Skip to main content

Tag: Change Management

Symptoms vs Sources in Project Management

Written by Jon Isaacson on . Posted in Articles. 7 Comments on Symptoms vs Sources in Project Management

Successful project management requires developing your soft skills.

Project management skills require the ability to solve an unending series of issues. You create a plan that includes contingencies and yet, when humans are involved there will always be opportunities for conflicts to arise. As a professional, you understand that people-problems can be the most difficult to identify and resolve. It is important that we use our limited energy to determine sources of dysfunction rather than chasing after symptoms.  

When someone near you sneezes, do you brace yourself and think, “Great, now I’m going to get sick?” You experience the external symptom and know it reveals that this person has either had a reaction to something or that they are ill. The sneeze could carry particles of some disease that will spread to yourself and others. You may say, “Bless you,” or offer your favorite remedies for the common cold. 

You know that when someone sneezes (symptom) there is an underlying source. 

On the other hand, in business, you experience dysfunction all the time and yet get sidetracked by thinking solely about the symptoms. Symptoms are what attract our attention when sources are where solutions must be applied. As a person in a position of leadership, it is important to intentionally develop your ability to decipher the nuances between symptoms and sources if you want to be effective with leading your team. 

What is the difference between a symptom and the source when addressing dysfunction? 

The online Oxford Dictionary definition of a symptom (noun) is, “A physical or mental feature which is regarded as indicating a condition of disease, particularly such a feature that is apparent to the patient.”

When used in a sentence, “Dental problems may be a symptom of other illness.”

What do you do when you begin to experience tooth pain? The pain is a symptom of some source. It could be a cavity, a sensitive tooth or something much greater such as decay or infection. Ibuprofen may temporarily treat the symptom of pain but it will not address the source. After a few days of increasing discomfort, you decide to go to the dentist to determine the issue and discuss solutions.  

Interestingly, the online Oxford Dictionary uses another example which is apropos both to our culture as well as the business environment, “A sign of the existence of something, especially of an undesirable situation.”

The second sentence utilization from Oxford states, “The government was plagued by leaks—a symptom of divisions and poor morale.”

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

.

In the example, leaks (symptom) in the government were caused by divisions and poor morale (source). I would add that division and poor morale are symptoms of lack of trust and unwillingness to set aside ego for the greater good. When human interactions are involved, the source versus symptom discussion has layers of complexity. 

  • Dysfunction, like the common cold, affects your team’s ability to perform their duties. 
  • External symptoms expose underlying internal issues.
  • To treat a symptom like dysfunction, you must uncover the source(s).
  • When symptoms are left untreated, they invite a host of other symptoms and sources.

As a project manager, as well as a person in a position of leadership, you can either peel back the layers of symptoms to address sources or the layers of symptoms can build until they overwhelm your resources and suck the life from your organization. Successful project management includes developing your people management (aka soft) skills.  Explore beneath the surface to determine what sources in your team are causing these dysfunctional symptoms. Addressing one layer of symptoms and sources will likely lead to opening another layer. 

  • Be mindful of your culture: Is there a clear process that empowers team members, at any level, to bring issues before the team so that they can be discussed? In his book, Joy Inc., CEO Richard Sheridan talks about the importance of a culture of open communication. He says, “What I hope is that we’ve created a system that exposes these problems sooner, so that we can deal with them while they are still small.” Sheridan discusses the role of the leader in removing fear from the team so that there is freedom to bring up issues and the empowerment to experiment with creative solutions. 
  • Expand your input channels: In this rapidly evolving business climate, it is foolish for anyone in a position of leadership to believe that they will be able to identify all of the issues as well as come up with all of the solutions. Former Navy Seal team leader, Jocko Willink states, “A leader must lead but also be ready to follow. Sometimes, another member of the team—perhaps a subordinate or direct report—might be in a better position to develop a plan, make a decision, or lead through a specific situation.” 
  • Develop your process: When you see issues arise, don’t be distracted by the symptom, dig into the sources. There is a difference between a negative outburst based in egos and a conflict which exposes an issue within your organization. A strong organizational culture is not afraid of constructive conflict and will navigate the process to strengthen the team.

