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PMTimes_Aug23_2023

Best of PMTimes: Does People Behavior Impact Projects? How? And What Do We Do About It?

Written by Ambadapudi Sridhara Murthy on . Posted in Articles.

We all know that projects are considered successful only when they are completed within the boundaries of scope, time, cost and quality. Bad project management is detrimental and can be very difficult to deal with – for especially large projects that involve a lot of money. A small percentage of several projects undertaken across the globe are really successful. Projects do get completed and closed but not necessarily are considered successful due to cost or schedule overruns – cost overrun – being the most common cause for project failure. Therefore, it is imperative that organizations employ better ideas and novel methodologies and frameworks in managing projects.

 

People behavior is one of the KEY factors that drive successful project management. In today’s world – virtual project teams often not co-located – are commonplace. In this environment, it is essential that behavior, emotions and culture be well understood by project managers.

Traditional Project Management methodologies revolve around sound technical and procedural factors: Scoping, Scheduling, Budgeting, Quality Assurance & Control, Risk, Communications and Procurement; and they all have very well established frameworks. Even with all these well established methodologies and frameworks, we just don’t seem to get project management right.

If you just thought “there MUST be something that is NOT well-documented or frame-worked well enough yet”, you have just arrived at the right place! The core of project management is – PEOPLE – around which all other processes revolve and interact.

 

PEOPLE CENTRIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT (PCPM)

People centric project management emphasizes that project management should be based on Experience, Dynamics, Human Psychology rather than solely on Processes. Wise project managers focus on learning and understanding how people function in an organization – both as individuals – and as a team. It is important to figure out during project initiation how people in the performing organization behave and adapt.

Human Psychology should also be considered as an integral part of Project Management. Technical knowledge and following standard processes is one aspect but that is only 30-40% of day-to-day activities. We need to better manage the remainder of the 60-70% – which is people centric.

The aspect of projects that gives project managers sleepless nights is people behavior – especially factors emerging from them – such as push-back, resistance to change, acceptance, trust etc. There are several real life scenarios project managers encounter – that emanate from these aspects. Project managers are encouraged to implement people centric management techniques that will eventually will help them implement processes as well as manage behavioral aspects of people successfully.

People centric project management differs from traditional project management in that it does not reject the basic principles of traditional project management but in addition, it emphasises that all traditional project management processes be followed as usual but be tailored according to the need in order to reap rich benefits coming from good people behaviour being exhibited as part of the project implementation.

INSTRUMENTAL ELEMENTS FOR SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF PEOPLE CENTRIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT (PCPM)

 

1. UNDERSTAND CULTURE – PEOPLE VS PROCESSES

The most important factor coming from humans including sensitive aspects is Culture. The term culture means different things to different people. From a project management perspective, culture simply means “how is stuff done here”. Culture is something that comes with people as a baggage along with them. It is imperative that a project manager understand and interpret what the culture of the performing organization is. This becomes increasingly challenging with virtual global teams. When a team member responds swiftly “It is impossible for us to carry out this work” without analyzing the work assigned – it is likely that employees are striving within an organizational culture that is not supportive of their efforts!

 

  • Study: People will likely not understand this concept at the outset – since PCPM focuses on how people function and how they apply project management to be people centric. Managing triple constraints (Scope, Time and Cost) is the objective of healthy project management. However, it needs to be understood that this does not happen in isolation. This happens in a colloidal medium where people see each other, talk together and interact with others. It is crucial that project managers don’t curb or belittle Emotions, Politics, People Dynamics. Instead, they should be seen as the arteries and veins of human life and we should be able to better manage them.
  • Analyze: How you go about implementing PCPM varies from one organization to another. It needs to be a part of the organizational strategy. Organizations would be project based – where large parts of the workforce is involved in multiple projects. Analyzing how the organization is structured helps the project manager make some of the most important people related decisions in an effective manner.
  • Adjust or Adapt?: Most project managers tend to enforce processes without understanding the culture and capabilities of the project team and stakeholders. In PCPM – focus should be on adjusting processes to fit the culture and behavioral responses rather than trying to adapt human nature to follow processes. Adjust the role and processes for people – do not enforce processes on people.
  • Propose Changes: Create a governance committee or steering committee that is part of the leadership team. Ensure that the PMO, Senior Management are on board and devise a strategy on how you will move from rational to behavior centric project management. A roadmap needs to be laid to bring about either procedural or cultural changes. In 99% cases, people work in environments that Resist Change. So, what is new with PCPM? In PCPM, project managers must educate the senior management, team and stakeholders of considering people behavior while planning each project phase of the project.
  • Gain Buy-In: The challenge for most project managers is to work with senior management and the team in tandem, to gain buy-in and decide on adjusting or adapting. Adjusting or adapting does not happen overnight.
  • Implement (Kaizen): PCPM will not happen overnight but will require a cultural transformation. PMs should quickly identify strengths and weaknesses of team members and encourage people to identify their strengths and work with their strengths. Some people will have competitive strengths and it is important to leverage their competitive skills. Project managers tend to polish people and make sure people fit the role instead of adjusting the role for people.
  • Introspect: It is essential that project managers introspect how PCPM is being implemented. The introspection frequency will depend on several factors such as the team size, stakeholder size, location of teams and stakeholders, senior management demands etc. Introspection is the only way of answering the questions “How are we doing today? Will we be able to implement PCPM? What else needs to be done to strengthen the PCPM process? How long will it take for people to be on board? etc.”

