Tag: Communication

How Project Managers May Help Address Construction’s $30-$40B Productivity Problem

Written by Lucas Marshall on November 29, 2023. Posted in Articles.

Productivity has been in steady decline—CNBC reported a few months ago, for example, that the U.S. had experienced five consecutive quarters of year-over-year declines in worker productivity. Last year, worker productivity was falling at the fastest rate in four decades.

Productivity in construction is an even harsher reality, the industry faced with skilled labor shortages and a recent FMI Corp report that showed productivity is a $30 billion to $40 billion annual problem, affected by planning, communication, and collaboration 3 in 4 times.

In this article, I discuss how, in the construction industry that faces labor shortages topping half a million, the role of the project manager is ever-critical in empowering the team to work more collaboratively, heed strict quality assurance requirements, and achieve greater productivity outcomes onsite to, correspondingly, drive better customer outcomes.

The Role of Project Management in Construction Projects

Studies show “an extremely strong correlation between the Project Manager and the success of the construction projects” (ref 1). What’s more, project managers with high emotional intelligence have been shown to be a catalyst for empowering team cohesion and effectiveness (ref 4), particularly with the soft skills to navigate teams through change management – a key competency that successful project managers in the construction industry possess, according to a systematic industry literature review (ref. a).

The role of a construction project manager is a multifaceted one, its duties perhaps described as a myriad of spinning plates, routinely responsible for example (ref. 3) –

Project cost estimating
Project planning
Production planning
Resource management
Scheduling

Project managers in construction are able to address these myriad challenges through agile methodologies to drive greater flexibility, correspondingly higher productivity outcomes onsite, and an integrated approach is of particular use to facilitate greater cross-functional collaboration.

Integrated Project Management

Experts recommend companies employ an “integrated” construction project management approach (ref 2); project managers in construction have a wider scope than the traditional time-cost-quality project management triangle, needing to address, for example, critical factors like “sustainability, health and safety, ethical requirements, social responsibility and security.”

Authors view “integration” as a “keyword” of project management in construction, with the “project managers of tomorrow [requiring] new competencies and new ways of working that embrace technology and communications” (ref 2). The authors stress the importance of “Integrating the different and fragmented process in the supply chain and with the design team.”

Ways project managers can integrate project systems and workflows to drive greater transparency, real-time data sharing, and correspondingly higher productivity outcomes onsite include:

Materials and Inventory

Integrating project management with materials and inventory management systems ensures project teams onsite get what they need onsite when it’s needed, that materials are appropriate (i.e., not damaged), so they can perform work on schedule.

A synchronization between project and inventory management platforms not only helps declutter and decrease outdated project data as changes are made in real-time, but also helps project managers better oversee projects with relevant alerts that:

Better predict stocking needs and help the team assess how they might acquire safety stock to prevent stockouts
Provide access to pertinent job costing information, helping project managers better forecast and improve accounting across companies’ operations; they can also work with inventory managers overseeing equipment rentals to drive better profitability and ongoing maintenance.

When coupled with other proper inventory strategies (e.g., inventory tracking and kitting) and other IoT solutions, project managers can work in tandem with inventory managers to better account for inventory through its lifecycle.

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Safety

Project managers can work with safety managers to develop safety metrics (e.g., hazard identification and assessment; hazard prevention and control; program evaluation and improvement) that ensure onsite workers are managing their own risk and abiding by site rules. Safety is a team sport, hence why the team needs to keep each other safe, which will also help drive greater quality assurance targets.

What’s more, project managers can work with inventory and procurement (as discussed above) as well as construction technology teams to implement emerging technologies to support greater safety outcomes: e.g., robots to automate needlessly hazardous installations, newer-generation drills and impacts that prevent against kickback events, drones to perform overhead safety checks, etc.

Project Design

An integration between project management and design (e.g., architecture, CAD, and BIM) can help drive better quality assurance, ensuring not only scoped design plans are properly installed, but also that design-related problems (and ensuing rework) are mitigated.

