Skip to main content

Tag: Change Management

Welcoming Uncertainty with Self-awareness

Written by George Pitagorsky on . Posted in Articles.

Everyone confronts fear. Either they maintain clear-minded focus or react with denial or panic.

Individuals, teams, and organizations perpetuate dysfunctional policies and procedures because they are afraid to open Pandora’s Box of transformative change.

“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.”  Thich Nhat Hanh

While it takes effort, ‘a hard time’, it is possible to overcome the fear of the unknown and by doing so alleviate the suffering caused by dysfunctional performance.

 Fear of the unknown

The unknown, uncertainty, is at the root of worry, anxiety, and fear. Since what will happen in the future is unknowable, Project managers, executives, and all the other stakeholders face uncertainty. Sure, we can make plans and analyze trends and past performance, but no one knows the future with 100% accuracy. Uncertainty is a certainty[1].

Many attempt denial – “We have a plan and it says that the work WILL be done by the target date for the budgeted cost.” Others realize that change and uncertainty are natural and inevitable but are fearful, worrying about what might happen if the project slips and spending goes through the roof. Some will experience fear but won’t be fearful.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

Fearful Reactivity vs. Responsiveness

To be fearful (full of fear) means to be driven by fear. Courage is about using the energy of emotion to remain calm enough to think, act, and communicate clearly and effectively. It is what makes the difference between highly successful project managers and others.

To be responsive, to think clearly, and make effective decisions, requires cognitive readiness or VUCA tolerance. VUCA is volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. The higher your tolerance for VUCA, the more likely you will be able to handle stressful situations.

 Inner Workings

VUCA tolerance requires that you confront your inner workings. These are beliefs, biases, denial, clinging to impossible goals, emotions such as anger, fear, frustration, greed, and jealousy, and their causes. Confronting these put one face to face with the unknown.

What if my beliefs are unreal?

What will happen if I confront the ‘inner workings’ that are behind my fear, my perfectionism, procrastination, anger, and whatever else gets in the way of effective behavior?

 Self-awareness

Facing these natural inner dynamics is to be self-aware. Self-awareness enables self-management and self-management is the key to VUCA tolerance. Self-management is the part of emotional intelligence that allows fear or any other emotion to be fully felt and then choosing what to do be responsiveness.

Cultivate Self-awareness

How does one cultivate self-awareness? The process begins with the recognition that it is an essential ingredient – some say, the most essential – for being able to perform optimally. Self-awareness “lies at the root of strong character, giving us the ability to lead with a sense of purpose, authenticity, openness, and trust. It explains our successes and our failures.”[2]

Until you make the connection between performance and self-awareness, you are likely to be reactive, driven by emotions, beliefs, and biases. And that is true for individuals, teams, and organizations.

Self-awareness implies objectivity, looking at yourself and your performance as if you were looking at anyone else. It is taking a step back to see yourself as others see you and to see what is going on “under the hood”, internally. To be self-aware combine the following:

  • Use mindfulness meditation to cultivate the ability to objectively observe whatever is happening within and around you
  • Identify your goals, priorities, values, beliefs, biases, and intentions and track your performance with them as a benchmark
  • Inventory your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
  • Get feedback as individuals by taking character/personality assessment tests to better understand your character[3]
  • Get a team and organizational feedback using assessment tools and open dialog
  • Get feedback from those you live and work with
  • Create a relationship with a coach or mentor.

Teams and Organizations

Teams and organizations are subject to the same dynamics as the individuals that make them up. The “self-aware” team or organization will explore its character and environment to identify the things that get in the way of optimal performance.

Based on objective criteria there will be conscious effort to improve by eliminating what gets in the way and making maximum use of the strengths of its members to overcome weaknesses and avoid or manage risks.

But not all teams and organizations are self-aware. They do not shed the light of performance analysis on themselves for reasons such as lack of time, insufficient assessment skills, and fear of exposing their weaknesses.

Many pay lip service to objective performance assessment and continuous improvement. They may collect performance data and have reviews, but they don’t use the results. Some hide results that are too embarrassing. Some never act upon identified opportunities for improvement.