 

2. ENGAGE TEAM MEMBERS

Engaging project team members is the foundation to project success. In PCPM, it is extremely important that the groundwork be laid to engage team members and stakeholders and finally sustain in the short and long term. Focus should be setting key performance/productivity indicators for the performing team as a whole. The level of engagement of team and stakeholders should be monitored and strategies be devised to maximize the engagement levels of both at the same time. Performance, Productivity, Efficiency and Efficacy must be maximized or at a minimum balanced.

Across the project lifecycle, engagement levels of individual team members and the team as a whole should be monitored. Emotional and personal expectations of the team members must be addressed to bring about the best in them. Questions such as “How is this individual doing on the current project?”, “How does this employee react to his work load?”, “Does the employee feel good at the end of every day’s work?”, “Does the team connect their personal objectives with project objectives and organizational objectives, in turn?”, “How is the project team doing as a whole?”, “How are we engaged as a group to meet our objectives?”, “What do stakeholders/customers think abour the project team?” etc. – must be asked and answered satisfactorily.

 

At the Senior Management Level or at a PMO level (if a PMO exists), it will be important to update or change the overall project management framework to integrate all the knowledge about human nature and the questions answered above. Tools must be developed or customized to measure the level of engagement of teams or stakeholders accurately. These new tools must be integrated into the new project management framework.

Finally, the new approach of People Centric Project Management (PCPM) should be reflected in the overall PMO’s strategic objectives and long term vision/mission.

 

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3. IMPORTANCE OF EMOTIONS & MOTIVATION

Emotions have to do with hormones and neurotransmitters in the human body. Emotions drive employee motivation positively or negatively. Oh boy! Isn’t it difficult to psycho-physio-bio-logically scan a person’s mind and body to anticipate what the Expressions, Feelings, Body Language, and Actions he or she may exhibit e.g.– they are sometimes Happy, Sad, Angry, Excited, Tender, Scared etc. This has been a long standing challenge for most people managers, especially project managers!

Feelings, Moods and Actions affect the manner in which team members and stakeholders carry out their work on projects and so management of emotional aspects is supreme for successful project management. A good project manager should not just be a technical person but should be a rare breed of individual who should be able to manage both the technical and emotional factors. If both factors are not managed, projects will cost way higher than what they are originally planned for! e.g. a strong skilled, high performing employee with tremendous knowledge (not shared with anyone else on the team) exhibiting negative attitude and emotions may not only choose not to perform but also may become a project manager’s nightmare if he decides to not co-operate.

Little attention is devoted to emotional factors in traditional project management – project managers must realize that this is the key reason for project failure! E.g. when we conduct lessons learned for failed projects, we focus only on the project management methodologies followed or those that were not followed – but we hardly attempt to identify the lack of focus on the management of the emotional and motivational aspects of people.

 

To ensure project success – PCPM might be a critical factor that needs to be looked into and implemented so that project managers are allowed to exhibit strong people skills and vibrant emotional intelligence!

 

There is advantage to project managers being assigned to a project during initiation and PCPM reinforces just that principle.

In ensuring that project teams will get better and provide maximum output, the following steps are recommended:

✓ Select & Recruit Team members keeping in mind the new PCPM framework, project and organizational objectives.
✓ Develop Team based on PCPM framework, keeping in mind the culture of the team on board – here we again stress on adjusting processes vs adapting!
✓ Motivate Team keeping in mind Emotional factors. More about the impact of motivation below is discussed. Emotional stability would ensure project success.
✓ Periodically Introspect behavioral responses of the team members – understand that PCPM framework needs to be iteratively fine-tuned and optimized.

Project team members or stakeholders do NOT work in an environment where they feel threatened, insecure or disarmed. Productivity is at its lowest when there is no trust and people don’t feel comfortable. If people don’t have confidence and passion for the work that they do – it does not bring about the best in them.

 

How is this addressed? Here is a simple question that will help us understand better:

Q: So, we all know from the laws of Physics that Force = [Mass] x [Action].Here, Mass refers to people and Action refers to project success. So what is the force then that needs to be applied to people to achieve project success?

A: Motivation!

Motivational factor in knowledge based industries (IT etc.) is important and is desperately needed in PCPM. Project managers need to look at alternative ways to look at projects as a social system rather than a technical system.

 

From an organization perspective, projects entirely involve around costs, risks, frameworks, internal/external market scenarios, decision making, harnessing talent, identifying critical resources etc. With virtual global knowledge teams working in different time-zones across different projects at the same time, it is very important to ensure that people stay motivated and magnetized to a specific project. PCPM becomes a guiding methodology in this dynamic environment and proper motivational drivers are a MUST. This helps get people focused on one project and give it the priority it deserves.