According to Dodge Data & Analytics, 61% report BIM processes reduced project error. In the hands of a project manager, BIM data is powerful; what’s more, integrations with smart tools can help ensure project managers and the design team alike are getting application-specific reporting so they can verify not only that designs are accurate, but also that critical fasteners were installed to manufacturer specifications.

Sustainability

Platforms like Green Badger are purpose-built to measure, benchmark, and report on environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) metrics, helping project managers report to business owners data on carbon, waste, water, and energy data, how projects are completed to company sustainability targets, etc.

Bottom Line

As the construction industry combats with a labor shortage that has topped half a million, it’s no surprise that productivity issues on sites nationwide cost the industry between $30 and $40 billion annually. All this to say, the job of the construction project manager is of prevailing importance, helping companies negotiate complicated projects and workflows and empowering cross-functional teams to be more productive with continually shrinking resources. An integrated construction project management approach is the way forward to driving the productivity needle back in the right direction, improving company top and bottom lines, and improving the industry outlook as it looks to build the green infrastructure projects necessary for our planet’s continued existence.

References

Abdulsamad Ali, M. and Chileshe, N. (2009). The influence of the project manager on the success of the construction project [Paper presentation]. 6^th International Conference on Construction Project Management (ICCPM) / 3^rd International Conference on Construction Engineering and Management (ICCEM) Global Convergence in Construction, Jeju, Korea. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265689336_The_influence_of_the_project_manager_on_the_success_of_the_construction_project
Fewings, P. and Henjewele, C. (2019). Construction Project Management: An Integrated Approach. (3^rd Edition). Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
Sears, S., Sears, G., and Clough, R. (2008). Construction Project Management: A Practical Guide to Field Construction. (5^th Edition). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Zhang, Q. and Hao, S. (2022, 04). Construction project manager’s emotional intelligence and team effectiveness: The mediating role of team cohesion and the moderating effect of time. Frontiers in Psychology 13 https://doi.org/10.3389%2Ffpsyg.2022.845791
1. Oliveros, J. and Vaz-Serra, P. (2018). Construction Project manager skills: A systematic literature review. In P. Rajagopalan and M.M Andamon (Eds.), Engaging Architectural Science: Meeting the Challenges of Higher Density: 52nd International Conference of the Architectural Science Association (pp.185–192). The Architectural Science Association and RMIT University, Australia.

Objectivity in Conflicts – Moving from Win-Lose to Win-Win

Written by George Pitagorsky on November 7, 2023. Posted in Articles.

Conflict, whether you call it difference of opinion, or disagreement, is an inevitable part of project life. Managing it well is critical to short-range project success and long-term healthy relationships. Organizational success relies on both project success and healthy ongoing relationships.

While not all conflicts or disagreements can be settled to satisfy all parties (win-win), there can be many more of them if the disagreeing parties put their efforts towards addressing the conflict and the decision that will end it rather than competing with one another.

Even when there is a win-lose conflict, cultivating long term relationships better enables follow through and future collaboration. Take for example two people vying for the same job. Imagine what might happen a year or two later when the one who lost is interviewing his opponent for a position in the ‘losers’ new company.

The way the conflict was managed will make a big difference. If they perceived a fair process and there was a cordial closure, it is more likely that they will consider their experience with one another without letting emotions overwhelm objectivity.

Passionate Objectivity

Decisions resolve conflicts and set up the action that will influence the future. Objectivity is a key to effective conflict resolution because it leads to rational and practical decisions and effective action to carry them out.

We are living in a time when beliefs are confused with reality, when ideologies and emotions drive decision making, often without considering longer term outcomes. To come to an effective decision to resolve a conflict it is necessary to suspend beliefs and attachments long enough to assess their usefulness.

Are you willing to question and validate your beliefs? Are you willing to collaborate with your opponents to confront the conflict rather than one another?

“When you see.., how belief, prejudice, conclusions, and ideals divide people and therefore breed conflict, you see that such activity is obviously not intelligence. Will you drop all your prejudices, all your opinions … so that you have a free, uncluttered mind?

“If you say it is impossible, you will never find out for yourself what it is to be intelligent.” – J. Krishnamurti

Krishnamurti pulls no punches. He says that to be well, happy, and able to take care of business, you need to stop being driven by beliefs and biases, you need to see things as they are, objectively.

