Tag: Career

During a presentation on the topic of the BA and PM roles recently, someone asked me a question about personality types. She asked if there were, generally speaking, certain personality traits for PMs vs. BAs. I asked the crowd what they thought. Here are some of the responses.

• Big-picture and details. A BA said that she thought BAs have a broader perspective. They are more “big-picture,” and PMs are more detailed, she asserted. I asked the PMs in the audience what they thought and they said, as we might suspect, that PMs were more big-picture and that BAs were more detailed.
• Intuitive/logical. Another BA suggested that BAs are more intuitive. Again, I asked the PMs what they thought and they thought PMs were.
• Introvert/extrovert. Another suggested that BAs are more extroverted while PMs are more introverted. The PMs disagreed. For those not familiar with these terms, In general extroverts tend to be energized by people and introverts by thought and imagination. Extroverts tend to like to socialize and introverts tend to like their own private space. Extroverts tend to make quick decisions and introverts usually need more “think” time. Extroverts tend to speak and then think and introverts vice versa.
• Thoughtful vs. action-oriented. Someone suggested that PMs are more action-oriented while BAs more thoughtful, for which there was more agreement than on any other point.

I believe that both BAs and PMs share all these traits and more. Both need to see the forest and trees, both need intuition and logic, both BAs and PMs need to act and to consider, and both need to interact with others and be alone. However, I think they use these traits at different points in the project and for different reasons.

Big Picture/Details

Both the BA and PM roles require us to both understand the big-picture and keep track of the details. As they progressively elaborate requirements from the highest-level business need to the detailed functional and non-functional requirements, as they trace requirements, as they elicit and model requirements, and as they ensure that the ultimate solution solves the business problem, BAs have to keep both the big-picture and the details in mind.

 A few ways in which PMs need the big-picture perspective include working with the sponsor on the Project Charter and project objectives, making presentations to senior management to justify funding requests, and ensuring that all the details of the project trace to the project objectives. As PMs detail the project management plan, including the baselines, the communications plan, the estimates and schedules, the resource plans, as well as when executing and monitoring  the plans, they need to keep track of a multitude of details.

Intuition and Logic

 If, indeed, intuition is “keen and quick insight” (dictionary.com) or “understanding without apparent effort” (Wikipedia), then we could argue that both BAs and PMs need it. If logic is “reason or sound judgment” (dictionary.com) or a “tool for distinguishing between true and false” (cited in Wikipedia), then both BAs and PMs need logic as well.

Back in the proverbial dark ages, I had a consultant tell me that I was “very logical, for a woman,” and I took that as the greatest of compliments. A few years later, when “female intuition” was still considered a negative attribute for serious women in business, I proudly noted how intuitive I was to my boss. I remember that he quickly retorted that I wasn’t intuitive, but rather that my experience gave me what appeared to be intuition about such things as what to recommend, estimates, people’s behaviors and motives, etc. I agree that the more experience we have, the more easily we can navigate uncharted territories. However, I have found that some of us need less data for our decisions, and some more. I’m not sure, though, which role uses more intuition and which more logic.

Introvert/Extrovert

I would be hard-pressed to categorize either PMs or BAs as either type. There are times on a project when we need to interact intensely with others and times when we need our alone time. For the BA, each of the BABOK® Guide 2.0 knowledge areas has tasks and techniques that favor one or the other, but both are needed to complete all tasks. For example in Elicitation, the task to conduct elicitation activities requires more extroversion, while documenting the results requires more introversion. In the PMBOK® Guide developing the team requires more extroversion and creating the various management plans requires more introversion. In an online article in Forbes on November 30, 2009, Jennifer B. Kahnweller convincingly argues that introverts make the best leaders (http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/30/introverts-good-leaders-leadership-managing-personality.html ). Perhaps the most effective project professionals are “ambiverts,” hovering close to the center on a continuum from introversion to extroversion.

Thoughtful/Action-Oriented

 Although there are times on a project when we need to act and times when we need to listen and to step back and consider alternatives, generally speaking the BA is more thoughtful and the PM more action-oriented. The PM is more focused on delivery of the end product on time and within budget, so there is more of a tendency to act and act quickly. In general, BAs need to ensure that the end product actually works the way stakeholders want it to work, so there is more need to analyze alternatives and impacts and ensure stakeholders come to consensus on the requirements, which will take more time, consideration, and patience.