There are several motivational theories that can be applied in the PCPM framework but it is important to consider Motivation as one of the key drivers.

 

4. IDENTFY BEHAVIORAL RISKS USING INTUITIVE MIND-READING

Behavior refers to the range of actions and mannerisms exhibited – in this case – by people. Certain desired behavior is assumed by project managers when they stitch and integrate several of the established project management processes. This assumption is based on factors such as Culture, Attitudes, Emotions, Perceptions, Values, Ethics, Authority, Rapport, Hypnosis, Mindset and Persuasion, among others.

On most occasions some of these assumptions don’t hold quite valid. When people don’t behave like the way we originally assumed them to, their behavior seems unpredictable to us. And, when people behavior becomes unpredictable – project outcome is inevitably affected – either positively (success) or negatively (failure). Even if project managers don’t forget to include people behavior, they may find out that the people in the system don’t behave as expected, with unanticipated project outcome.

Think of the human brain emitting encrypted signals. Most project managers intercept these signals but hardly a few actually decrypt and interpret them. This act is called Intuitive Mind-Reading!

The ultimate goal of project management is to ensure project success. As part of PCPM, project managers MUST sharpen their mind reading skills and identify potential Known Behavioral Risks that may emanate from ALL people involved (team members, stakeholders, bosses, senior management etc.) in the project and adapt to this behavior to ensure that things that can go wrong don’t go wrong. Successful project managers are gifted with Intuitive Mind-Reading. During project execution, project managers must reach out to all these people involved, observe what tends to go wrong – and ensure it doesn’t.

Is Intuitive Mind-Reading the only tool for identifying behavioral risks? Not necessarily but in most cases, Yes! E.g. it is best to begin with analyzing our own behavior and from there extrapolate and extend our understanding to all types of people behavior across the team.

However, in other cases where Unknown Behavioral Risks show up during project execution, it is the skill and brilliance of project managers that helps them better manage the situation and drive towards project success.

 

5. …AND LASTLY: COMMUNICATION, COMMUNICATION & COMMUNICATION!

The real problem of projects is NOT the planning or technical aspects but is the day to day contact with people – which is the major nightmare and poses the biggest challenges to project managers.

At any given point of time in the project lifecycle, there will likely be hundreds or thousands of communication channels across project team members and stakeholders. These channels provide the opportunity for people to exchange information among one another. Whether it is Email, IM, Meetings, 1:1(s), Reports etc. it is important to question – what percentage of these channels actually yield positive and fruitful interactions? This will be a key indicator for project success. Project managers need to create a conducive environment for nurturing positive people interactions.

As always, you need the right blend of people in your team to talk to the appropriate stakeholders, gain buy-in and work along project integration. Once you have the PCPM thinking in place, then the next step is to focus on the project team.

In PCPM, it must be the daily duty for project managers to maintain the line of communication very open so that they keep catering to the basic needs to employees.

What needs to get communicated across and top things project managers need to keep in mind while implementing PCPM?

  • Understand and believe that project managers have the most impact in opening up communication channels.
  • Communicate what is expected of each team member
  • Establish a clear sense of what each team member’s duty or role is.
  • Provide recognition – this is actually part of communication!
  • Empower team members’ with the right tools and techniques to do the job
  • Keep your ears open to suggestions
  • Have open conversations about every aspect that requires the PCPM framework to be adjusted.
  • Frequently talk to team members about their progress and provide feedback –
  • Learn from people on how they think they connect to the mission of the project team and compare that with how you think they connect.
  • Communicate between the current statefuture state the gap  and how is the team member is doing.
  • Make Action Plans for the longer term to ensure you are actively managing the emotional and motivational aspects of ALL the people
  • Gather feedback and inputs on how are people interact with each other on their communication channel.
  • Finally, it is the project managers duty to ensure that interactions on ALL communication channels yield positive results!

The key truly is communication, communication, communication and communication!

 

CONCLUSION

If organizations want project managers to deliver projects perfectly, that cannot be done solely by following a rule book, using project management software, firefighting problems, implementing the concepts from PMBOK etc. Project managers MUST also be able to manage the thousands of interactions people have within the project and outside of it (environmental factors). The emotional bonding between individuals must be well understood and recognized to get the best out of the people. This ultimately is crucial for achieving proper level of teamwork, communication and performance that is needed for successful project management.

In addition, because our society or organization is not good at working with the behavioral and emotional drivers, we cannot motivate people to complete the project on time, cost, scope and quality. Aspects of project management dealing with people, behavior, emotions are not much stressed upon. In most documented areas, either it is in a footnote or in an appendix.

To conclude, emphasis must be on the importance of people behavior and having a framework such as PCPM – in place to account for people behavior – as an effective solution guaranteeing higher project success rates!

