Tag: Career

It seems unbelievable that my clients would be struggling to find and retain excellent project managers in today’s economy – after all, aren’t we still emerging from a recession?  However, once there are multiple data points with a clear trend line, it seems prudent to face reality.  I have no doubt that those companies who find and/or retain excellent project managers will have a secret weapon to succeeding during this turbulent, “new normal” economy.  Why and how?

First, let’s address why.  Execution is one of the three keys to delivering bottom line business results consistently.  In today’s volatile “new normal,” it is even more essential.  For example, customers are more concerned with making decisions as they don’t know what to expect – sales and profits can be significantly different from month to month or even day to day in today’s stormy environment.  Thus, many times, they are afraid to commit to a decision; even a simple one.

Cash flow is a consistent concern, and they can be worried about not having enough orders to keep their employees busy one day (should they sweep the floors?  Send them home?  Lay them off?), and are then overwhelmed with a backlog of orders the next week.  Also, since everyone is concerned about cost, the customer suddenly expects more for less; therefore, service is vital.  Quality must be an assumption.  All of this adds up into an increased need for flawless execution. 

In my experience in leading and participating on hundreds of project teams in multiple industries and globally, flawless execution requires excellent project leadership.  And, unfortunately, I can count on one hand the number of excellent project managers I’ve worked with on the hundreds of projects.  Some are acceptable.  Others are good.  But few are excellent.  And, to make matters worse, excellent project leaders who execute flawlessly are typically underappreciated by executives.  After all, they resolve issues before they are visible and so they often go unnoticed.  It seems easy!

Thus, how to find and/or retain excellent project managers is critical.  Let’s start by defining an excellent project manager.  Which qualities are essential?

1. Communication Abilities
   As is common place understanding for effective leaders, communication skills are vital.  However, I’ve found that achieving effective communication skills is not as simple as it sounds.  You must have a good enough understanding of the details to be able to effectively communicate the whys, yet in a high enough level format to be clearly understood by multiple levels of management (typically one of the two is missing as it is unusual to find both).  You must have enough passion or interest to take the lead with your communications.  Being a cheerleader is not enough – you must be able to provide constructive communication and contribute ideas as well as provide positive support. 
2. The Ability to Synthesize the Data and Tasks
   You can be the most effective communicator; however, if the project team discovers that you are unable to synthesize the data and tasks to understand the scope of the problem or situation on a quick enough basis, you will quickly lose respect.   This does not require that you perform all the tasks yourself or that you understand the topic upfront, but it requires that you are able to ask effective questions, see trends and connections and draw conclusions.  Otherwise, you could easily spend countless, expensive hours discussing a $70 issue.
3. Execution Ability
   Blocking and tackling.  Follow up.  Ask for status.  Provide thoughtful ideas.  Help overcome roadblocks.  Have a rigorous focus on priorities.  Manage the critical path relentlessly.  Last but not least, this is impossible to achieve without excellent leadership and teamwork skills.  Otherwise, no one will follow.

So, now that you’ve identified these skills, you need to find and retain them.  First, open your eyes.  During the last few years, I’ve seen some of the best resources go unnoticed or unappreciated.  Forget about the fancy three-ring binder reports and interesting conversations about sideline activities and take a step back and see who is delivering results in your organization.  It might surprise you.  Once you find this person, retain him/her.  It all depends on the person – some appreciate a simple thank you.  Others appreciate interesting work.  Yet others appreciate the recognition of their value and autonomy in decision-making (sometimes it’s as easy as supporting their decisions – how hard is that?).

Next, depending on what you find within your organization, search for this talent in the market.  Executive recruiters say it’s a tough market to find this type of talent (surprising but true), and so you have to be diligent.  Do not settle or hire the less expensive resource and hope for the best.  It will not deliver the results required to succeed in today’s “new normal”.  Typically, relationships and personal connections are your best source.  Do not give up!  If you are the leader with access to excellent project managers, you will be able to leapfrog your competition and deliver exceptional bottom line results.

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If someone asked you if you were a project manager, you might look at your job title and respond, “No, I’m the CEO,” or even, “What’s a project manager, anyway?” According to Wikipedia, a project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers can have the responsibility of the planning, execution, and closing of any project, typically relating to construction industry, architecture, computer networking, telecommunications or software development. [1]

Most likely, you didn’t think that you would spend hours planning projects, gathering resources, engaging teams, monitoring and assuring progress and reporting on results. But guess what? Whether you’re a procurement manager or CEO, in actuality, you’re probably a project manager and you don’t even know it. You are the “Accidental Project Manager.” Are you the person who does the following?