Three keys to crushing your growth goals

Written by Jon Isaacson on . Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on Three keys to crushing your growth goals

Use your time intentionally as you make progress in your professional development.

There is so much pressure to live your best life. There is a new formula every day for how you can 10x your efforts to strike while the iron is hot. With so much information coming at you as a professional it can be difficult to determine whether you are doing the right thing to propel your career forward. Moving forward isn’t the only measure of success. It is possible to be moving forward in an endless circle that goes nowhere.

Pursuing a growth mindset requires asking difficult questions of yourself.

How then do you ensure that your personal development and professional efforts are not being wasted? We share three keys to ensure that you are not misapplying your time. Professionals, leaders and managers can use these steps to help review whether your personal strategy is leading down the path of achievement.

Step 1: Measure your growth efforts correctly

Recognize that moving forward isn’t the only measure of progress. Like being lost in the woods, you can be walking with great effort and purpose and yet find that you have succeeded only in arriving at the spot from which you started. How terrible is it to realize you’ve spent all this time only to discover that you moved forward in a large and arduous circle. Your setback wasn’t for lack of effort, but for lack of skill and commitment to identifying a sound reference point. In business you need benchmarks that track your progress.

Stop running in every direction by developing a plan guided by vision.

  • Where do I want to be?
  • Who do I need to be to get there?
  • What do I need to do in order to move myself in that direction?

In her book, Unqualified Success, Rachel Stewart reminds us that the key to success starts with understanding that, “The only qualification to get better: being willing to suck when you start.”

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

Step 2: Identify reference points for your growth progress

We recently trained the first adolescent driver in our family. One thing that we continued to stress, whether they were positioning themselves in their lane or preparing to reverse into a parking spot, was that you have to identify a reference point. If you are going to reach your goals you need a reference point to guide you. By locating reference points you can direct your steps towards your goal and track whether you are making progress.

Start to build accountability for yourself setting goals from your vision.

Move your vision into action by setting some goals. You can work forward from where you are or you can work backward from where you want to be. Often it is best to think of where you want to be in 5-10 years, what does that vision path look like?

In his book Traction, Gino Wickman, advises that once you know where you want to be in 10 years you can break your vision into action steps. Keep it simple but make it trackable. In Traction’s terminology, with a vision of your 10 year target, or Big Harry Audacious Goal (BHAG), you can create a three year picture from which you develop a one year plan from which you can break that into quarterly ROCKS.

Step 3: Move your growth onward and upward

Wherever you are on the ladder of success, most in a position of leadership would say that they have the will to succeed. What separates achievers from dreamers is the ability to develop a framework and follow through from a plan of action. Align your will to succeed with action based upon your reference point to ensure that you are moving in the right direction. Honesty with yourself is as essential as constructive input from trusted mentors.

Continue to check your progress and habits by asking, “Is this working?”

Just because you have a vision and have started making progress does not mean that you won’t miss a turn or get caught into another loop. The value of having a written plan is that you have something to measure your progress against. If you add some peers to your circle, or a mentor, you can benefit from independent insights and accountability. Your plan likely will change as you move forward. You must adapt as you learn new information from trying, failing and receiving feedback. 

Growth requires will, skill and chill

Growth requires moving beyond your comfort zone. Progress demands the will, skill and chill in to reach your goals. You can say you have the will, but how consistently are you move in step with your vision. Skills can be learned when you maintain a hunger to improve. Chill is the learned ability to understand that you can survive this. The three combined allow you to push through obstacles, redirect your path and bring quality people to assist your efforts.

The will to succeed combined with the skill to accurately assess whether we are making headway can provide the chill to endure any obstacle.