Transformation

We are living in a time of transformation. Transformational change is frame-breaking. It completely changes the way you think and work. It alters relationships and changes values and policies. With transformational change, there is no going back, and the way forward is unknowable.

Digital transformation brings technologies like artificial intelligence, process automation, robotics, and data analytics into play. Their application breaks new ground and significantly impacts people’s roles and responsibilities.

Transformation to Agile and Lean approaches from more highly structured ways to manage and perform projects change relationships, roles, and responsibilities. It changes the techniques used in planning. It changes project managers’ and other stakeholders’ skill set requirements with a greater reliance on collaboration and communication. It opens teams and the organization to greater transparency.

 Moving Forward

Moving forward into the unknown is scary. Self-awareness is possible but cultivating it is not necessarily easy. It requires that you objectively assess your inner workings and the way they influence personal and group performance and use the insights you get to improve.

Related resources:

Ready For Anything – Mindfully Aware – PM Times

https://www.projecttimes.com › articles › ready-for-any.. .

Ready for Anything – Courage and Insight – PM Times

https://www.projecttimes.com › articles › ready-for-any…

Managing Project Expectations and The Courage to Push Back

https://projectinsig

The Key to Performance Improvement: Candid … – Project Times

https://www.projecttimes.com› articles › the-key-to-per…

ht.com› project-management-tips

Cognitive Readiness in Project Teams: Reducing Project …

https://books.google.com› books

Improve Performance by Mindfully Managing Stress by …

https://www.mindfullifemindfulwork.com› 2021/06/04

Self-aware Living
www.self-awareliving.com

[1] There are notable exceptions like, change and death, but we won’t get into those here.

[2] Harvard Business Review, “5 Ways to Become More Self-Aware” by Anthony K. Tjan, https://hbr.org/2015/02/5-ways-to-become-more-self-aware

[3] There are many self-assessment tests. For a sampling see Psychology Today “Self Tests” at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/tests and “14 Free Personality Tests That’ll Help You Figure Yourself Out” https://www.themuse.com/advice/14-free-personality-tests-thatll-help-you-figure-yourself-out

Stakeholder Register: The Unsung Hero

Written by Tony Oliver on . Posted in Articles.

Who is your favorite superhero from the multi-billion-dollar movie franchise Avengers?

Most people would respond with the Hulk, Spiderman, Captain America, or Iron-Man. After all, those characters have been mainstays of Marvel comics for many decades. But they are far from the only ones in the series: Ant-man, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and the Scarlet Witch are a few of the lesser-known members of the super team. Every group has some members who get the glory and front-billing, but it does not mean the others are not essential. Chances are you may have worked on a project in which some of your colleagues’ overshadowed others.

Among project management artifacts, the stakeholder is such an unsung hero. The Who? The What? Exactly.

Chances are your extended project team, or even your sponsor doesn’t know about this document, or why it’s important. But you, as the project manager, should be keen on its powers. Think of how to alter egos that are underestimated in the superhero world, or how smaller members are overlooked until they rise to the occasion and save the day.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

Remember all those Shakespeare plays you read in high school? Before the first act, the “dramatis personae” were listed. The descriptions often gave you an idea of their relationship and any conflict which may ensue. Navigating the play without such information would be difficult. Hamlet’s name may title the play, but you’d want to also know about Claudius and his schemes.

The charter, the schedule, and the project management plan get all the glory, but the stakeholder register is key to understanding the others. After all, a project takes people not just to perform the work but also to benefit from the product. Without understanding the stakeholders’ needs, a project will likely miss the mark. This translates not just to a lost opportunity for the organization but also wasted time, money, and goodwill.

The stakeholder management plan also helps keep track of triple constraint impact. We often focus on the project’s priorities, but constraints also exist at the stakeholder and requirement levels. Understanding what makes each stakeholder tick is integral to successfully managing those needs. For younger project managers raised on role-playing games (computer or tabletop), the stakeholder management plan can best be described as a matrix of all the traits and abilities of each participant.