Objectivity is the quality of being unbiased, relying on facts rather than opinions and personal feelings when making decisions. Objectivity does not mean ignoring the role of opinions, emotions, and gutfeel. It means taking them into consideration and making sure that the decision being made is the right decision.

If we overemphasize rational analysis, we end up with solutions that are brittle and hard to implement because they ignore the human element. If we under emphasize analysis, caught up in emotions, we get poor outcomes and ongoing strife.

Confronting the Issue

Objectivity leads to the idea of confronting the issue rather than the opponent. This is far easier to act upon in projects and organizations as opposed to the socio-political realm of ethnic groups, nations, and governments.

Here, in projects we have the advantage of relatively clear mutual objectives among stakeholders. For the most part, everyone is after a quality outcome, at a reasonable price, within time constraints. There may be differences of opinions about just about everything – objectives, designs, estimates, plans, resources, etc. But if the parties take a step back and remember what they are all after, there is a good chance that they will make good decisions to achieve it.

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Taking a long view

Often, when there is conflict the tendency is to think about the short-term consequences of the decision. Objectivity requires a long-term view.

Will the design option enable easy maintenance? Will the people who are on the “losing” side take an active role in implementing the decision, even though it was not their first choice? Will ongoing relationships be healthy?

What Does it Take to be Objective

It seems so simple, objectively address the issue to come up with resolution, a decision to act, that satisfies as many participants as possible and leads to successful project completion and healthy long-term relationships. Simple, yes. But not easy.

Emotions, beliefs, and biases get in the way. If the parties are unwilling or unable to step back and objectively assess the situation and make a decision based on identified decision criteria, they will struggle to justify their position, often relying on hierarchical authority, rhetoric, and distortion rather than good sense.

Two things are required: emotional and social intelligence and an effective decision-making process.

The process is a starting point for optimizing conflict resolution. A process that includes identifying decision criteria and that uses analytical methods, opens the door to improved self-awareness and self-management. An effective process makes it less likely that strong willed, assertive people will be able to have their way regardless of the facts and what is best for the organization and project. It forces people to step back and assess things objectively.

Emotional and social intelligence promote the ability to disengage from feelings long enough to be rational and to respect the needs of others. But even when there are parties who lack the ability to exercise self-management and recognize the power of objectivity, an effective process will influence the outcome.

As you make the decisions that resolve conflicts, make the effort to step back and drop your prejudices and opinions so that you have a free, uncluttered mind? Will you take the time and effort to validate your feelings with facts and consideration of alternative views?

It takes effort and awareness to bring objectivity to bear when you feel strongly about your position. It takes skill, courage, and patience to question your beliefs, validate them, and accept that your way is not the only right way and may even be the wrong way.

Learn from the Past to Perfect Performance

Written by George Pitagorsky on October 10, 2023. Posted in Articles.

To optimize performance, learn from experience. Set aside time for reflection, learning, and making the intention to perfect the way you live and work.

Hopefully, we are always reflecting and paying attention to intentions, performance, and goals. Though it is skillful to give full attention regularly and intentionally to deep introspection, both as an individual and team.

It might be during a retreat, retrospectives, or lessons learned activities, and performance reviews. It might be for an hour, a day, or longer.

As individuals, we can use meditation and contemplation techniques to cultivate self-awareness, reflect on past errors and successes, and to identify values and commit to positive action going forward. As teams, we can come together to review performance and find ways to improve – candidly and meaningfully.

Acknowledge errors, celebrate successes, and commit to skillful behavior going forward into the next cycle, phase, or project. Keep in mind that imperfections and uncertainty are facts of life. How we handle them makes all the difference.

Simple But Not Easy

So simple and logical. Reflect and learn. But we find that it is not that easy. Egos get in the way.

Egos get in the way when there is a criticism-averse mindset. Fear of being fired or disrespected and the need to be perfect lead to avoiding candid feedback from others and even from oneself. Without open self-awareness and intention to continuously improve, to optimize performance, there is a common tendency to avoid criticism, particularly negative feedback.