Ready For Anything – Mindfully Aware

Written by George Pitagorsky on . Posted in Articles. 6 Comments on Ready For Anything – Mindfully Aware

Projects often do not end up where and when they are originally planned to end up.

Costs, schedules and objectives shift and change. People come and go. Impacts on other projects and operational activities may be underestimated.

Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) are facts of life for many, maybe most, project managers. In fact, for just about anyone living in our fast changing and unpredictable world.

Are you ready for anything – able to succeed and thrive amid VUCA?

Cognitive Readiness

Cognitive readiness is the capacity to apply knowledge and behavioral skills in the context of teams, organizations and their environments to perform in complex and unpredictable situations. It is being prepared mentally with the right skills, abilities, knowledge, motivations, understandings and personal dispositions so that one is ready for anything.

From my article Project Management Education: Cultivating Cognitive Readiness And Optimal Performance (https://www.projecttimes.com/george-pitagorsky/project-management-education-cultivating-cognitive-readiness-and-optimal-performance.html)

“Cognitive readiness, is the readiness of individuals and teams to apply their skills and to explore their faults and deficiencies and make the effort to overcome them. Cognitive readiness implies the courage and candor to objectively assess performance and improve it as needed. It implies the resilience and the capacity to accept uncertainty and paradox. It is enabled by and enables a healthy perspective and the application of knowledge and experience.”

Five factors contribute to being ready for anything:

  • Technical and interpersonal skills and business acumen to enable initiating, planning, controlling, monitoring and closing projects
  • A realistic view of the way things are — Interacting systems and processes, the reality of not always getting what you want, and the inevitability of change — to have a solid foundation for planning and managing expectations and conflict
  • Emotional and Social intelligence to enable effective relationships
  • The courage and insight to confront and overcome barriers like bias, anger, fear, frustration, confusion, clinging to untenable beliefs and to impossible expectations, etc.
  • Mindful awareness to bring inner workings to light with the courage and candor to objectively assess performance and improve it as needed. Mindfulness enables a realistic perspective and the application of knowledge and experience. It is the basis for emotional and social intelligence. It enhances performance.

The focus in this article is on the last factor, mindful awareness.

Mindful Awareness

Mindful awareness is the experience of objectively observing everything occurring within (thoughts, feelings, physical sensations) and without (sounds, environmental conditions, relationships, communication and behavior).

Objectively observing means stepping back from whatever is happening and seeing it as a scientist sees the subject of her experiment – suspending judgement in the face of biases, values and beliefs, and becoming responsive rather than reactive.

When in action in the project trenches, maybe about 5% of mental activity is expended on mindful awareness. It is a background task that joins with the thinking, talking, writing, planning, decision making and doing. It does not get in the way. It enhances performance.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

Living Above the Line

Many people live “below the line,” reactively playing out their role without looking at the underlying factors that drive them.

Mindful awareness means living “above the line” – being increasingly conscious of emotions, conditioning, beliefs, biases and all the things that drive speech and action. It is about using that consciousness to moderate behavior. For example, to not freak out when a vendor goes out of business in the middle of your project, or a key player leaves, or your client insists on an impossible schedule.

Living above the line enables responsive as opposed to reactive behavior. It is the key to being ready for anything.

Mindfulness Meditation Practice

Many people are already living above the line, to a degree. Yet, there are continuing instances of reactive behavior. Striving to become increasingly able to look below the surface and see what is driving one and to be able to respond rather than react, requires the courage, effort and method to confront and question everything.

Mindfulness meditation practice is a method for cultivating the concentration (the ability to focus on a chosen object or activity) and mindful awareness (the ability to objectively observe whatever comes up internally or externally) required to live above the line.

There are two kinds of mindfulness practice: formal (requiring time and effort) and informal/moment-to-moment (requiring effort but no time). The formal practice supports the moment to moment practice. Formal practice is a great stress reliever, a rest and relaxation aid. The informal practice brings mindfulness into everyday life under practical conditions. It is as simple as taking a moment when the phone rings or pings to take a conscious breath and become relaxed and grounded in the present, objectively observing.