• Organize the team or the process, because no one else does.
• Manage multiple to-do lists.
• Keep three or more deadlines a week in mind
• Faithfully cross tasks off a list as they are accomplished.
• Move sticky notes on your desk or dashboard like a wigiboard
• Missed a deadline because of others not completing their tasks on time.
• Been given the excuse of, “You didn’t tell us about that,” when you know you did.
• Find yourself getting confused about which task relates to which project.

Now that you’ve been mildly disturbed by the self diagnosis of what may sound like a horribly tedious disease termed project management, you can be comforted by the fact that there are thousands of people going through the same experience and there’s a range of treatment options out there. Relief can be yours if you are willing to confront the challenge head on. Say it with me – I am (insert your name here), and I am an accidental project manager.

In all seriousness, the fact that there is an entire field of professionals and several organizations (i.e., PMI – Project Management Institute, among others) dedicated expressly to project management, provides the everyday accidental project manager with a treasure trove of best practices as well as a host of tools aimed at lighting the pathway to success for any initiative. Even if you only manage an occasional, short-term initiative, by taking your cues from the pros, you can anticipate obstacles and reap the benefits that come from formalizing your approach to project management. The bottom line – you can make it so that your projects get completed on time and under budget if you take the right approach, and in the end, this means accolades for you and more profit for your business.

What Accidental Project Managers Face

The first obstacle Accidental Project Managers face in achieving project success is finding a way to get everyone on the same page. Within an organization, roles are often highly distributed – that is, multiple people may have a small part in ensuring a particular task is completed. Equally often, a bottleneck in completing one task may hold up dozens of others working on the same project.

The need to be on the same page can also be evident internally when working across departmental lines, such as when the marketing team needs assistance from the technicians to implement a new Web initiative, or the manufacturing design team needs quick turnaround from the modeling production department. Forget for a moment about ensuring timely completion of tasks. Without the right mechanisms in place, it can be a struggle to even collect status updates from in other departments. For a project manager, even an accidental one, this can mean things grind to a halt quickly.

Those potential obstacles are functions of the mechanics and ability of the organization as a whole to adapt to dynamic factors, but equally challenging are those presented by the personalities present within organizations.

Another factor can be information hoarders – those who don’t share intelligence quickly or effectively. Sometimes, an individual’s working style is such that he or she prefers not to share news on progress as part of an effort to control the process or perception of performance. Sometimes there’s a belief that those in other departments will not understand details specific to another’s role in the project. Other times, priorities shifted by leaders aren’t communicated swiftly to those managing the day-to-day tasks of the business. Regardless of cause, instilling a culture where information is shared, not protected, is vital to project success.

Still another obstacle is the resistance to adoption of new processes. Often, this starts with the executive team, the group most likely to be set in their ways regarding planning. Sometimes, the idea of a structured, strategic approach to project planning sounds like a lot of hard work. Team members can get nervous about accountability, don’t want to switch from old-school paper methods, or are of the mind, “We’ve always done it this way.” The accidental project manager must convince these individuals that the time it will take to create and develop new methods and processes will be dwarfed by profits earned as a result of the efficiencies those new processes will bring.

Benefits of Formalizing Project Management

Why formalize your approach to project management? Think P5 – proper planning prevents poor performance. For most projects, the main measure of performance is project speed. Project speed leads to efficiency and greater profit.

First of all, well-organized, clearly depicted work schedules get you the chance to manage a project to begin with – by helping you win it! At project scoping and bid stages, contractors that present a calendar, Gantt chart or other visual tool that explicitly lays out the project schedule instill a greater sense of confidence in those making the decision of who to hire.

Once underway, faster completion of one portion of a project can often mean a contract bonus for the contractors involved. And projects finished on time more often lead to repeat work and more referrals.

Even if there are no direct monetary incentives for project speed, if deadlines and objectives are created through a collaborative process from the outset and good communication on status remains in place, fewer project revisions are necessary. As a result, the project managers, as well as staff and contractors, are spending less time in project-update meetings, freeing up their time to work on the actual task at hand.