In a 2016 article on project performance review[1] and in my new book, The Warrior’s Path[2], I refer to warriorship and the need to confront resistance to looking at yourself and your team candidly and compassionately.

Warriors

“Warriorship here does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Here the word “warrior” … literally means, “one who is brave.”[3]

A warrior is dedicated to a cause, a struggle. The peaceful warrior is dedicated to the cultivation of clarity and compassion, with the goal of personal wellness, group wellness, effective performance, and being of service.

It takes courage and skill to confront one’s own and one’s team process and behavior, particularly the imperfections. It takes more than a formal performance review procedure.

In one case a software development organization “lost” the video recording of a project performance review that became too “negative” with some members of the team “attacking” members of a functional group who “defended” themselves.

This is not the kind of struggle the Peaceful warrior engages in. Seeking optimal performance is not about attacking and defending. It is about bringing issues to light and discovering causes by confronting the issues collaboratively.

Doing that requires disengaging from one’s identification with one’s role to take on the role of an objective assessor.

Not Easy

Taking on the role of objective assessor of your own performance is not so easy. Aversion to negative criticism is deeply embedded in culture and psychology.

To first acknowledge and then do something about the resistance to confrontation begins with oneself as an individual. If you can’t face your own shortfalls, how can you expect others to face theirs? When you identify with your team and its performance you transfer your resistance to criticism to the team. Criticism of the team becomes personal. If you are on the attack or are defensive, you are not being objective.

But not all aversion to criticism is based on mental habits. Much of it comes from organizational cultures that seek to blame rather than understand and improve. It comes from leadership that is conflict averse, often because they don’t know how to handle conflict or have their own personal issues with criticism.

Emotional intelligence

Can you simply be present with the uncomfortable emotions you feel when confronted with your shortfalls? Being present with emotions means feeling them fully without reacting to them by trying to throw them off through ignoring, making excuses, blaming others, or disparaging yourself and your own competencies. This is emotional intelligence in action.

You and the team get nowhere without objectively addressing issues and their causes. Unmanaged emotions get in the way.

Facilitating Organizational Awareness

Facilitating the quest for optimal performance starts with self-aware individuals who can manage their emotions and who value criticism of any kind to avoid repeating unskillful behavior while promoting effective performance and healthy relationships.

Not everyone is self-aware and motivated. Embedding performance improvement in the organization or the team is enhanced by training individuals to recognize their aversion to criticism and value the opportunity to improve. At the same time, regular anonymous micro-assessments provide objective data to cut through subjective opinions.

Effective facilitation is another vital factor. The facilitator promotes objectivity and awareness of participants’ ability to give and take feedback in a positive, non-attacking and non-defensive way.

The facilitator prepares the team by promoting the understanding that:

Negative criticism is valuable to the end of improvement
It is normal to be averse to it
Whether averse to it or not, it is necessary to invite, accept and thrive on criticism
In most cases, the process and not the individual performer is at the root of errors and omissions. Take performance seriously but not personally.
Blaming and defensiveness are emotional reactions that get in the way of cause analysis and improvement.

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Next Steps

Assess where you, your team, and your organization are when it comes to using critical analysis in performance review to improve performance.

At what level of the organization does aversion to criticism exist? Is there lip service but no follow-through? Are training and facilitation needed?

How can you best promote candid useful reviews of team and individual performance so you and your team can learn from experience?

Related articles:

https://www.projecttimes.com/articles/the-key-to-performance-improvement-candid-perfromance-assessment/

https://www.projecttimes.com/articles/project-performance-review-the-power-of-recognizing-what-s-going-on/

https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/lessons-learned-process-thinking-review-3169

https://www.projecttimes.com/author/george-pitagorsky/page/7/#:~:text=Performance%2C%20Attention%20and%20Focus

https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/managing-virtual-teams-high-performance-7310

[1] Pitagorsky, George, Project Performance Review: The Power of Recognizing What’s Going On https://www.projecttimes.com/articles/project-performance-review-the-power-of-recognizing-what-s-going-on/

[2] Pitagorsky, George, The Peaceful Warrior’s Path: Optimal Wellness through Self-Aware Living, to be available in late October 2023

[3] Trungpa, Chogyam, True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art, Shambhala, November 11, 2008, ISBN 1-59030-588-4 [3]

A Self-study about the Impact of AI on Project Stakeholder Management

Written by Anju Aggarwal on October 4, 2023. Posted in Articles.