Insight and Wisdom

Mindfulness meditation is often referred to as Insight meditation. It is called insight meditation because the practice leads to insight into the nature of mind and the life process we are all a part of. Insight leads to wisdom. Wisdom is experientially knowing how things are.

Insight is “an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person or thing.” The insight mindfulness brings is experiential as opposed to intellectual. It boils down to these realities:

  • Everything is impermanent – Change is a natural part of life
  • Not everything is pleasant – there will be some pain and suffering
  • Everything, including yourself, is continuously being created by ever changing causes and conditions – you are a work in process – nothing exists by itself.
  • What one thinks, says and does matters – your actions create a ripple effect
  • There is uncertainty. You never really know how it will turn out in the end
  • Awareness is the basic ground for everything that we sense, feel, think or do.

As these insights are experienced the most profound kind of stress relief is felt. There is no longer the same kind of attachment to things being in a certain way. Expectations become realistic. Choices become easier to make. Decisions and creativity emerge without unnecessary doubts. Stressful conditions become more manageable as one becomes capable of working through unpleasant feelings. There is a letting go into skillful flow.

Resilience

Knowing that change is a given, that nothing is permanent, feeds resilience. One learns to go with the flow and influence it to the degree one can. One learns to trust in one’s own skills and knowledge to navigate the situation without expectations.

All there is, is a continuously changing process. One cannot stop the flow. One door closes, others open. Every change becomes an opportunity to practice and to cultivate increasing cognitive readiness – the ability to live happily and successfully amidst volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity – ready for anything.

M.A.S.S.I.V.E. Projects for sustainable development

Written by Massimo Longo on . Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on M.A.S.S.I.V.E. Projects for sustainable development

The current period the world is living in relation to economic, social, environmental aspects, puts people in front of important decisions.

Floods, tyfoons, hurricanes and global warming urge us to do something. The question is ‘what can we do?’.

High-scale economies, but also day-to-day issues put us in front of unconventional and urgent decisions. If we do not have the courage to take brave decisions the ‘safe operating space for humanity’, defined as the ‘planet boundaries’ will be broken and humanity will have to face a ‘irreversible and abrupt environmental change’.

After II World War, we experienced for many years an incredible economic growth. During this growth, our cities and nations have changed dramatically.

From a rural based society, we quickly became an urban-based society. Economic growth started in 1700 in England and expanded rapidly in many other countries.

Convergence in economy has also allowed reducing the gap between rich and poor countries.

The growth we have experienced worldwide was the fruit of governance strategies based only on reaching well-defined economic objectives. Until now, this is what has driven high strategic programmes and portfolios as well as small projects.

In the area of project management, the overall planning, execution, monitoring, closure of every project has still been driven by its ‘inner’ objectives without considering the wide ‘outer’ impacts the deliverables of the project will produce.

The ‘Management by Objective’ culture has developed management frameworks in which the goals are that we have to produce a lot and in the most effective way.

Nowadays executives are called to manage strategic programmes and projects considering also the ‘sustainability’ concept.

Sustainable development needs a holistic view on what the services or goods delivered by a project need to provide.

The main four areas of success a sustainable project should always consider are

  1. Economic
  2. Social
  3. Environmental
  4. Political

The link among these areas is not direct. We need to go through different levels of detailed analysis of the project requirements to shape exactly what the project needs to deliver and successfully bring value in each of the four areas.

Requirements that have to collect from all stakeholders impacted by the projects.

Project managers are mainly asked to consider cost, time, quality and scope when governing a project. It rarely happens that they are asked to consider sustainability as a critical project objective.

If sustainability is mentioned in the field of in project management, it is always interpreted as the ability of the project to deliver successfully the project only from an economical and financial point of view.

Nowadays it is important to have a much wider view of sustainability.

Not only having the goals projects as cost, quality, scope, time.

