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Author: Kiron Bondale

Applying “A Sense of Urgency” to Project Management

Written by Kiron Bondale on . Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Applying “A Sense of Urgency” to Project Management

In his most well-known book, Leading Change, Dr. John Kotter presents an eight step model for transforming organizations with the first step requiring the establishment of a sense of urgency. Dr. Kotter expands his guidance for completing that first step in his follow-up book, A Sense of Urgency.

While Dr. Kotter’s premise is that companies and individuals need to develop and sustain a true sense of urgency to successfully survive today’s fast pace of change, his lessons also apply to project management.

This might seem like an odd topic to write about – project managers frequently feel over-pressured to deliver and that same pressure often translates to their team members. However, even on critical, high visibility projects, it can be difficult to sustain focused, productive true urgency.

Dr. Kotter states that the enemies of true urgency are complacency and a false sense of urgency.

Don’t these also apply to projects?

When you are leading a long duration project, it can be a common behavior for the team to develop tunnel-vision, focusing all their efforts on that next critical milestone. Through a combination of good team work, but also excessive heroics, that milestone is achieved. But what happens afterwards if the next milestone is more than a few weeks off? Does the team maintain their productivity at the same pace as their lead up to the milestone or do they breathe a sigh of relief and take their foot off the gas pedal? A sense of complacency has settled in. If you were to map the output level against time, you might see the build up to a milestone and then the drop off afterwards – success has become its own worst enemy.
While complacency is bad, a false sense of urgency is lethal. It can be easy to detect when productivity is slowing down and complacency has settled in, but it can be more difficult to identify when the frenetic pace of team member activity is not helping the project. Everyone seems to be really busy but is this true urgency? And if everyone is rushing around, harnessing and aligning their efforts to the right direction can take a lot of effort.

One way to test the waters is to find out if a team member knows what their top three activities are at the beginning of the day, and then assess at the end of the day how much progress they were able to achieve against those activities . If you find that more than a few of the team members, or even worse, you are unable to focus on progressing priorities in spite of a lot of effort being expended, the team is likely suffering from a false sense of urgency.

Sometimes this could result from poor risk or stakeholder management as both of these conditions can result in a backlog of challenging issues to resolve. Other times, it might be the inability of the project manager to effectively shield the team from sources of distraction such as frequent direct requests for project updates from different stakeholders.

So how do we prevent complacency or a false sense of urgency?

Dr. Kotter provides four tactics which should be used in conjunction. Each of these is applicable in the project management context.

Bring the outside in: This might be as simple as having the sponsor attend every second or third team meeting to recognize the team for their efforts, but to also reinforce the criticality of sustained effort. Depending on the nature of the project, if it is hard for the team members to envision the benefits which the project will deliver, it might be beneficial to bring in customers or stakeholders who are eagerly awaiting the completion of the project to provide their own encouragement and motivation.

Behave with urgency every day: This one is a bit trickier as it requires self-awareness. It can be so easy to fall into the habit of allowing decisions to be prolonged or accepting estimates at face value even when we know that they could be improved. When a team member says that a particular action can’t be completed by a given date, do we ask “What can I do to help improve on that?”. How often are we asking our team members what are their top three priorities and checking whether they have achieved those?

Find opportunity in crisis: One way to apply this tactic might be to help the team identify key lessons from a crisis and to use the heightened attention and support during the crisis as leverage to remove organization or process blockers. Dr. Kotter’s suggestion to selectively generate a crisis to overcome complacency and forge stronger team bonds could also be considered so long as that doesn’t blow up in the project manager’s face!

Deal with NoNos: NoNos are those people who effectively kill true urgency by either promoting complacency or encouraging a false sense of urgency. It might be the team member who is constantly distracting the rest of the team with perceived issues or the stakeholder who presents carefully selected data to support the assertion that there’s no harm if the project’s timeline slips. While you might not be able to directly push them out of your organization, actively distracting them if they are not on your team or exposing their behavior such that the social forces within the team cause them to reduce or stop it may work well.

On a long running project, a true sense of urgency can ensure that early successes aren’t eclipsed by late inning failures. Team members and stakeholders then take what they learned from that one project being led with a true sense of urgency and apply that to their next project.

And that is how successful organization culture change happens.

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Reducing Time to Market Can’t Come at the Cost of Sustainability!

Written by Kiron Bondale on . Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on Reducing Time to Market Can’t Come at the Cost of Sustainability!

Time to market has become a key metric for measuring the successful delivery of both product/service development and internal projects. Reducing it has been the focus of process improvement initiatives and modified project lifecycle approaches and has been one of the contributing factors to the significant increase in interest in agile methods.