 

Published: 2014/08/07

 

About the Authors

Shreenath Sreenivas, B.Sc.(Hons.), M.Sc, PMP has in-depth knowledge and experience in software project planning, integration management, requirement gathering, risk management, scheduling, vendor management, contract management, execution, monitoring, controlling, quality assurance and on-time delivery. He is a Project Management Professional (PMP)® credential holder and has delivered projects successfully across a wide range of domains, such as Pharmaceuticals, Bio-IT (LIMS), Tax and Accounting, Mobile Web Apps; in addition to the field of software product development and consulting. He earned his Bachelor’s B.Sc. (Hons) & Master’s M.Sc. degrees in Industrial Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T.), Kharagpur, India.

Ambadapudi Sridhara Murthy, M.Tech, PMI-SP, PMP has extensive experience in the fields of software project planning, scheduling, risk management, budget management, vendor management, contract management, execution, tracking, monitoring, controlling, quality assurance, and on-time delivery. He is a Project Management Professional (PMP)® credential holder, PMI Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP)® credential holder, and has delivered projects over a wide range of domains, such as Leak Detection Software, Semiconductor software, implementing desktop/mobile websites, and Bio-Information Management Systems, in addition to the field of software services. He earned his bachelor’s degree (B.Tech) in chemical engineering from Pune University, India and earned his master’s degree (M.Tech) in computer-aided process and equipment design from REC/NIT in Warangal, India.

PMTimes_Aug22_2023

Best of PMTimes: 7 Tips on How to be a Great Project Manager

Written by Jasmin Ali on . Posted in Articles.

Project management may sound easy, but taking up the role of a Project manager requires sword play with the right wit.

 

Many a times, when the Project Manager is at fault or does not abide to an employee’s needs, the company is bound to lose a valuable resource. A good Project Manager is hard to find, but a great Project Manager? It is harder. Understanding the goals of the company, project deadlines, managing time effectively and being a good boss to employees can be easy if these seven tips are followed:

1. AVOID MICROMANAGEMENT

Project managers tend to get extremely observant and controlling when a project is assigned to their team. It might be because of irrational deadlines, lack of time, underestimating the power of their resource and panicking about proving their position. This leads to constant micromanagement where Project Managers constantly nag or monitor employees and their work, breathing down their shoulders through the entire day or week, until the project is done and dusted. Sometimes, employees are never given an off and might be asked to work during the weekends which would eventually drain them out. A great Project Manager understands that every employee is human enough to have their own time and space to figure out how much they can deliver and how fast they can. Employees should be given their own freedom to work around schedules and plan out how they can deliver before deadlines. Micromanagement only demotivates employees and puts them in a position where they are rendered as incapable of deliveries unless monitored. A great manager avoids micromanagement like the plague and uses it when and wherever necessary.

2. EVALUATE PRIORITIES

Many project managers follow agile methodology where different parts of the project that have various dependencies are mapped out and listed in the beginning. With time, priorities change. Re-evaluating priorities in a periodic manner and changing work deliveries is important. Priorities are never the same throughout a project and it takes a great manager to find the loops and holes of it, to deliver projects on time.

3. MANAGE TIME EFFECTIVELY

Time management is a great manager’s number one priority. Maintaining a balance between being productive during the productive hours at work and allowing employees to have their free time is important. Project managers must make sure that employees get the work done on time, without stressing them out by pressurizing them. Any good resource would work efficiently when the work is handed over to them, without the need of a push. Figuring out the good and the bad egg from the team is crucial. Laying out tasks and targets for employees to meet during each day is a good way to start.

 

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4. COMMUNICATION IS KEY

Good communication is good project management any day. The ability to communicate to the stakeholders as well as the team effectively can drive a project to be delivered on time. Giving out broken promises to stakeholders and urging employees to complete their tasks as promised would cause huge problems to the team as well as to the clients. Being an effective communicator between the team and the clients is important.

5. UNDERSTANDING PSYCHOLOGY

They say that great project managers understand their employees. Keeping track of how much an employee is able to deliver, how fast they can and what fields and skills they are good at is important. The ability to drive employees to complete tasks they love accomplishing and are good at. Knowing your team’s strengths and weaknesses and allotting tasks similar to what they can and cannot do is vital.

6. EQUIPPING THE TEAM

Technology is an ever-evolving stream of today and to be knowledgeable in all kinds of software and technology is a challenging task. Being up-to-date on technology and exposing your team to the existence of such, is important. Project management training for employees to be knowledgeable on various fields that are emerging in the current technology-driven world can bring the company a lot of projects and profit.

7. GREAT PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS

When there’s a project assigned to you, there will be problems assigned to you as well. These problems can arise at any time of the project. Problems can vary from being related to the employees within the team, health-issues or emergencies that occur mid-way or at the time of delivery, misinterpreting requirements, missing out on SLDC processes, bug issues and problems that are completely unexpected. Being a great problem-solver by understanding what is to be done at such situations is the best trait of a great project manager. A great project manager works towards the success of the company and its products and it is vital to know how to handle unexpected situations in a witty way.

BEING PREPARED

Being a good project manager takes time while being a great project manager takes experience. Using the right kind of skill at the right time and handling organizational problems takes time in understanding what each member of the team is capable of. Believing that your team can perform better at every step of the project is crucial. Preparations for the worst can improve problem-solving abilities.