Project managers often fall into the trap of believing stakeholder management is logical and thus can be done on the fly. Others may think their interpersonal skills enable stakeholder management to flow naturally. Seasoned project managers know better, aware of the manners in which stakeholder attitudes may change throughout the project. One’s best friend may become one’s bitter enemy, and a strong proponent may suddenly turn into a source of undesired criticism. Being aware of the stakeholder’s desires and personalities can help the PM prepare for, and avoid such landmines.

Some projects run into difficulties due to the stakeholder management plan not being written down, but this often stems not from laziness but rather a mistaken belief that the PM “knows all about the stakeholders.” Project managers, no matter their tenure in the organization, should not fall into this trap. Crafting the stakeholder management plan:

  • Helps other team members, whose tenure and experience may be limited and not have relationships with the stakeholders. Think about when you first started working for your company, or when you first took on your current role. Your network was likely limited both in terms of knowledge depth and breadth. A well-curated list of stakeholders can save your team from spinning around in circles to find out who is affected by the project and to what degree.
  • Can assist when a stakeholder leaves the organization and a new one comes into the vacated role. It would be ideal to have a project where the stakeholders do not change…but that seldom happens. People retire, take new jobs, are moved to new roles; while some may adequately train their replacements and help them understand their role in the project, PMs should not assume this would always happen. The stakeholder register can help identify gaps and prepare for such personnel transitions.
  • Can help clear misunderstandings. Conflict is unavoidable in projects, but the team should be well-versed on how to solve it. Confusion, on the other hand, can often fester if not clarified. The stakeholder register, when easily accessible by the team, can clarify roles, responsibilities, and areas of interest. Note the stakeholder interest and influence matrix will expand on the topic, so don’t rely on the register by itself.
  • Can facilitate conversations on Roles & Responsibilities. As the project team goes through the Tuckman team Development stages, questions will arise on roles and responsibilities. The stakeholder register can help guide such conversations, proactively prompting the team to analyze who is best suited to tackle individual tasks and oversee specific areas. Vetting these duties against the involved stakeholder areas ensures no affected department is forgotten.
  • Can help craft the change management plan. I’m a firm believer that change management and project management are the two wings of a bird; you need both to fly. A successful change management plan covers the what, how, why, when, where, and how of the current state: future state transition. You can get a head start by ensuring your stakeholder register is complete and thorough.

As with other project management artifacts, it’s key to remember the stakeholder management plan should be revised as needs arise. However, it should always be connected to the underlying stakeholder list. Always ask, after every conversation“, is there someone else you’d recommend I talk to?” This can help not just unlock doors, but also discover doors you didn’t know existed!

Evolving PMO: How the pandemic is shaping future PMOs

Written by Bill Allars on . Posted in Articles.

The pandemic has taught everyone that anything can happen, and change is always just around the corner. While every industry has been reeling from its impacts, the pandemic has given us the opportunity to make our project management offices more resilient and sustainable. To stay relevant and fulfil its role as a strategic command centre, the Project Management Office must evolve.

5 key changes of an evolving PMO

Here is a quick summary of the top 5 changes the pandemic will bring to the Project Management Office (PMO):

  1. Shift towards more Agile methodologies
  2. Increasing demand for effective communication and collaboration tools
  3. Acceleration of digital transformation through technological advancement
  4. The necessity for remote leadership skills
  5. PMOs becoming pivotal for crisis management

Let’s do a deep dive of each major change.

1. Shift to more Agile methodologies

Agile has been the ongoing buzzword of project management for years, though previously limited to software and ICT development spheres. The pandemic has shown us that the global market is not only extremely competitive and fast-paced, but also filled with uncertainties that could strike at any moment.