I want to know the exact details of how AI can help project managers.

Not much concrete work is done in this area, so it is hard to find scientific papers or case studies about the impact of AI on project management.

In this situation, I had to rely on the most powerful and trustworthy method, i.e., Self-help.

To understand the influence of AI, I picked one specific knowledge area: Project stakeholder management.

I will try to find out the benefit of using an AI tool or system on the four processes that comes under this knowledge area.

These days, I am reading loads of articles related to “AI in Project Management”. Being a PM, I always look for such articles with great curiosity and expectations. I want to understand how AI will impact project management.

To my dismay and frustration, most of such articles turn out to be fluff. I can categorize most of these articles into the following three brackets:

Some start with an explanation of AI and then get into details about different forms of AI like NLP (Natural Language Processing), ML (Machine Learning), Generative AI, etc.
A few articles mention various tools that use AI. Unfortunately, these tools had no relevance whatsoever to project management.
Many articles talk about the benefits of using AI in project management, such as automation, cost reductions, time savings, and better decision-making. In my opinion, all these benefits look like a general statement that goes for every other innovation too.

First, a refresher on what is project stakeholder management:

Stakeholder management is the process of managing the expectations of anyone who has an interest in a project or will be affected by it.

The four process groups identified in project Stakeholder management are as follows:

Identify Stakeholders
Plan Stakeholder Management
Manage Stakeholder Engagement
Control Stakeholder Engagement

I will examine these processes and try to inject AI into their ITTO (Inputs, Tools, Techniques & Outputs) to the best of my knowledge.

I am not an expert in AI, so please correct me wherever you think there could be better usage of AI in that specific process.

Identify Stakeholders: Identify everyone, be it groups or individuals, affected positively or adversely by the project’s outcomes.

In this process, we check the existing project documents to identify all the stakeholders. These documents can be project charter, project proposal, or any contract created at the project beginning.

I do not think AI will be of any use in this process. Generally, a Project manager checks all these documents and lists all the stakeholders. PMs should also connect with project sponsors and other subject matter experts for their input in the stakeholders list.

Every project is unique in nature with its own enterprise environmental factors (EEF). In such a case, it is not possible to develop a ML model that provides predictions for unique projects.

Stakeholder analysis is one of the techniques used in this process. The primary goal of stakeholder analysis is to gather information about these stakeholders and use it to make informed decisions, manage relationships, and mitigate potential conflicts.

Can we use AI here? Can we Develop an ML model to categorize the stakeholders according to their power and influence automatically?

A few questions to ask: Is it worth the effort? What could be the maximum number of stakeholders in a project? Let us assume that the project is big and complex, so we have many stakeholders identified. Can we create a machine learning model by mapping different attributes like stakeholder’s interests, concerns, and influence and then classify them based on their level of interest and power or influence? The input data would vary a lot for each project. In such cases, the models would need a large amount of data for training to identify patterns for predictions.

Let’s assume we can create an ML model that can define stakeholders’ engagement strategy depending on their power/influence/interest. Will this model add much value to the organization’s productivity?

I feel a project manager could do the stakeholder analysis more quickly and accurately.

The output of this process is a stakeholder register.

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Plan Stakeholder Management: comes up with the management strategies required to engage stakeholders effectively.

This process also requires the PM to check project-related documents.

Mind mapping is one of the techniques used in this process. It is a visual tool.

Can AI be useful in this technique? We could automatically create a Mind map using the stakeholder register constructed in the previous process. PMs can then develop an engagement strategy or prioritize the engagement efforts based on the mind maps. This automated process saves time and effort for the Project managers.

Is this a good AI use case? No, according to me. The mind mapping tools might already have the feature to import a risk register as an Excel or doc file. So, I don’t think it is justified usage of ML for developing mind maps from Stakeholder risk register.