It is important that projects are not only oriented to the ‘inner’ benefits of the project, but also to the benefits that it produces towards the community that will interact with its deliverables. Those benefits in order to be sustainable will need to be positively measured over a long-term period.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

Projects must answer those needs as well!

In addition, sustainability should be seen as respectful of the environment and respectful of the social balance of the community it will influence. Thus, it is important to give high importance to the stakeholder management aspects of project management if we want to deliver a sustainable project.

I recall different cases from my project management experience in the filed of civil engineering. Projects were focused only on the ‘inner’ deliverable and not to the ‘outer’ sustainable impacts it would have.

I managed the construction of building where green areas were destroyed. A better focus on sustainability could have delivered the buildings as well as basins for collecting rainwater and playgrounds for children.

In the areas where we are experiencing climate change, it is important to consider areas free of concrete for the collection of rainwater and then usage for other purposes.

Our projects must be not only oriented to the deliverable itself but also to sustainability.

Company strategic plans must embrace the concept of sustainability. Sustainability has to be considered during strategic planning. Risk Management is the right project management knowledge area that should be used to pre-empt problems that can jeopardize the success of long-term sustainable objectives.

This of course has to go along with a well-defined list of economical, financial, environmental and social goals.

The management have to re-think about the impact of the projects in the context where it is and take specific actions.

With all this in mind projects need to be managed and sponsored by positive executives that will not only look at the business objectives to achieve. These projects will need managers that are focused towards the overall benefits. Benefits that will be reflected in every single piece of the puzzle of the end result.

I tried to find a way to summarize the needs that a project requirement must provide in the M.A.S.S.I.V.E. acronym. I believe this can properly define a sustainable project.

M = Massive

A = Ackowledge

S = Social

S = Sustainable

I = Inclusive

V = Valuable

E = Extensive

M.A.S.S.I.V.E. projects must have the following seven attributes.

Massive – They must have strong and long-term beneficial impacts from a sustainable point of view.

Nowadays we always have little time to manage all the issues linked to sustainability. Therefore, every choice we make now must have long-term massive impacts.

Acknowledge – There is need of full acknowledgement at all levels that a new thinking of the stakeholder term is needed. Project plans should reflect it.

Project stakeholders need to have full visibility of the project goals from the initial stages of the project. Social communities impacted by the project must be listened and all their requirements must be analysed. There is need also to keep them informed and receive their feedback during the whole project lifecycle.

Social – Projects need to be social. They have to be thought as an advantage for the community at all levels. It has to bring benefits to the local communities as well as to a wide variety of people with higher degree of influence.

Sustainable – as we have been going through this article.

Inclusive – Projects need to be inclusive. Every person influenced by the project has to be provided with the right fare amount of benefits. There must be only winners. No losers.

Valuable – The impact of sustainable project must be measurable in order to deliver sustainable value.

Extensive – Scope of sustainable projects must be extensive. They need to cover needs in the Economic, Social, Environmental, Political areas. From a time point of view, they have to cover long-term as well as short-term needs.

Modern management should make sure that every single project is a M.A.S.S.I.V.E. project.

M.A.S.S.I.V.E. projects will contribute towards a sustainable economy. Benefits will also be experienced in the economic, social, environmental and political areas that today are facing a multitude of challenges. From an ethical and social point of view project managers are called to deliver M.A.S.S.I.V.E. projects.

5 Secrets to 5% Increased Profit on Your Next Project

Written by Brad Egeland on . Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on 5 Secrets to 53 Increased Profit on Your Next Project

All resources matter on the project.

Without all resources working cohesively and effectively together, it can become nearly impossible to effectively and successfully deliver on the project. But beyond that – looking to the revenue level and the profitability on the project… everything affects it, but close management and oversight of it comes down to the project manager. No one entity on the project has the insight, access to info, and overall project knowledge from that standpoint to effectively manage how healthy the project financials are.