With its high value orientation, emphasis on self-organisations, quicker reaction times, more efficient management of digital programs and customer experience focus, adopting Agile methodologies allows organisations, not just software companies, to tap into the flexibility they need in times of crisis and change.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

If organisations need to be more Agile, their PMOs will need to spearhead the change. Becoming an Agile PMO is more than just changing practices and tools, but also involves changing mindsets and cultures. PMOs will need to transition from their traditional policing role rooted in rigid processes, old bureaucracy and traditional tools to make room for flexible processes, lean management and Agile-centric tools.

Though organisations may want to become more Agile, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to solve all your problems. In fact, many other methodologies have emerged and built off Agile philosophies to suit specific contexts. The PMO will be tasked with identifying, adapting and implementing the approach that suits their organisations needs best.

2. Increasing demand for effective communication and collaboration tools

The pandemic has brought about massive workplace changes, specifically in regard to remote working, and it is change that is likely to stay. A 2020 Gitlab research on white collar professionals discovered that only 1% of respondents wanted to return to the office with the vast majority preferring remote working. Additionally, 59% of the respondents indicated that remote working improved their output.

To accommodate this trend, the PMO will need to invest in improved cloud-based technology adoption to enable seamless communication and cross-team collaboration of geographically dispersed teams. Though many software and PPM systems have online collaborative capabilities, not all PPM software is equal. Collaboration platforms like Asana and Monday have become increasingly popular, but many such services lack integrative capabilities that allow all your project related activities to be collated in a single hub.

3. Acceleration of digital transformation through technological advancement

Digital transformation is nothing new, but the pandemic has greatly accelerated the pace of digital transformations. KPMG global survey shows that the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation strategy in 67% of respondents, with 63% increasing their digital transformation budget. McKinsey research shows that companies were adapting to digital changes at much faster rates than what was imagined pre-pandemic, particularly in regards to remote working, online customer services and the adoption of advanced technologies into operations.

As companies begin to better grasp the value of digital transformation and understand the speed it can be implemented, it will become a forefront agenda for PMOs of the future. PMOs will play a critical role in not only introducing practices, tools and processes catered to digital workflows, but also building the right cultures to minimize the resistance to change.

Additionally, as digital integration becomes more advanced, PMOs will much sooner than later be faced with the challenge of adopting and integrating artificial intelligence into their operations. It may seem like a daunting task, but AI is set to bring extensive changes to the project management field and effective PMOs cannot afford to be left behind.

4. The necessity of remote leadership skills

Relationship building and clear leadership are critical ingredients for a successful PMO. But relationship building is one of the hardest challenges of remote working. How does the PMO maintain their position as the strategic hub of an organisation if they are not able to build the relationships to lead effectively?

The pandemic has clearly shown how unequipped teams have been for remote working. A Terminal survey shows that 77% of respondents had no prior experience of leading remote teams and 30% of organisations had no long-term strategy for remote working post-pandemic. With trends showing that remote working is not going anywhere any time soon, PMOs have to adapt quickly and effectively to keep teams organized, focused, and motivated.

While remote working has been said to improve productivity, there are still many challenges such as teams feeling disconnected, employees experiencing higher rates of burnout and lack of morale. PMOs will have to work on building up their digital communication and leadership skills to compensate for the lack of opportunities to build informal relationships with team members.

5. PMOs becoming pivotal for crisis management

“In my view the PMO, in times of uncertainty, holds the whole project management ‘enterprise’ together, via process, communication and guidance. Companies that don’t have a PMO will see a lot of chaos and fumbling around in their projects” – Bob Patrino, Principal IS Project Manager

In times of crisis, employees will turn to the PMO to be their guiding light and have the proper processes and tools in place to support them. Crises like the pandemic are only going to increase in frequency and if PMOs limit themselves to their traditional policing role, they will quickly lose their relevance. PMOs have the opportunity to become a critical asset in an organisation’s crisis management strategy and have the capacity to lead teams strategically, align stakeholders, prioritise tasks effectively and ensure resources are allocated to the most critical projects.

PMOs are changing permanently. Are you ready?

Like the rest of the world, it is tempting to wish we can all ‘go back to how it used to be’. It is becoming more apparent than ever that going back may not be an option and a ‘new normal is here to stay. However, the PMO may be changing for the better and it is only those who prepare for the future who will reap its benefits.