Another primary benefit of formalized project management is that it instills greater accountability of each individual participating in an initiative. Team members realize their position within the workflow of a project and get a sense for how their performance impacts other tasks, deadlines and, ultimately, individuals. Formalization usually leads to status updates, spurring a more take-charge approach by each stakeholder who realizes that he or she is more accountable due to project transparency. Many times, team members feel more comfortable knowing precisely what is expected of them. The process of entering information into a more structured system both clarifies their responsibilities and reinforces the belief that their success will be recognized.

Measurability is another key advantage of formalized project management. Not only can team members track their progress against stated goals, but they can also improve ongoing estimations of project lifecycles. Some common metrics include:

• The project is delivered on the original delivery date of the scheduled project.
• Project cost is under the original budget.
• Fewer instances of overruns compared with planned allocations for any particular resource (e.g., the plumber doesn’t have to come out twice to do the same thing due to other bottlenecks).
• Number of subprojects running simultaneously.

A final benefit of adding structure to the way you manage projects is that it helps your organization develop a formalized and dynamically evolving business process. After developing an initial template, projects get off to a start more quickly, as project-specific obstacles can be anticipated more effectively. Capacities are better understood, helping your company avoid biting off more than it can chew at any particular time. Deliverables become more clearly defined with each iteration of the project plan, which is continuously refined based on each of the organization’s experiences.

Five Must-Have Best Practices

• Before beginning a project, engage all the stakeholders necessary to develop and agree upon organizational structure and workflows.
• Create a visual map of production processes to increase efficiency and improve strategic decision-making.
• Provide clear objectives and an overall benchmark for project success.
• Create a single visualization of all project details, tasks and their interdependence that includes a mechanism for tracking status in as close to real-time as possible.
• Hold regular, formalized status reviews.

Leveraging Technology

Today, the number-one arrow that an accidental project manager can put in his or her quiver to achieve these best practices is sound technology. Long gone are the days when the only option was pencil and paper, and quickly fading are the days where coordinating dozens of home-brewed spreadsheets are the best option. Project-focused software enables organizations to create and adopt a new process that will increase overall productivity, improve response time when changes are required and provide immediate information on the impact of changes.

Keep in mind it’s not just the tools designed for the folks who launch the space shuttle that can bring this value. Even popular tools such as Microsoft Project are overkill for the average accidental project manager. Instead of trying to train yourself and your entire staff on a complicated software tool with many confusing features your organization is unlikely to use, look for software that cuts to the quick and has a simple, no-nonsense interface. If it’s easy to use, the chance that people working on your projects will adopt it skyrocket, and your projects will reap the benefits.

As well as seeking an easy-to-learn project management solution, choose one that can work well with your existing tools, which may include spreadsheets such as Excel, calendar programs like Outlook or iCal, presentation programs such as PowerPoint and Keynote or accounting packages such as QuickBooks and Microsoft Dynamics. The best project management software can even interact with other applications aimed at the same goals. Choosing a program that can open and modify Microsoft Project files, for example, can go a long way in ensuring that an accidental project manager can work seamlessly with other organizations that use more complex programs to manage projects hour by hour, day by day.

Finally, when possible, seek out software that can work across platforms. For example, often one contractor uses Macs while another uses PCs. A cross-platform software suite can bridge this gap and enable Windows and Mac users to collaborate on projects and seamlessly share vital information.

Although most people don’t realize it, nearly everyone takes on a project management role at some point or another in their daily, professional or even personal lives. Regardless of setting, these accidental project managers deal with the same obstacles – from turf wars to information hoarding to resistance to change. By gleaning best practices from the purposeful project managers – those whose roles focus solely on managing projects, even the occasional project manager can bring new efficiencies to an organization. And that means greater profit. And through methods that promote accountability, thoughtfully planned workflow and collaboration, you can bring order to the chaos of information being thrown your way, reducing your own stress levels and giving you more time for the part of the job you had envisioned when you first entered your field.

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Dennis Bilowus is President and CEO of AEC Software. He may be reached at [email protected].

[1] http://www.wikipedia.org.

