ramp down is the process of documenting, filing and otherwise putting down the work being done so that when you return to it your ramp up time is relatively short. If you don’t spend time ramping down, ramping up is far more effortful.

Efficient work scheduling calls for performing tasks to logical completion points before putting one down to pick up another. When a task is completed and its deliverable is turned over to someone else for testing or editing, or when a point is reached where there is a wait for a dependency, then it is time to pick up another task.

With projects, it has been shown that rather than starting multiple projects so that they are worked on in parallel, it is more effective to finish one before picking up another. When projects are performed in parallel all might finish at the same time. When the start times are phased properly, in keeping with the capacity of the resources, the projects that were started earlier will finish far earlier than they would if they were done in parallel. The projects started later will most likely finish before the time they would have finished if they were worked in parallel with the others. Why? Because the overhead of ramping up and ramping down is avoided.

Portfolio and Resource Management

How best to manage the work flow to maximize productivity and deliver quality outcomes in a timely manner? The answer is portfolio and resource management.

Note that portfolio management, in this article, is given a broad definition. It refers to the process of deciding which projects or tasks to perform and in what sequence. It prioritizes the work based on a variety of criteria. Often we think of portfolio management as something done by senior managers at a high level to initiate projects. But every project manager and performer has a portfolio of projects and/or tasks. While they often do not have a choice as to which ones they will perform, they should have the choice of when to start and stop their projects.

The list of work to be done plus the work in progress is the portfolio.

Portfolio management and resource management go together. Managing a portfolio of work without managing the human and material resources is not enough.

On the individual or small group level, performers assess the list of work to be done and their availability. They decide, based on established priorities and constraints, which projects or tasks are to be picked up next. It is their responsibility to fight the impulse to start everything as soon as it is identified. They work on one thing at a time and take it to completion or to a logical break point. Then they pick up the next piece.

On the higher levels, the executives and managers who make the decisions about which projects will be done and what their priorities are must understand the nature of resource constraints and promote best practices on the performance level. They must give project managers, team leaders and performers the authority to manage their work. They must promote a pull based approach that will optimize performance. They must remember that it is not when tasks begin that matters, it is when they end and the quality of their outcomes.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.