About the author

Bill is a PMO consultant with 20+ of experience in Project and Portfolio Management, Project Administration, Risk Management and Process Redevelopment. He is currently working as PMO consultant with pmo365 and providing his expertise to the leading business.

From the Sponsor’s Desk – The Power of the People Network

Written by Drew Davison on . Posted in Articles.

“I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.” – Jeff Bezos, founder, and CEO of Amazon

These days, new stuff is introduced every minute of every day, around the world. It is impossible to keep up let alone stay on top. Too often that new stuff tweaks what already exists. Much less frequently, something new changes the game, provides a new paradigm. And often we don’t understand the impact of an innovation until much later, after the markets have spoken.

Perhaps that’s the case with Sellizer, an application developed by a small but passionate group of marketers, financiers, and technologists. It was conceived in response to challenges and frustration with a lead generation operation in one company. Is it a game-changer? Let us know what you think.

The Situation

Marcin Zaborowski was a co-founder of a marketing agency that sold e-marketing and consulting services for businesses. Leads came from several sources:

  • Recommendations
  • Inquiries from website content marketing and SEO activities
  • Upselling to existing customers.

These sources helped generate leads for their business – up to 400 quarterly. They would score the leads by contacting these potential customers and checking several factors, including needs, potential budgets, time, importance, etc. On average, only 20% of the leads scored warm and were pursued.

Offers were created for the warm leads, requiring approximately 15 hours each. However, less than 30% of those contacted would respond to the emails, offers, and proposals. Of those, about 15% were closed. The sales cycle from lead generation to proposal to contract lasted about 3 months.

It was a frustrating and time-consuming exercise. The proposal creation process was manually intensive, involving cut and paste, custom crafting, and a variety of shared content. They didn’t always know when or if the prospect opened their proposal, they didn’t know how long the prospect spent reviewing the material, they didn’t know whether the contact revisited the information, or how often. And, they had to put the statistics used to manage the process together manually on a monthly basis.

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

Those results and related frustrations lead Marcin and his team to conceive of a better, more productive process. Among the features and functions they included on the wish list:

  • Automated, intelligent lead quality and proposal assessments
  • Automation of proposal generation, leveraging a suite of standard templates and an AI infused creation process with optional custom editing
  • Automated follow-up regarding the prospects handling of a contact and intelligent response generation
  • Distribution of proposals through a variety of channels including email, SMS, and LinkedIn
  • Integration of the website lead forms with the proposal generation and follow-up capability
  • Full integration with other supporting system including CRM, sales, and contract management
  • Real-time statistics on all key metrics with multiple personalized views for senior management, sales, customer service, and production staff and organizations.

Marcin and his staff kept an eye on the market, looking for a product or tools that would address their needs, but they found the few offerings available lacked on most fronts. Finally, with no other apparent options available, Marcin decided to build his own solution and left the company. The Sellizer project was launched.

The Goals

The initial goal of the Sellizer project was to address the organization’s wish list and finance the development costs through sales of the product to other interested parties. Consequently, at the very beginning, it was crucial to enter the market.

Now, there are 3 primary goals for Sellizer:

  1. To expand internationally
  2. To develop features, nurture AI-wise technologies, and add some functionalities, such as signing documents
  3. In five years, to become a global leader among other email and proposal tracking software

The project targeted the global market but focused initially on the home (Polish) market to test the solution.

The Project

In 2017, the founder and CEO of Sellizer – Marcin Zaborowski – made a decision. He left his managerial position at the marketing agency to focus on the creation and promotion of the Sellizer app. He assembled his initial team of one analyst/business developer, one designer, and one developer and created their initial, minimum viable product (MVP). The initial offering included SMS/e-mail notifications about opening an offer and offer statistics.

The market, however, turned out to be very demanding and after several months of getting feedback from users, they had over 1000 requests for improvements. Over the next three months they implemented 80% of the suggestions that were deemed to be essential. With the demand for additional capability in the app, additional funding was sought and obtained and additional staff were hired, including a project manager, two more developers, and a tester.