Intuitively, it should make sense that companies would want their projects to be completed in a shorter amount of time. Doing so would offer a number of advantages including first to market competitive advantage, being able to implement operational improvements faster or reducing business risk by complying with regulations ahead of deadlines. Beyond this, the opportunity cost of tying up skilled project resources for longer than is absolutely necessary is reduced and it should be possible to complete more value add projects over the same duration.

As with all metrics, to truly exploit the benefits of time to market, it is important to measure it in a way which will meet expected outcomes while reducing unintended consequences. The classic example of time reduction done wrong is the call center which measures and provides performance incentives to customer service agents based on how quickly they answer and close customer inquiries. Over a fairly short period of time, average call duration is likely to fall, but so will customer satisfaction.

In the context of project management, the same holds true.

For sponsors or stakeholders who might be frustrated with how long it takes project teams to start delivering scope against approved baselines, one way to address this might be to shorten the time from project kickoff to development & signoff on baselines.

Unfortunately, the unintended consequences of this might be that insufficient planning takes place or an appropriate level of stakeholder engagement is not achieved. In both cases, stakeholder dissatisfaction and increased numbers of project issues and change requests arising from missed requirements are likely to be the outcomes. You might argue that an agile project lifecycle would avoid this situation, but even with such projects, cutting corners by reducing effort spent on key architecture or design work in early sprints will result in waste in later sprints.

Sometimes the request from stakeholders is not to focus on reducing the time to complete planning, but rather to shorten overall duration before the very first deliverable is implemented. This is a reasonable expectation – projects are investments, and the longer the customer has to wait to realize the expected outcomes, the greater the likelihood that external influences will reduce benefits.

One of the more common unintended consequences of a push to reduce change delivery duration is reduced deliverable quality. As we know, increased defects results in a higher cost of quality including waste, damaged relationships with suppliers and customers, reputational damage and an increased likelihood of legal action against the company. Worse yet, such a focus can have long term behavioral impacts on the organization – once staff learn that leadership emphasis is on the speed of delivery instead of how those results were produced, it can be extremely difficult to re-instill a culture of quality.

But let’s say that deliverables are still being produced with acceptable levels of quality – should we claim mission accomplished?

In such cases, change sustainability might be the Achilles heel of the reducing time to market movement. Just because project deliverables have been implemented, doesn’t mean that desired change outcomes have been realized.
When corners are cut in analyzing change impacts on stakeholder communities, preparing these stakeholder communities for the change, progressively communicating to affected stakeholders, cultivating change champions and advocates, and using high touch approaches of overcoming short term resistance and soliciting feedback, expected behavior changes are likely to be short-lived.

This impacts not only the successful realization of a given project’s benefits but will result in a corresponding increase in the levels of change stress in affected stakeholders which in turn will cause reduced resilience and appetite for further changes.

So how can the unintended consequences resulting from a focus on reducing time to market be avoided?

The key is to design a performance evaluation model which utilizes a holistic approach to measuring project success. While time to market, or cost of delivery are important, there also needs to be post-project metrics focusing on the volume of defects, quantifying the degree of compliance with expected behaviors, measuring stakeholder satisfaction, and evaluating overall benefits realized.

You can only manage what you measure, but if you short-change what you decide to measure, you will get what you paid for!

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Overcoming Optimism Bias in Project Decision Making

Written by Kiron Bondale on . Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Overcoming Optimism Bias in Project Decision Making

Optimism bias is the tendency for us to believe that we are less likely to experience negative events than others and to act on that optimistic belief – the classic “It won’t happen to me!” assumption.

A thought-provoking research paper in the August/September 2014 issue of Project Management Journal covered a very specific impact related to this bias, namely our reluctance towards or rejection of decisions to terminate failing projects.

The article states that we (human beings) are physiologically predisposed towards having an optimism bias. On a positive note, this was a contributing factor towards our long term survival and growth as a species. Many of the advances we’ve made in science and space exploration might never have occurred if we didn’t occasionally leap before we looked.

However impacts from optimism bias are more likely to put our projects into harm’s way.

Don’t get me wrong, there are times when we want our team members or stakeholders to feel optimistic when faced with uncertainty – a project kickoff meeting, when team morale is low, or when trying to brainstorm opportunities during a risk identification workshop are all examples of this.

Unfortunately, beyond deciding how to proceed with a failing project, there are a number of other common project situations where optimism bias can blind us.