SUMMARY

Understanding the project strategy vision, bringing out the best out of your team, timely delivery of projects, being an effective communicator, solving problems, preparing, disclosing, bargaining and closing projects can go a long way in tuning your project management skills. Looking into administrative details of projects is also an area that can’t be missed out. Project management takes planning, leading, implementing and collaborating.

Any good project manager can become a great project manager any day. Taking a keen interest in your development, the team’s as well as individual development is an added asset. Keep your doors open for employees to put in their thoughts and worries that serve as barriers to meeting deliverables or taking up projects. Delegate tasks and sub-tasks to get work done in a simple and easy way. Finally, a great project manager works with the team and accomplishes their mission.

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great someday”.

 

Published: 2017/12/25
PMTimes_Aug15_2023

Making the Impossible Possible – Expectations, Loss, and Loss Leaders

Written by George Pitagorsky on . Posted in Articles.

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” Nelson Mandela

 

Projects burdened by impossible objectives tend to fail, disappoint, and burnout performers. They are a sign that the decision-making process is broken. To avoid failure, make sure there is a solid understanding of the difference between possible and impossible goals and objectives and a well-thought-out decision-making process.

 

In the context of project engagements (see my recent article Engagement Management: A Key To Successful Projects), setting impossible objectives is often the result of a poor approval process, inadequate estimates, lack of effective pushback by project management to either an overzealous sales effort or an overly demanding client/sponsor.

 

Beware of an Over-Zealous Attitude

The tendency to set impossible objectives is strengthened by attitudes like the one expressed by Mandela and this one from Muhammad Ali:

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration.”

 

The ‘can-do’ attitude is powerful and motivating. But, in fact there are some things that are, in fact, impossible. For example, changing the past is impossible, as are completely controlling the future or getting a ten person-day task like setting requirements done in a day by assigning ten full time people to it.

As the Serenity Prayer recognizes, it takes wisdom to know the difference between what is possible and what is not, and the courage to act.

 

Is It Worth It?

There are objectives that seem impossible but may be possible. A big question for project stakeholders is, what is it worth to find out?

In project management the “wisdom” referred to in the Serenity Prayer needs to be shared among sales, project sponsors, and clients and it needs to be embedded in the engagement management process.

Stretch goals push the edge of performance but achieving them can be costly and have a high probability of failure. Go for it if cost is not a significant constraint, achieving goals is highly rewarding in non-financial terms, and expectations are realistic.

 

For example, the cost of fighting and winning against the apartheid system in South Africa was not a significant constraint. People were willing to give their lives and livelihoods to win. The reward, freedom, was worth the cost. And expectations, while high, were realistic – people were willing to keep at it as long as necessary and had no idea how long that would be.

But in business and technology projects we have a different dynamic. The sales price, which is made up of costs plus profits, sets up a goal for the project manager and team that, if unmet, costs the organization and the team. The organization loses money, the team is faced with failure, clients and sponsors are disappointed.

In-house projects have a similar dynamic. The sales price is the cost estimate which with expected benefits drives project approval. Cost and schedule overruns and unrealized benefits are costly to the organization and the performance team. Clients and sponsors are disappointed.

 

A key question is – Is it worth it to attempt to achieve the stretch goals?

 

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Decision Making and Consequences

Portfolio Management’s project approval process is the forum for making the decision to decide if ‘it’s worth it’. There is no problem when the answer comes out of a well thought out analysis of costs, benefits, alternatives, and risks, and expectations are well-managed.

 

But when the decision is made based on bad estimates and emotion, with a misguided understanding of what is and isn’t possible, there will be hell to pay.

 

Looking at two situations, considering costs, competition for resources, and benefits, we can see how project approval works.

 

1. In situation One a contractor organization is selling a project to a client. The sales team works with the client to find a price that the client likes. This comes out of a negotiation within the client’s procurement process. Ideally, the sales team considers input from estimators representing the performance team and comes up with a price that sells and is profitable.

If the sales team does not consult the performance team, the price is likely to be an impossible goal. If the performance team is consulted and says that they can do the job, but their costs would eat into or do away with profit, that’s where the decision makers come in. Their job is easy if the price and costs allow for sufficient profit.

If profit is lower than executives would like or if there is a loss, then the decision makers must decide whether to take on a loss-leader project that will, say, get the company in the door at a new client or keep competitors out of an existing client. They must assess whether this project is worth doing given limited resources and more profitable or critical projects.

If the decision makers decide to approve, they must (but often do not) set expectations with the performance team to let them know they are shooting for a rational target and why the project price is so low.

This scenario is linked to incentives – sales commissions pinned to gross sales price or to profit and bonuses for the performance team. And, of course, schedule – delivery targets, their priority, and time to completion – is a major factor.

 

2. Scenario Two is where the work will be done by in-house resources. In this situation the dynamic is different. The project price (the cost to the organization) may be set based on a well thought out or faulty cost estimate or based on available budget and a strong desire to do the project.

Instead of profit, decision criteria include benefits. While benefits are realized over years and often far exceed costs, available budget and contention for resources are constraints. A decision is made.