Marcin and his team had extensive experience in the market and used that knowledge and discussions with users to plan and shape future releases. Each potential requirement was recorded along with the number of occurrences. Then, the founders collaboratively determined the impact of a specific function after implementation as well as its cost-effectiveness. Everything was recorded in an Excel sheet. The actual content and priority of the releases was guided by continual reference to the organization’s goals. They gave weight to the possible actions and calculated the priority of a sequence of actions based on their experience and consultation with their user base. This information was also maintained in an Excel file.

The team used PHP and JS technologies to build the app and applied agile approaches in every field including design, development marketing and sales. The deliverables were tested internally by the team and then automated tests and friendly testers were used. Due to the team’s long experience in the market, they had lots of business contacts. They invited over 100 of those contacts to Sellizer tests. Nearly 30% of them became customers. In addition, one of Sellizer’s founders was the organizer of a large Internet Beta marketing conference. That forum was used to introduce the app to over 300 people and get the sales rolling in. The amazing power of a network!

The Results

The Sellizer app’s first release was launched in September, 2018. The company’s target revenue for the first year was 100,000 Polish Zloty(PLN). However, due to the demand for improvements and additional functionality, it took almost two years to reach the target.

The costs to add the incremental capability were considerable but the company managed to obtain additional funding to deliver the enhanced product. There are now more than 350 users actively using the tool. They have sent out over 200,000 proposals to date.

As far as Sellizer’s own lead generation performance goes, using their own app of course, they act on about 150 leads a month and close 12% in a lead generation cycle that last 19 days on average.

The company is currently aiming at retaining new strategic investors and expanding internationally. Android and iOS versions are also in the works. Its path to success with Sellizer is a great roadmap for anyone with a dream.

Lessons Learned

If it wasn’t for risk tolerance on the part of Marcin and his investors, Sellizer wouldn’t have been developed and launched. As Marcin, the Sellizer CEO, once stated, “I can’t overstress how crucial it is that you get out of your comfort zone”. However, I think there were a number of other insights and practices that contributed to Sellizer’s success:

  1. A committed sponsor is a game-changer – Marcin was the initiator, the visionary, the driver, the leader and the final decision-maker the project needed to achieve its goals.
  2. Metrics matter – The story of Sellizer is founded on a solid foundation of information. Knowing the number of leads, the quality of the leads, how the prospects responded and the time and effort involved in yielding the results obtained was the catalyst. Without that knowledge, very little would have changed.
  3. Always be on the lookout for opportunities – There were hundreds of different potential responses to the challenges the company was experiencing in its lead generation operations. Building that wish list helped coalesce the search for solutions around an app like Sellizer.
  4. Balancing risk and reward – Marcin and his team took a rational approach to the exploration, development, and release of the app. They defined their minimum viable product (MVP), they had a small, talented team, they had just enough financing, they took an agile approach to the development of the product and they relied heavily on their network of colleagues and clients to ensure market reality.
  5. Engaging with clients – Marcin is fond of saying, “Sellizer itself is an everlasting lesson. We appreciate the power of feedback more than ever.” One Sellizer user even applies the app on internal communications: “In our internal communication, we use Sellizer to send important documents to ensure that they have not been skipped or missed among many other messages.”
  6. The power of your network – Look at the leverage and power an extensive and connected network of friends and colleagues provided. Marcin’s initial partners were professional colleagues. 100 contacts to help with the testing. 30% became customers! Finding investors to fund expansion of the application was enabled by the network of contacts. It was a force multiplier!
  7. The quality of the team – According to Marcin, “We managed to gather great partners and associates quickly. We have our dream team!”