Enough for now! I want to explore this topic of personality traits for PMs and BAs more extensively in future blogs.

This one is not my tale; it is the story of a friend of mine, a friend who is, of course, a project manager; a project manager I know to be very good at team building, a real ‘people’ person.

Picture a new project with a new project office. Apparently the company my friend was working for had reserved some brand new office space in a building that they were going to move other departments into in the coming months. In the meantime the project team could take over one floor.

Now, I have been in many project offices over the years ranging from a single desk to a temporary office unit (grey boxes that get lifted in to place by a crane and officially described as ‘relocatable and modular accommodation’ apparently). But, by all accounts, this new building that my friend moved into with his project team was superb.

He chose a nice new desk by a window and with a view facing the doors so that he could see all that went on, people coming and going, working (or not working I guess), and so on.

And so life was good and thus did the project move forwards in a pleasing way.

The only feature that was lacking was a decent coffee machine. They had a temporary one to begin with but the team waited with baited breath for the new, top of the range, super-dooper, hot beverage dispenser.

It arrived one weekday morning, wheeled in on a trolley. My friend was elsewhere at the time on important project business. When he arrived back in the project office he was somewhat surprised to see that his desk now had a new neighbour. A coffee machine.

‘Hey, grab a coffee, its great’ was the general cry from the project team. I am sure that that is what he did, before walking the two feet back to his desk.

The project office was full now and so it was too late to move desk. Oh well, a great project office with a great coffee machine was not something to make too much fuss about.

And then things went downhill:

Day 1. People started saying ‘hello’ each time they lined up for a coffee at the machine by his desk.

Day 2. People started conversations as they waited for their freshly simulated brewed cup of java by his desk.

Day 3. People started sitting on his desk, whilst they waited for coffee, said ‘hello’, engaged in conversation and were generally sociable.

Day 4. People asked him where the spare coffee cups were and what ‘error 54g’ was.

Day 5. People asked him what the telephone number for the coffee repairman was so that they could report ‘error 54g’ and get the coffee machine fixed.

Day 10. People started using the phone on his desk whilst waiting for a coffee etc.

Day 15. The project manager left the building.

In actual fact he did move desks, he manage to secure a small space across the landing from the main project office. It wasn’t ideal as he was now removed from the project team but, on balance, it was better than the alternative.

It doesn’t matter that you want to espouse an open door policy, in order to be as accessible as possible to everyone, if you want to get on with your job you do need some space. To be right at the centre of everything all the time is not conducive to being a good project manager.

It was the coffee machine or the project manager, and the team made it clear that the coffee machine won hands down!

A Final Comment

So for the ‘productive lazy’ project manager it is perfectly acceptable for the lights to be on and for no one to be at home; not all the time, obviously, and at critical times access and visibility are all too important. But for the rest of the time, why not let your project team work a few things out for themselves, take some degree of responsibility and decision making, and generally get on with the tasks at hand.

Being there when you are really needed and being there all the time are very different things indeed.

‘You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are; but you must approach each man by the right door’. Henry Ward Beecher

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Peter Taylor, despite his title of ‘The Lazy Project Manager’, is in fact a dynamic and commercially astute professional who has achieved notable success in project management, program management and the professional development of project managers, currently as Director of a PMO at Siemens PLM Software, a global supplier of product lifecycle management solutions. He is an accomplished communicator and leader; always adopting a proactive and business-focused approach and he is a professional speaker with City Speakers International. He is also the author of ‘The Lazy Project Manager’ book (Infinite Ideas 2009) – for more information – www.thelazyprojectmanager.com.

I have been in Europe again, for more than a month now, giving agile project management and portfolio management workshops. And again, this year, I was invited to give a couple of conferences about project management issues.

One of my conferences was about project uncertainty and risks, and on why and how agile principles could help manage those issues more effectively. My conference was preceded by short presentations by two IT project managers. Their role was to give an account of some of their project misfortunes, and mine to reflect back on those misfortunes while showing how agile principles could help prevent similar ones. There was a short question and discussion period at the end of each presentation.

One of the project managers talked about a project that was over, but had been a complete mess. He offered factual elements, reflected on what went wrong, and then said what he learned and what fixes he was trying to apply to prevent similar problems from occurring on current projects. He was asking for confirmation that he was doing the right thing.