If the performers know they are shooting for a rational target all’s well. When they are driven to meet impossible objectives there are consequences like failure, poor morale, relationship issues, turnover, and burnout.

 

Going Forward

As always, assess your current situation and track record.

  • Are project overruns frequent?
  • Are estimates chronically inaccurate?
  • Are staff members driven to do the impossible?
  • Do you have a clearly defined well-functioning decision-making process that includes managing the impact on staff of stretch objectives?
  • Who is accountable for project overruns, particularly when realistic project level estimates are ignored, and cost targets are set based on political or sales oriented criteria?

Based on that assessment what do you need to change and how will you change it?

 

And, of course, do not believe it when someone says, “it’s impossible.” Check the facts, get other opinions, use your intuition, then decide. Push the edge to do the impossible when it is worth it. Make sure expectations are well-managed.

 

 

PMTimes_Aug9_2023

Five Ways Construction Companies Can Avoid “Technical Debt”

Written by Lucas Marshall on . Posted in Articles.

This article was cowritten by Lucas Marshall and Robert LaCosse of Milwaukee Tool.

 

Construction companies know the importance of integrating their systems (e.g., 85.1% of owners viewed mobile integrations as a “very important” or “important” priority in the 2021 ConTech Report). Yet, full-system integration remains an industry challenge – a global KPMG study revealed that a measly 16% of executives surveyed reported their organizations have fully integrated systems and tools.

 

In early 2023, 40% of SMBs in the construction industry stated they’d be looking to upgrade their software in the next 12 months.

When deploying any software system, you run the risk of accruing technical debt – a term that commonly fits into the vernacular of software developers and represents the #1 biggest threats according to 69% of business leaders.

 

An academic study revealed that 75% of technical debt instances originate from clunky legacy software systems. Many construction companies on legacy software systems may find themselves in a catch-22: Addressing the technical debt of their legacy system or facing downtime to deploy and learn a more cloud-friendly, adaptable solution.

In this article, we define what tech debt might look like at a construction company and offer five ways to avoid it or put solutions toward it.

 

What Is Technical Debt?

In short, technical debt refers to the dependencies one introduces when deploying new software and hardware solutions.

A dependency may be one system not communicating with another, or perhaps an accumulation of software bugs that make a software interface sluggish and hard to use.

Technical debt, like financial debt that can lead a person to bankruptcy if left to accumulate, poses a significant business risk; growing technical debt, that is, refers to the cascading effect that happens when these dependencies, ignored, exponentially propagate and become insurmountable, involving massive operational costs to fully resolve.

 

Examples of a Construction Company’s Tech Debt

  • Mobile apps not integrating with construction ERPs
  • Single-application heritage systems running on outdated hardware
  • Time needed to learn new software
  • Discovery time needed to perform security risk assessments of new system

 

Five Ways to Avoid Tech Debt

Now that we’ve established what technical debt may mean to a construction company, here are five ways to avoid tech debt from accumulating:

 

1. Embrace a Culture of Collaboration over Isolation: Rituals, Governance, and Retrospectives

A retrospective is a classic practice in Agile software development where teams reflect on recently completed work and, through these rituals, the team gets more efficient and collaboration yields greater productivity over time.

 

Planning Poker

Planning poker is a conversational tool that exists online and physically – it’s a great tool for facilitating critical discussion. It centers on the reality that if you want to avoid technical debt – which can emerge from complexities not commonly understood by all stakeholders – you need to implement a process whereby all stakeholders, or more importantly all disciplines, have the ability to voice what they believe or know to be benefits and threats of any implementation.

“Collaboration” Apps and Systems

A joint-Autodesk/FMI study revealed that construction has some work to do in terms of collaboration:

  • 60% of general contractors see problems with coordination and communication between project team members and issues with the quality of contract documents as the key contributors to decreased labor productivity.
  • 68% of trades point to poor schedule management as the key contributors to decreased labor productivity.
  • 9% of construction industry professionals say that the top reason for miscommunication is unresponsiveness to questions/requests.

 

Construction companies can address these collaboration pitfalls by: Adopting cloud-based productivity apps and encouraging company-wide usage. Conveniently accessible communication apps like Slack can empower back-office workers as well as those in the field to communicate with each other more seamlessly, while powerful project management apps like Procore can help construction managers oversee full-lifecycle projects onsite. We’ve built our tool management app with workflows in mind – allowing, for example, tool managers to text or email team members from their smartphone contacts list without leaving the app. It’s of course important to stress, though, a collaboration platform, no matter how powerful, can’t empower its users unless they actually commit to using it together! Our advice: Pick an app and integrate it with other teams’ apps and systems (see in our next section about integrations) to avoid information silos.

 

2. Hire a Dedicated Software Engineer, Technologist, or CTO

A construction technologist is an important, emerging role within an organization that oversees a company’s construction technology program—responsible for researching and piloting advanced technology (see in next section).