It’s first thing in the morning, and you are preparing to interview prospective project managers for an open position on your team. Whether it is your first candidate interview or you have conducted many before in your career, you are likely to be contemplating the line of questioning you will ask of the prospective candidates. Perhaps you are thinking of questions from a “Strengths and Weaknesses: Project Manager Profile” that you typically use. However, any line of questioning can only provide a limited insight about the candidate and their potential to be an effective project manager for your organization.  Understand that a skilled candidate may well have sat through similar interviews recently, researched your organization, and prepared competent answers to what they believe are the most typical interview questions. Or maybe they haven’t, because this is the first interview they are going to, although they are a first-rate project manager and well thought of in their existing organization. In order to assess whether a person has the potential to be an effective project manager in your organization, we contend that you need to conduct specific assessments beyond interviews and references of previous work assignments.

There is no magic formula for success in finding a project manager that transcends the needs of all organizations. A project manager who is highly successful in one organization or company may find limited success in another. Much may depend, for example, on how the organization sets itself up for running projects (strong matrix, weak matrix, projectized, or functional). Knowing how your own organization operates its projects is crucial to selecting new project management talent, and to making sure a new starter is not placed into a spot where they will not realize their potential, and the organization will not reap the maximum amount of benefit.

We believe there are certain personal characteristics/traits that, if present in a person, will make them more likely to be effective as a project manager in a variety of organizations.

We are putting forth what we believe are a set of core personal characteristics for project managers that, put together, can comprise a profile of an effective project manager for most organizations.

We put forward five core personal characteristics of effective project managers. These are:

• Be an extrovert
• Display personal courage (lead from the front)
• Possess charisma
• Be an enabler with a can do attitude
• Have a strong sense of teamwork

Let’s cover these points in more detail.

First, the need to be an extrovert. It is commonplace for project managers to give presentations and lead work groups.  After all, a project manager’s job is 90% communication. The audience for their presentations range from project teams to project sponsors and perhaps customers and/or investors. A project manager needs to be comfortable addressing any size of stakeholder and/or customer group in a wide variety of situations. An introverted person will likely have to undergo long-term training and coaching to come out of their shell in order to be truly effective in all environments. Extroverted people tend to exhibit a natural comfort in such situations and are at an advantage.

Next, the need to display personal courage. In many projects the project manager will need to settle disputes and differences of opinion amongst stakeholders. Negotiations can often be delicate, particularly at tight moments in the project’s life. The right decision is usually not one that is favorable to all stakeholders. An effective project manager should display personal courage in all decisions made, see them through, and ensure the team continues to pull together for the benefit of the project. Maintaining respect from all stakeholders takes skill, which can be learned through experience.

This leads us to charisma. A charismatic project manager is more likely to have others willing and wanting to follow their lead because they have faith in their leadership.  More than likely the charismatic project manager is in a better position to mentor and train others.

Neither of these two core characteristics of courage or charisma is present in the core personality traits of all people, and it is important to tease-out how much of these characteristics the candidates you are interviewing possess.

Having a consistent can do attitude is akin to being positive on all teams, and always seeing a solution to a challenge or a problem. Such an outlook can make a huge difference in the face of road blocks when they appear.  This positive attitude says a lot about the person’s character and how they will react to adverse situations.

An effective project manager while being results driven will also have a sense of team and enablement. He or she is focused on the team and the project over and above their individual needs. The project manager is continually encouraging the team to challenge themselves and to rise to heights that may even go beyond the expectations of the project (though not to ‘gold plate’ a solution, of course). To be effective, the project manager should consider the long-term relationships with the project team. If he or she is totally results driven, without a sense of team and enablement, sure, their particular project may get done within the project constraints, but at what price? And what if they have another project with the same team member(s) in the future? With a sense of team and enablement, a project manager is likely to be more effective in the long term. And people will want to work with them (even more so if they are charismatic and have a positive attitude). If your organization preference is to focus on each project by project without regards for the long-term, bringing in someone who is focused on ‘just getting the work done’ would be the best option, but nowadays this type of approach is rarely pursued.

In conclusion, we assert that there are five particular personal characteristics that can make a person effective as a project manager – the need to be an extrovert, to display personal courage, to possess a measure of charisma, to have a can do attitude and to be a good team worker. When these characteristics are present, along with core project management skills such as being a good organizer, being detail-oriented, and other discipline-oriented skills, the project manager is more likely to be effective across many types of organizations and industries.

Those who are making key hiring decisions for project management talent should consider appropriate assessments in addition to a person’s experience and interviews in order to gain a complete picture of potential project managers. Taking the time to select the right people can pay huge dividends.  