Also, not only can the project manager help keep the project stay on track financially, they can also help increase project revenue and profitability through effective financial management, scope management, and customer and team management. Many things do affect all of this – well beyond my list below, I know – but for me it starts with regularly performing these five tasks… my secrets to keeping project revenues high and project profits hopefully higher than expected. Let’s discuss…

Discuss financials weekly with the project team.

One of the best ways to get the team aligned on managing their own time charging well and accurately on the project is to just let them know it’s very important to you and to the bottom line of the project. Many don’t realize that and they’re just trying to account – usually at the end of the week – for all their time. They know they put in 65 hours on various projects and they are tired and throwing hours down on a time sheet that means very little to them other than a task that is due Friday afternoon or Monday morning. It’s not daily tracking as it should be – in reality it’s Friday afternoon guess work when they would rather be doing anything else.

So, discuss the project financials at each weekly team meeting. Make sure they know how much time charging is expected of them for that week and the following week from your resource forecast and ensure that the two match up. I realize this one action may not add to the profitability of the project very much – but it can keep it from being the rollercoaster ride it often is and can definitely keep the project from unexpectedly going 50% over budget leaving the project manager wondering what went so horribly wrong.

Limit PM travel.

Believe it or not, not all project customers see PM’s as a vital expense on the project. I had one project client in Texas who just didn’t see the need or value from Day One. Even my lead tech – who was mostly working onsite with the client – said “how can you not like Brad, you don’t even know him?” I got to the bottom of this PM disdain on their part and they were mostly concerned about budget and questioned the need for my $150 per hour project hit. So I immediately looked for ways to manage from afar. I eliminated my travel and reduced meetings to conference and video calls and they loved it. Best of all it added to the profitability of the project without affecting my management of the project or our performance level on the project.

Limit team travel.

Beyond the PM travel, look for ways to limit team travel as well. If the plan calls for onsite quarterly meetings with the customer re-think that. Does the customer care if you do it with a video call, thus saving thousands and adding to the profitability of the project? I realize that some travel can’t be avoided and the customer will need it to maintain a level of confidence and overall happiness in most cases. But it can be kept in check – I’ve worked too many projects where it seemed we were traveling way too often and making the rest of our “productive time” and effort on the project suffer when we could be effectively delivering on the next phase instead of wasting important dollars on what has already been accomplished by traveling just to review it.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

Manage the project scope.

Scope management may be the best overall way to help ensure project profitability. Too many projects go by with extra work added without the necessary change orders in place to cover the work, add the necessary revenue for that work and keep the profitability of the project in place. Those change orders can add nicely to the project profits – I once added $100k in revenue with a high profit margin by selling the need for an onsite business analyst to the project client. The customer loved it, project revenue skyrocketed and profitability took a nice jump as well. Look for ways to do things like this when managing scope.

Tighten resource management and forecasting.

Making your team aware, watching scope, limiting travel, etc. are all great ideas. But the real profitability boost comes from you – the project manager – effectively, efficiently and relentlessly forecasting resources accurately throughout the project engagement. Don’t just come up with a resource forecast and let it sit. Revisit it weekly. Maybe you no longer need an expensive business analyst during weeks 32 and 33 on the the project. Discuss removing the resource from the project for those 80 hours – thus possibly saving the project as much as $12,000 during that downtime for the resource. If you are working on a time and materials basis with the client it may not help revenue and profitability much. But if you are charging more on a fixed price or deliverable basis, your profits could increase dramatically

Summary/call for input

You’re the project manager. No one else can keep costs on track and profitability high like you can. Never just phone it in when managing anything that affects the project $$ bottom line. Even one hour a week spent analyzing project financials and re-forecasting the project financials and resource usage can reap huge dividends in the long run in terms of profitability on the project.

Readers – what are your thoughts? Do you agree with this list? What are your secrets and tricks for keeping project revenue and profitability in check and adding to it throughout the project? What frustrates you the most with revenue planning and profitability on the projects you manage?