So, if you’re involved in an innovation venture or a challenging change, consider Sellizer’s approach and the seven insights and practices above that have helped it succeed. Also remember, use Project Pre-Check’s three building blocks covering the key stakeholder group, the decision management process, and the Decision Framework right upfront so you don’t overlook these key success factors.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has willingly shared their experiences for presentation in this blog. Everyone benefits. First-time contributors get a copy of one of my books. Readers get insights they can apply to their own unique circumstances. So, if you have a project experience, a favorite best practice, or an interesting insight that can make a PM or change manager’s life easier, send me the details and we’ll chat. I’ll write it up and, when you’re happy with the results, Project Times will post it so others can learn from your insights. Thanks

Strategic Adaptability in the Face of Change

Written by F.E. Harrison on . Posted in Articles.

In late 2019/early 2020, the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice (DEHSP) developed a comprehensive strategic plan that outlined the key focus areas, objectives, and milestones the division planned to accomplish by 2024. The strategic plan was being disseminated right as the world was grappling with the uncertainty, fear, and panic of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like so many other businesses and organizations, almost overnight we faced a monumental disruption to the ways we had to think about our division’s priorities and resources. While we had an intricately crafted and thoroughly researched strategic plan, we soon learned we would need to be flexible and adapt to the unexpected changes resulting from COVID-19.

Within any project, business, or organization, the imperative of crafting detailed roadmaps is clear: you need them to achieve your goals and to prioritize resources while maximizing efficiency. Without a clear definition of how you will achieve success or get from point A to point B, projects or organizations can face delays, cost overruns, or an end result that isn’t desired.
Following the completion of the division’s strategic plan, the concept of lift points was developed by division leaders to identify the work that would successfully lift the reach and impact of the entire division. The lift point concept provided leaders with a framework for implementing the strategic plan in a way that attempted to remove silos across the division, highlighted the cross-cutting nature of division-wide priorities, and further prioritized strategic plan objectives through 2024. With CDC’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, DEHSP staff availability became limited, resources were stretched to capacity, and the strategic plan implementation efforts were temporarily halted. After six months of dedicating resources almost exclusively to the pandemic response, leadership revisited the lift points with a renewed understanding of the importance of establishing and implementing clear-cut, focused priorities. We recognized the value in strategically directing division resources to strengthen programming and maximize efficiencies. Division leaders chose to re-focus their energy on clarifying and addressing the lift points, despite the challenging resource constraints.

Charting the Path Forward: Establishing Lift Points

To determine the right mix of lift points, division leadership needed to prioritize the most impactful, yet attainable, areas of the division—in project management terms, essentially the initiatives with the best return on investment. With the COVID-19 response in full swing, we saw that our staff, resources, and time were limited even more than usual. We knew we would need to work towards goals that would create the largest impact for the entire division, without burning out our staff.
To do this, we needed the right perspectives at the virtual table—strategic thinkers who could push the group to think bigger, policy and communications leaders who know how to communicate impact, scientists and subject matter experts to drive evidence-based practice, and programmatic leaders who could lead the effort to operationalize the lift points. This group was spearheaded by my colleague, Amy Cordero, M.P.A., Associate Director for Policy, who was instrumental in shaping the entire lift point concept and creating buy-in among senior leadership and division staff members. With this group together, we set some clear boundaries on how to determine the lift points:

  • Focused: We limited the final number of lift points to six—any more than this would spread our resources too thin.
  • Cross-cutting: We prioritized identifying cross-cutting initiatives that could break down silos across the division and create more collaborative, innovative solutions.
  • High leverage: We focused our attention on the areas of the division that had the means to significantly move the entire division forward.
  • Attainable: We considered division resources (e.g., time, funding, and personnel) as we prioritized lift points.
  • Policy impact: We reviewed the policy landscape and considered the political will and interest for division priorities.\

Through a series of prioritization working sessions, the group finalized the six lift points and their corresponding goals:

  • Develop a division-wide data modernization strategic action plan by December 2021
  • Finalize a DEHSP science agenda by March 2022
  • Develop a division-wide prioritized partnership plan by December 2021
  • Publish an Environmental Health Best Practices Playbook by June 2023
  • Demonstrate Controlling Childhood Asthma and Reducing Emergencies (CCARE) impact and clinical integration by August 2024
  • Implement the DEHSP brand by September 2021