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Gary Hamilton is the Manager of the PMO and Governance within Bank of America’s Learning and Leadership Development Products organization. Gary has 14 years of project and program management experience in IT, Finance and HR. He holds an advanced MBA degree in Finance and several certifications and credentials program management including PMI’s PgMP® (and PMP®.. Gary can be contacted through LinkedIn. 

Gareth Byatt is Head of the IT Global Program Management Office for Lend Lease Corporation. He’s a PgMP®, PMP® and PRINCE2 practitioner, and holds an MBA and first-class undergraduate management degree. Gareth has 13 years of project and program management experience in IT and construction. He can be contacted through LinkedIn.

Jeff Hodgkinson is the IT Cloud Program Manager for Intel Corporation. He is a 30-year veteran of Intel with a progressive career as a Program/Project Manager. Jeff’s credentials include PMI’s PgMP® and PMI-RMP® (Risk Management Professional) Jeff was 2nd place finalist for the 2009 Kerzner International Project Manager of the Year Award. He can be reached through LinkedIn.

I spend a portion of my time recovering troubled projects or helping project managers avoid traveling down the road towards a troubled project.  In doing this, I keep making the same observation over and over again:  most project managers are failing.

To better understand why I am saying this, we’ll first have to understand what I mean by failure.  Most people understand the basic premise that project management success consists of two things:  a successful outcome, and a successful journey towards reaching that outcome.  If we could even get project managers to focus on only those two elements, I think we’d be improving our overall success rates and the perception of the profession in the business world.  However, many project managers think about project management success as consisting of having a good plan, and following that plan, while staying on time, within budget, and with acceptable quality.  I agree that for many projects, doing those things alone would be a huge improvement and may, in fact, be very difficult to achieve.

I have a more mature view of project management success, however, one that considers many factors:

1. Product Success – Does the product or service produced by the project meet the functional and performance expectations of the project sponsor?  Does it satisfy all of the key needs and has it been launched in a way that ensures a smooth transition with all applicable support structures in place?
2. Project Success – Does the project stick to the costs and timelines outlined in the business case?  Did the project capitalize on opportunities for improving the business case through discovering and applying innovative approaches, optimizing processes to maximize the delivery of business value, and adhering to the technical, procedural, and other constraints?
3. Relationship Success – During the course of project delivery, did the project manager maintain a good relationship with the project sponsor and extended list of project stakeholders?  It is no good to deliver a good project on time and on budget while building animosity with the sponsor and stakeholders during the process.
4. Project Team Success – Were the task assignments, work locations, and other decisions made with the needs and preferences of the project team in mind?  Was the project managed in a way that allowed for some work-life balance for team members?  Were work hours reasonable?  Did team members have a say in how their work was estimated and planned?

Taking these last two factors into account significantly broadens the scope of a project manager’s domain of responsibility.  You cannot say that project management was successful if the team was burned out and demoralized, or if the project sponsor was angered so much that he or she won’t work with the project manager again.  One really needs to consider these additional success factors when planning a project.

Now that you understand my broad view of project management success, you’ll better be able to understand my earlier comment that most project managers fail – they just aren’t thinking broadly enough.  Most project management texts that I’ve read don’t go into this level of detail – even the PMBok Guide published by the Project Management Institute does not define either project success or project management success, though it does say that project objectives must include at least cost, schedule and quality elements.  So, it’s no wonder that there is some confusion over what elements should be included.

For those of you willing to look outside of the PMI empire for good ideas, the International Project Management Association (IPMA) publishes a standard called the International Competence Baseline (ICB).  The current version (v3) includes a definition of project success (“the appreciation of the various interested parties of the project outcomes”) and a definition of project management success that makes up one of twenty project management technical competencies described in the international standard, along with fifteen behavioral competencies and eleven project contextual competencies.  The ICB states that a project that is terminated (i.e. it has failed) could still achieve project management success if the appropriate management processes were used to trigger the termination decision and to control the orderly shutdown of the project.  The IPMA is clearly taking on a broad view of project management success, one that is much broader than PMI’s nine project management knowledge areas covered in the PMBoK Guide. 

Regardless of whether you follow the PMI or the IPMA standards, a broader, more holistic view of project management success is necessary to ensure that you are taking all of the relevant factors into account when you are planning your next project.  Take the time to think through all four success elements, and you will find that your project may go more smoothly with a greater chance of being considered successful by all relevant parties.