 

True, labor shortages in the construction industry are staggering, though the US construction market is expected to continue to grow. Mass layoffs in the tech industry present a unique opportunity to absorb the tech industry’s displaced software engineering talent to help address the industry’s productivity challenges:

 

  • Addressing Technical Debt – In lieu of three months downtime to fully port over one system for another, software engineering expertise can guide a company in taking a portion of a larger software ecosystem offline at a time and replacing it with a part, but there are complexities and hairiness to that, which will require nuanced expertise.
  • Integrations – Building connectors between project management and an ERP, connecting specialty design to prefab, BIM and asset management, etc., to limit manual reentry of project information, remove data silos, and better connect the flow of project data between your teams’ various software systems and apps.
  • Open APIs – Open APIs allow software providers to empower your company’s technical team; in the event an integration doesn’t exist, technologists have the tools to build a custom solution in the short-term.

 

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3. Embrace Technology

It may sound counterintuitive—to attack technical obstacles by introducing more technology, especially when 42% didn’t have a budget for IT (according to the same ConTech report). But successful pilot programs and onboarding can empower contractors and business owners to deploy technology in a meaningful, outcomes-driven way:

 

  • BIM – Building information modeling, the digital tools of trade that architects, engineers, and contractors use to create unified, collaborative, multi-dimensional representations of built environments and infrastructure can mitigate risk and shorten project timelines by 50%, according to a scientific case study.
  • Industrialized Construction is not so much a technology as a complete redefinition of construction processes in favor of “productization” over one-off projects that improves quality, consistency, and value for customers. It takes advantage of multiple approaches, such as:
    • Offsite construction – both prefabrication and modular prefabrication – which moves preassembly of certain components to an offsite, manufacturing-style facility, and which has proven to increase project timeliness by 50% while reducing waste by 20%.
    • 3D Printing – 3D printing (aka: additive manufacturing) offer rapid design freedom and speed of delivery, delivering a 10-house community in China in a single day, for example. Respondents surveyed about their use of 3D printers reported the following benefits they viewed as most important: Ability to create complex geometrical objects, 69%; Value of quick iteration of products, 52%; Mass customization abilities, 41%.
  • Drones – Drones can be used ahead of breaking ground on projects in land surveying just as they can be used to provide real-time project reality capture.
  • Robots – Robots can be used to automate procedural tasks to free skilled trades to tend to tasks that require a higher degree of human intelligence; they can also keep workers out of harm’s way by automating dangerous tasks.
  • Smart Tools – Smart power tools can deliver installations faster and safer, using advanced technology like machine learning to protect operators against dangerous kickback events. Advanced software/hardware interaction can be used to dial in precision settings for application-specific repeatability, utilization data from events performed on tools in the field can be packaged up in a fully customizable reporting suite to provide proof-of-work documentation to customers, building inspectors, and stakeholders.
  • Generative AI – It may be a faux pas in certain circles, but exploring realistic ways in which generative AI may fit into construction workflows (e.g., assisting project managers, inventory managers, construction safety trainers, etc.) is critical as the industry looks to execute on growing backlogs.

 

4. Lean Construction

Just as agile software seeks to improve quality over time, lean construction is an approach to the business of building things that aims to minimize waste and maximize value for all stakeholders by reducing waste commonly encountered on construction sites such as:

 

  • Excessive material handling
  • Rework
  • Design errors
  • Conflicts between trades
  • Conflicts between other contractors
  • Ineffective supply chains

 

5. Digital Twins and IoT

Digital twin technology seeks to mirror real systems and drive smarter, predictive analytics with real-time sensor data through machine learning and artificial intelligence – and it’s helped reduce rework in manufacturing by 15-20%.

Digital twins aggerate data through related IoT sensors that can be used in construction to keep track of tools and equipment in real-time across various jobsites as well as drive safer, smarter installations.

McKinsey some six years ago predicted the rise of IoT devices to empower companies to monitor and repair equipment in real-time through automated alerts for preventive maintenance, inventory management and ordering, quality assessment (i.e., “smart structures”), energy efficiency, and safety.

Today, many of those predictions have come true; with the launch of Apple’s Vision Pro recently, renewed discussion in the construction wearable space, for example, is worth having to enhance safety training.

 

Bottom Line

The construction industry, strapped for talent (both skilled trades and engineering), is rife with opportunities for technical debt – however, there’s a myriad of tools at a business owner or technologist’s disposal to prevent technical debt from getting out of hand.

 

We recommend:

  1. Collaboration and ownership through project retrospectives
  2. Hiring a Dedicated Software Engineer, Technologist, or CTO – perhaps displaced talent from the technology sector
  3. Embracing advanced technology
  4. Embracing lean construction principles
  5. Supercharging your data analytics via digital twins and IoT

 

Robert LaCosse is a User Experience strategist with over 10 years of experience improving user experiences for major companies like Intel and Razorfish. At Milwaukee Tool, he is a leader in the UX Research discipline, responsible for ritualizing user research practices for One-Key software products. He also serves as a UX mentor and adjunct professor of computer science at Clark College in Washington state.

PMTimes_Aug1_2023

Engagement Management: A Key to Successful Projects

Written by George Pitagorsky on . Posted in Articles.