  • Selection & prioritization of projects: Even when objective criteria, scoring models and balanced governance committees are used to overcome biases and the potential for pet projects, it can be very difficult to thoroughly validate that a project’s benefits, costs and risks are truly valid. The subject matter experts who have the best knowledge to refute forecasts and underlying assumptions are usually the ones who were engaged in the development of the business cases and rarely do most organizations possess the bench strength required to conduct thorough independent analysis.
  • Risk analysis & response: While our team might do a good job of identifying risks, even if we have realized a risk in the past, most sponsors are likely to downgrade the probability of realization which in turn reduces the likelihood of effective responses being developed or executed.
  • Contingency planning: When it comes to putting some money aside for a rainy day, many sponsors are likely to feel pretty good that the storm clouds will miss them. In organizations with a low tolerance for open discussions of risk, requests for reasonable levels of contingency funding are more likely to result in teams being chastised for being too negative or not believing in the project.
  • Change management: Those who have already drunk the Kool-Aid are more likely to marginalize or ignore the risks of change resistance. Of course everyone will embrace the changes – change is good, right?
  • Making significant changes late in a project’s life: Just as rose-coloured glasses are often worn when preparing business cases, sponsors and other stakeholders often exhibit optimism bias when introducing project changes, especially those that are requested late in a project’s life. Risks to cost, quality and schedule may not get the fulsome analysis and presentation needed to ensure that there is a balanced evaluation of the change.
  • Health reporting: One of the symptoms of lower organizational project maturity is the dilution of health status as it is shared from the project team up to the highest executive levels. Often this is due to a low tolerance towards bad news or a tendency to shoot the messenger, but it may also be caused by optimism bias on the part of sponsors and delivery executives.

Recognizing that a penchant for optimism bias is hard-wired in our DNA, how do we sidestep it to avoid putting our projects at jeopardy?

  • Be mindful – recognize it for what it is and call it out when we see it in action
  • Use “designated drivers” – optimism bias could be considered a type of impaired judgment so to overcome it, involve those who won’t either benefit or lose from the decision to review your assessment of the situation before finalizing a decision.
  • Exploit diversity – diversity in governance committees creates strength when it is well leveraged. This is not an invitation to get stuck in analysis-paralysis or to indulge constant questioning and reversing of decisions, but it can help to overcome bias so long as the committee doesn’t fall into the seductive trap of the Abilene Paradox.
  • Establish control limits and obey them – earned value metrics are just one type of useful “instrument” that will help us to overcome bias as long as we can trust that the underlying data is sound.

While optimism bias has helped the human race survive, it has also been instrumental in a large number of Darwin Awards so don’t let your project become another cautionary tale!

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Pay Heed to the Four Horsemen of the Project Apocalypse!

Written by Kiron Bondale on . Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on Pay Heed to the Four Horsemen of the Project Apocalypse!

The Book of Revelation describes the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who, based on a common interpretation, foretell the Last Judgment. Regardless of your religious beliefs or the extent of your theological knowledge, there are lessons which we can learn from these harbingers to avoid project failure.

The rider on the white horse is frequently identified as conquest, evil or, in mainstream pop culture as pestilence or plague. In the project context, a common infectious disease is chronic negativity.

Just like a contagion, it starts with a single dissatisfied team member or stakeholder who disagrees with the direction the project is taking, is disengaged or feels the project is doomed. While it is perfectly natural for folks to voice their concerns or to not always be positive, when this negativity becomes the new normal and nothing is done to manage the situation, other team members or stakeholders may interpret this lack of response as being an implicit validation of such behavior and it can spread. If swift action is not taken, the doom-and-gloom prognostications of Patient Zero can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Your role as a project manager is not to stifle others views or emotions but it is to be aware of them, and if you recognize that someone is sucking the energy and life out of the team, it is your responsibility to respond in a timely but professional manner. Often times the individual may not be sufficiently self-aware to know how their behavior is being perceived or how it is affecting others. In such cases an objective, one-on-one discussion may be sufficient to turn things around. These situations can also be a good wakeup call for a project manager – if morale has been neglected, it might be the right time to re-energize the group with some team-building activities or other types of recognition.

Another lesson to be learned from this horseman relates to effective change management. Ignore or marginalize the few who are actively resisting planned changes at your project’s peril. It is very easy for unmanaged change resistance to spread from them to the masses and even to infect those who you felt were the best advocates for the planned changes.

The red horse’s rider is generally interpreted as representing war. With the uncertainty which is baked into the DNA of projects and the high likelihood of team members having differing personalities, values and styles, conflict is to be expected.

Conflict is recognized as being a valuable driver of creativity and innovation so the goal should never be to eliminate it. Unfortunately, weak project managers are uncomfortable managing conflict and find themselves letting prehistoric “fight or flight” emotions drive their responses by either being autocratic and forcing resolution or avoiding conflict in the hopes that it will just go away. In both cases the conflict will fester, furthering the gap between the involved parties and increasing the likelihood of other team members or stakeholders joining the battle.

Escalating conflict impacts team morale, reduces productivity through distraction, and provides highly visible evidence of a project manager’s poor judgment and competency, and can often result in their removal from the project. There is no single panacea for resolving conflict but it is critical that a project manager recognizes it and responds at the right time in the right way.