Advertisement
[widget id=”custom_html-68″]

Mission Coordination Team Implementation

Now that we had the lift points identified, the next step was to map out how we would achieve them, especially given the additional constraints brought on by COVID. We developed Mission Coordination Teams (MCTs), which we clearly distinguished from the idea of a traditional workgroup. At CDC, workgroups are groups of people who are responsible for conducting all key activities related to a specific project or goal. MCTs, on the other hand, have a different scope than workgroups because members serve as the project managers/coordinators of the lift points. These teams would help determine the strategy and process of the work, establish timelines and action plans, coordinate staff members across the division to conduct key activities, and monitor progress toward the lift point goals. We decided the MCTs would be cross-cutting, collaborative groups with representatives from all four DEHSP branches (Emergency Management, Radiation, and Chemical Branch; Asthma and Community Health Branch; Lead Poisoning Prevention and Environmental Health Tracking Branch; Water, Food, and Environmental Health Services Branch) and the Office of the Director (OD).

To facilitate the work of the MCTs, we focused on several different, soon-to-be ‘old school’ Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) process groups and knowledge areas. The PMBOK sets standard terminology and guidelines for project management. In particular, we leaned on concepts around:

  • Integration Management: Allocating resources to support the MCTs; outsourcing contractor support to provide project management, strategy, and facilitation support to all MCTs
  • Scope Management: Defining the purpose, audience, and scope of the MCTs; identifying the requirements and process for generating final MCT deliverables
  • Resource Management: Defining roles within MCTs and leveraging a diverse portfolio of skills; ensuring each team consists of members with different strengths, capabilities, and backgrounds (e.g., scientific SMEs, strategists, project managers, etc.)

Maintaining Momentum

After mapping out the approach for the lift points and MCTs, we quickly realized the lift point process would be cyclical in nature; once outcomes for an individual lift point have been achieved, the lift point can be ‘retired’ as it becomes institutionalized as standard operations. Then, additional lift points can be identified. Division leaders will identify future potential lift point areas by several different factors, including political, social, and cultural forces; changes in funding; interest from partners; and internal momentum. During the ‘lift point staging’ process, division leaders will identify the vision, strategy, and goals related to a particular program or effort. Once a program or topic area has gone through lift point staging, and depending on the outcome of the staging process, an MCT may be established to make progress toward the lift point goals.

The only way to determine if individual lift point goals have been successfully completed is to build a robust evaluation framework. For an organization like CDC, the importance of demonstrating impact to external audiences cannot be emphasized enough. In fact, the division is actively working with the Program Performance and Evaluation Office to develop a strategic performance management framework (e.g., processes, measures, tools, reporting cadence, etc.) for all MCTs. This performance management framework will help ensure all stakeholders are working toward well-defined, achievable goals and that successful practices are institutionalized to achieve the greatest impact.

A New Way of Organizational Thinking

While our implementation of these practices remains a work in progress, as all good management processes necessarily are, and as we continue to respond to a changing landscape, there are a few noteworthy observations we can already identify. As I look back on the past year and a half, I realize how much progress we’ve made, and appreciate how much important work remains. I’m reminded of a quote by John F. Kennedy: “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” As we were developing our comprehensive strategic plan, the sun was shining, and we were looking towards the next four years for the division. When COVID-19 completely upended our initial deployment of the strategic plan, leadership chose to adapt our initial implementation of the lift points and reprioritize our efforts, despite our resource challenges. That experience has fundamentally shaped the way we think here at DEHSP. Given this shift in division leaders’ mindsets, and the lessons we learned from remaining agile and adapting our strategic planning framework, this will undoubtedly become the norm moving forward. The DEHSP lift point staging process and implementation of MCTs has helped the division shape its strategic priorities and better articulate how all the different offices and branches fit into the overarching goals of the division. It will be extremely interesting to see how the division continues to adapt as our experiences advance and more lessons are learned. Isn’t that the whole point of agility—to continue to practice it in an increasingly dynamic world?