The other project manager was talking about an ongoing project, for which the scope was very fuzzy and the project client almost unreachable to discuss this issue. It seemed that this client was just waiting, so to speak, for a black box to be delivered that would do magic without putting in the effort to have the right contents in the black box! This project manager was a young fellow, very bright as far as I am concerned. He had tried some agile approaches but did not really know how to make them work, as the client was refusing to be part of it. He seemed somewhat at a lost and was looking for some help and enlightenment from fellow project managers.

The first project manager did not get, from the 70 or so people in the room, much confirmation that he was doing the right thing now. The second project manager did not get help and enlightenment on how to get out of the coming mess. Rather, they both got plenty of criticisms from people that were indirectly alluding they would have done or could do better. So easy it is to criticize while being an outsider; so easy to know better; so easy to know it all…and so easy to contribute nothing in doing so.

It took great courage and humility from these two project managers to share so generously of their misfortunes. I believe that showing that courage, that humility and that desire to reach out for help was in itself a great demonstration of what are the right behaviors to adopt as a project manager. I also believe that criticizing and playing know-it-all, not showing empathy was also a great demonstration of the behaviors to avoid as project manager.

Those two project managers helped me learn a lot, not only by sharing their misfortunes but also by displaying their courage and humility. This was the most important learning element of this event. I believe that, in the face of sharing and discussing others’ misfortunes, empathy is the right behavior to adopt. Each of us will need one day to reach out, humbly and with courage. We then deserve more than criticism and a slap in the face. We deserve a display of the same behavior, to be humbly listened to, with empathy and with the courage to share similar misfortunes and grow from them together. Courage, humility, empathy are the qualities of a true leader and project manager. And this is what has to be displayed, learned and shared in the face of others’ misfortunes.

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Be Accessible in a Controlled Way

I’m all for being there for people, honest I am. It’s just that people take advantage of it if I am.

 

So for the ‘productive lazy’ project manager, I would suggest that it is perfectly acceptable for the lights to be on and for no one to be home; not all of the time obviously, and at critical times access and visibility are all too important. But for the rest of the time, why not let the whole team work a few things out for themselves, take some degree of responsibility and decision making, and generally get on with the tasks at hand.

Being there when you are really needed and being there all the time are very different things indeed.

Being reachable in a controlled manner, and within an acceptable timeframe, to answer appropriate questions (and not stupid ones) is equally important. The last thing you want is a long line of people queuing up at your desk waiting to ask advice, and your phone flashing with an ever increasing number of messages, and all the time your inbox is reaching capacity with demands for your attention.

This can lead to the ‘lights on all the time’ syndrome, a very dangerous condition:

“What should I do now?”

“Breathe” you might reply

“In or out?”

You have so many more useful things that you could be doing, like reading a good book in the comfy chair for example.

Applying the ‘Productive Lazy’ Approach

Avoid the Swamp

This is linked in so many ways to the communication topic already covered. If you create a communication plan that guarantees to swamp you from day one, what is the benefit; to you or to the project?

None!

The plan should ensure you are not seen as the oracle on all matters, nor that you become the bottleneck for a constructive information flow within the project team. Most projects develop communication plans that are the documented strategy for getting the right information to the right people at the right time. We all know that each stakeholder has different requirements for information and so the plan defines what, how and how often communication should be made. What project managers rarely do is consider and map all communication flows, official, unofficial, developmental or complete, and do a load analysis across the project structure of these communication flows. If they did they would spot bottlenecks much earlier than they normally do; usually this problem is only identified when one part of the communication chain starts complaining about their workload.

Consider the Open Door Policy

The open door policy has become a real management cliché.

“Of course” managers pronounce in a firm voice, “my door is always open to you all, day or night; I’m really there for you.”

Empowerment in this way has become more an entitlement for the project team than a project manager’s choice. They just expect you to be there when they want you to be (and not even when they need you to be there, either). An open door policy can easily transform a project manager’s role from that of an authority, and managing figure to that of a subservient accommodator, with little chance for exercising control on those that demand access.

Be a Good Manager

The best manager is the probably the one who reads the paper or MSN every morning, has time enough to say “Hi” at the coffee machine, is isn’t always running flat out because they are “late for an important meeting.” By that I mean that a good (an obviously productively lazy) manager has everything running so smoothly that they have time to read the paper or MSN and so on. This is a manager who has to be confident in their position and capabilities.