Famine is how the black horse’s rider is usually identified and an obvious analogy could be drawn to the under-resourcing of projects. Unfortunately, in many cases, a project manager has limited authority over resource commitments, especially when working in functional or matrix organizations.

A different interpretation of the third horseman could be ineffective communication with the team and with stakeholders. Some project managers hoard or act as the gatekeepers on information. In such cases, team members are starved for the knowledge they need to be as productive as possible and velocity suffers.

In other situations, the issue may not directly impact the team, but might relate to how well the project manager is keeping stakeholders apprised of project direction and status. This can translate into dissatisfaction, misalignment and perception becoming reality as these stakeholders begin to fear the worst.

A project manager should not overwhelm recipients with information – situational communication which meets the information processing needs of stakeholders is key. The focus of the project manager should be to reduce distance and latency in information getting to those who need it to get their job done.

Ignorance of these three riders increases the likelihood that your project will encounter the fourth and final horseman who sits astride a pale horse – Death!

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Certification Encourages Personal Development

Written by Kiron Bondale on . Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Certification Encourages Personal Development

One of the recommendations which I had made in last month’s article was for project managers to apply Stephen Covey’s last habit – Sharpen the Saw.  We might feel that there is nothing new for us to learn to be more effective, but gaining further domain expertise or continuing to hone our soft skills are both of benefit.

This is sometimes easier said than done. 

Many of the project managers I have worked with complain that they have minimal time to plan for personal development and less time to actually take courses or participate in experiential activities which will help them grow.

While I will acknowledge that most of these folks are overworked, I support the principle that if you don’t invest in yourself first, no one else will.  Just as financial advisors recommend that you save on a regular basis via payroll deductions to avoid the temptation of spending before you have saved, I advocate the benefits of blocking off time for personal development as early as possible every year.

However, for those of you who find this practice challenging, if you have earned a certification credential through PMI, a good catalyst to force you to invest effort in our own personal development is the need to earn Professional Development Units (PDUs) to maintain your certification status.

In the case of the PMP certification, to recertify, you need to earn sixty PDUs over a three year period.  Other PMI credentials require fewer PDUs, but there is still an expectation for continued development over the course of the certification period.  Given how much cost and effort is expended in gaining our credentials, few of us would want to run the risk of not meeting this obligation!

For many practitioners, the most common method of earning their PDUs is to claim the time they’ve spent working in the project management domain.  However, this avenue only yields five PDUs per year, so additional sources will be required.

The next most common source for gaining PDUs is through formal education such as attending courses, webinars or conferences.  Depending on the duration of these activities, they can provide an excellent opportunity to secure significant PDUs in one shot as each full day will provide seven to eight PDUs.  In addition, there are no limits on how many PDUs can be claimed over a three year period for participating in valid educational activities.   

However, unless one has the patience to attend a significant number of free webinars (which will usually grant at most a single PDU), most formal education offerings will come at a cost.  With corporate training budgets being slashed, it might be tough to get the necessary approvals.  Beyond the financial commitment, getting approval for the time off required to attend such courses or conferences might be challenging.

This is where the second PDU earning category of Giving Back to the Profession can help.  Beyond the fifteen PDUs you can claim for working in the profession, for those holding a PMP certification you can claim an additional thirty PDUs per three year cycle through one or both of the following categories.

Creating New Project Management Knowledge: I realize that this category sounds daunting, but it can be achieved in a variety of ways including writing articles and blogging, delivering webinars and podcasts or presenting at a conference.  In the latter case, one very simple method is to serve as a subject matter expert on a project management-focused panel.  The benefit of presentations is that you earn PDUs for both developing the content and delivering it.  There are usually no hard costs associated with such activities and the main commitment is your non-working time and creativity.  Beyond earning PDUs and supporting your own personal development, such work can help to differentiate you from other candidates when seeking employment.

Volunteer Service: Many of us already volunteer our time to various causes, but it can be an added bonus to earn PDUs while you are giving back to the community.  You can choose to volunteer for PMI and their Volunteer Relationship Management System (VRMS) is a helpful tool to identify such opportunities.  You could also contact one of the board members from your local PMI chapter to learn about current volunteering opportunities which can range from providing support for a single event to serving as a director.  But don’t feel constrained to just volunteering with PMI – providing project management-focused mentoring to colleagues or others in your network also qualifies, as does providing project management assistance to a community group or charity.

Meeting credential maintenance requirements might seem like an onerous burden, but with proactive planning and leveraging multiple avenues you can both help your personal development and avoid the procrastination panic which arises with having to earn a large number of PDUs at the very end of a recertification cycle!

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