If you are experiencing unproductive disagreements, dissatisfied stakeholders, finger pointing, and misunderstood roles and responsibilities, look to your engagement management (EM) process.

 

All projects are engagements among project managers, performers, clients, sponsors, functional managers, and “customer care” people in sales and support roles. Whether you are in an organization providing contracted services or you are managing in-house projects with clients in your same organization, if you manage a project without managing the engagement, you are likely to fail to satisfy stakeholders, even if your project achieves its objectives.

 

This article describes engagement management and the critical importance of collaboration and the clarity of roles, responsibilities and objectives to ensure that stakeholders are satisfied:

  • Clients are satisfied because their expectations are met – what you promised, what they bought, what they need, and what you deliver match up.
  • Sponsors are satisfied because there is value to the organization, desired benefits are realized at an acceptable and expected cost
  • Performers and managers are satisfied when they are not overburdened by impossible demands, unnecessary bureaucracy, unhealthy relationships, and poor working conditions
  • Regulators, accountants, attorneys, procurement specialists are satisfied when their views are respected and rules, protocols, and regulations are followed

 

The Engagement Management Process

Wise service industry organizations formally recognize the engagement management process with pre-sales, sales, performance (projects and services), relationship management, and support functions as part of an overall engagement.

 

For example, a typical service organization has the following functions involved in each engagement

  • sales and marketing to attract and ‘close’ clients
  • engagement management to oversee and coordinate
  • delivery to manage and perform projects
  • functional managers and staff to provide resources and expertise
  • procurement to find vendors, negotiate, and manage contracts
  • legal to make sure that contracts are clear, valid, and satisfy needs of the parties
  • quality management to make sure what is delivered is acceptable
  • customer service to manage the relationship, maintain communications, and provide support,  before, during and after the project
  • administration and finance for accounting, billing, reporting and other services.

 

Roles and Responsibilities

Roles and responsibility assignments vary depending on organization structure and the relationship between the client and the providers. The structure and degree of formality of the process depends on the stakeholders’ legal relationship. If they are in separate corporations, procurement, accounting, and legal issues must be formal and precise to avoid unnecessary conflict and better manage the conflict that does arise.

 

When the providers are in-house, there is a similar need for clear understanding among the stakeholders. Though, since there are no legal requirements, it takes greater discipline to follow best practice standards that manage disagreements and unmet expectations. Legal and procurement professionals may have no involvement but someone (the PM, a PMO, or a quality management group) needs to make sure that agreements are clearly documented, and decisions are made with objectivity.

Whether in-house or not, a project manager (PM) may play multiple roles. For example, sometimes the PM provides customer support and sometimes business analysts, salespeople, or customer service specialists play this role. Sometimes the PM is the engagement manager.

 

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The Engagement Manager

Everyone should be clear about who is doing what, who has final authority, what reporting is required, and how decisions will be made – majority, consensus, authority.

Holding the engagement together is an engagement manager, who may be managing a portfolio of accounts with multiple projects and is responsible for making sure the clients are happy and the contributors to the engagement are playing together nicely.

 

Whether the client and provider are in the same organization or not, there is a similar need for attracting and closing realistic deals, establishing and performing a project, maintaining healthy stakeholder relations, and following up with support.

The Engagement manager makes sure all engagement functions are assigned, coordinated, and well performed, and that the expectations of all parties, including performers and executive sponsors in both provider and client organizations are managed.

 

The Sales Role

The sales role is as important when the project is in-house as it is in vendor situations.  Though in-house engagements often fail to recognize the need for a sales role.  Some of the in-house sales work, performed by “champions,” evangelists, or advocates, may be to promote project ideas and “sell” sponsors and clients on an in-house solution over vendor alternatives.

The sales function often leads when it comes to setting client and sponsor expectations and pricing, though these must be influenced by project constraints and costs.

 

Effective engagement management (EM) avoids a disconnect between the people who set client expectations (sales)and the project and support people charged with delivering the results. A well-defined EM process will ensure input from delivery and a decision by engagement management or sponsors as to the final deal. Salespeople are most effective for the organization when they are compensated based on the profitability of their sales.

Consultative selling ensures that both the client and provider understand the client’s needs. Collaborative selling involves delivery experts in the process of defining and pricing the work.

 

What You Can Do

Engagement management is both necessary and complex. If you are experiencing dissatisfied stakeholders and lots of useless and avoidable conflicts, it is likely that your engagement management process needs to be assessed and improved.

The first question to ask is “Do we have a defined process?” There is always a process, but if it isn’t defined, roles and responsibilities are likely to be unclear and some functions may not be performed well or at all.

 

For example, if customer service and engagement management functions are not identified and assigned, responsibility defaults to the PM. If the PM is aware of the needs and has the necessary competency, all will be well. But if the PM expects someone else to handle the relationships and accountabilities, and no one picks up the work, there will be trouble – arguments, dissatisfaction, etc.

To avoid trouble, whether you are part of a contractor firm or an in-house service department, step back, assess and define your process. You can do this for a single project, but it is better if it is done on a broader scale. It requires involvement and buy-in from all the stakeholders in the sales, customer service, and performance organization.

 

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