A good manager will have time for their project team, and being one who has everything running smoothly, will allow that to happen.

A good manager does not need to be on hand twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. They do not have to have the answer to every question, nor do they have to be the conduit to the answer to every question. There is a whole project team out there – go talk to some of them – they probably will have a much better answer to hand, anyway.

Think about Number One

You honestly want the best for yourself as well as for the project; I understand that, so give yourself that chance. Have you ever met a project manager who has put themselves down as a project risk? “Yeah, well I am just too nice a guy, can’t say no, can’t turn someone away, love to cha”‘ – likelihood 80%, impact 100%, mitigate now!

But hopefully by now you also want to apply the productive lazy approach so consider this; let the team deal with 80% of the communication, 80% of the questions, 80% of the issues, and let the 20% come through to you for consideration and guidance. You don’t even have to solve that 20%. I would further suggest that only 20% of this 20% are likely to be answered by you in an adequate manner; there are always others that can provide better advice.

Think about the Rest

OK, you have dealt with the’thinking about number one thing, now what about your team? Well by dealing with number one you will have already done the team a huge favour. You will be accessible when you need to be accessible. The lights will go on as and when they are really needed – it is a kind of ‘green’ project management policy.

The worse thing that can happen is that just at the moment when there is a ‘clear and present’ need for someone to speak to you, whether about a project or a personal matter, you are just too tied up with trivia to even give them the time of day. Remember the whole ‘respect’ and ‘reputation for team support’ we spoke about earlier, well this is a major contributor to that.

Analyze and Reduce

And this is not a one-off action; you need to keep on top of this as well. Projects change, communication develops, and roles are in flux. Do a quick analysis of what information and queries flow through you and how, and regularly re-assess. Can others deal with some of this? What are the important components that you should be involved in? Are there too many questions and communication from particular sources? And so on.

Make sure that everyone knows that the light works and when and how they can turn that light on fast if they really need to.

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Peter Taylor, despite his title of ‘The Lazy Project Manager’, is in fact a dynamic and commercially astute professional who has achieved notable success in project management, program management and the professional development of project managers, currently as Director of a PMO at Siemens PLM Software, a global supplier of product lifecycle management solutions. He is an accomplished communicator and leader; always adopting a proactive and business-focused approach and he is a professional speaker with City Speakers International. He is also the author of ‘The Lazy Project Manager’ book (Infinite Ideas 2009) – for more information – www.thelazyprojectmanager.com.

How do you know if you are the type of person who should be a project manager? Are you a reactive, fly-by-night, last minute, kind of disorganized person? Or do you obsess with upcoming deadlines, keep a to-do list, get your stuff done ahead of time kind of person? Do you even know?

I have always considered myself as a somewhat disorganized, last minute approach, somewhat lazy kind of person. But I have been told that I am not, so maybe that just shows how bad we are at judging ourselves. And when I look at the facts, they seem to disprove my own opinion. Here I am, three weeks before this blog is due, sitting at 10 pm in the evening trying to get a head start. Why? Because I am going on a two-week vacation and I don’t want to think about work then.

Does that make me a good project manager? Not sure. There are a lot of other factors involved, but I think it shows that I am a risk averse PM. And while that does not guarantee success, I do think that it helps. I tend to review my main commitments on a regular basis and see if there is something that will cause me to miss them. If I feel I have plenty of time, I will tend to procrastinate and do nothing (other than maybe play guitar and read crime novels). So, with my own schedules I tend to use the Finish-Finish approach. What does that mean? That I start things as late as possible while still being fairly sure I can complete them. And I do think that is a good approach?

If you start things too early you run the risk of things changing on you. Resources, customer, scope, or a number of other things. If you start too late, you tend to end late and miss out on that gigantic bonus (or set of movie tickets depending on who you work for).

So I like to plan for things, but also to keep a reactive mindset and change the plans as the circumstances warrant. A finish-to-finish plan depends on that. If you want to start activities as late as possible you must be quick to react to changes in the environment. And adjust. So… with three weeks to go I would normally watch TV and have a beer now. But with a looming vacation in Sweden and not wanting to spend any time thinking about project management then, I adjust my plan and finish it early.

Of course… I could have just blown off the whole thing. I don’t think there is a large group of readers who would have become despondent. But my ego does not allow that. I want to be in print. And ego is another important trait of a good PM.

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