The output of this process is the Stakeholder Engagement Plan.

Manage Stakeholder Engagement: This process outputs effective communication with stakeholders and works with them to meet their needs through meaningful and appropriate involvement in project activities.

This is primarily an execution phase where documents are updated on a need basis. An ML model cannot predict this day-to-day process. So, an AI chatbot cannot replace a project manager here. A PM needs to have active interactions with stakeholders. PM needs to listen to what the stakeholder is saying and try to infer what the stakeholder is not saying.

The tools & Techniques in this process talk about interpersonal and communication skills, which are tough to emulate via an AI chatbot. I feel if a stakeholder gets to know that a bot is doing communication instead of a human PM, they might view it as a communication breach. I cannot imagine a stakeholders’ meeting where an AI bot is giving a status update report, and all the stakeholders are nodding their heads, feeling proud and in awe about this technology feat.

Control Stakeholder Engagement: This is the process of monitoring overall project stakeholder relationships and adjusting the strategies and plans for engaging stakeholders accordingly.

One of the techniques in this process is decision-making – Multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA)

MCDA is a structured approach for evaluating and comparing multiple criteria or factors when making decisions. It also requires data collection, assessment, monitoring, and readjustments.

We can use some software for decision-making that uses custom-trained ML models. I feel the attributes to train the models would be humongous and human centric. It would not be useful to create custom models for stakeholder engagement.

I have covered all four processes involved in the Project Stakeholder Engagement knowledge area.

In this exercise, I tried to put an unbiased perspective where I wanted to incorporate AI consciously in the Project Stakeholder Management knowledge area.

My concluding thoughts on how AI would impact Project Management:

The Project management stream requires more behavioral skills than technical skills. It requires human eyes, ears, brain, and heart. It cannot be completely replaced by Artificial Intelligence generated robots or systems.

As mentioned earlier, I am a project manager, not an AI expert. I would look forward to constructive input from other AI experts. But for the AI bots generated comments, please stay away!

Manage Your Opinions for Optimal Decisions

Written by George Pitagorsky on September 27, 2023. Posted in Articles.

If you are ready to improve your team decision making “Do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.”[1]

When you cease to cherish opinions you avoid unnecessary conflict and achieve optimal decisions by allowing the “truth” to reveal itself through analysis, intuition, and dialog.

There is nothing wrong with opinions. Just don’t cherish them. To cherish them is to be attached to and identified with your opinions. Avoid this because it gets in the way of finding optimal decisions and it fuels unnecessary conflict and division.

What are opinions?

Everyone has opinions. They are the result of our experience, beliefs, knowledge, and training. They express our intelligence. They can be useful, and they can also get in the way.

Opinions are beliefs, points of view, assumptions, or judgements. They are not conclusive, not facts.

Often, we do not have the luxury of making fact-based decisions. Our issues may be too complex. Data may not be available. We may act on an opinion and gut feel, but if we do, it is best to do it with objectivity and self-awareness.

Objectivity and Self-awareness

Objectivity knows the difference between fact, certainty, and opinion. It values facts and realizes that subjectivity is also valuable. Self-awareness tells you when your attachment to your opinion is causing emotions to surface and you to resist questioning your opinion.

Together these two, objectivity and self-awareness, are key to effective relationships. And effective relationships are critical success factors. They are displayed in decision making, conflict management, planning, problem solving, change management – just about every aspect of project work or any kind of collaborative effort.

Managing Opinions

We are living in a time when beliefs and opinions are confused with facts and reality. People have lost the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity.

Are you willing to question and validate your beliefs and assumptions?

“When you see …, how belief, prejudice, conclusions, and ideals divide people and therefore breed conflict, you see that such activity is obviously not intelligence.

Will you drop all your prejudices, all your opinions … so that you have a free, uncluttered mind?

If you say it is impossible, you will never find out for yourself what it is to be intelligent.” — J. Krishnamurti Excerpt from Can Conflict End?

Opinions Drive Action

Manage opinions well because they drive action. We hold opinions about team values, what vendor to use, how best to perform some tasks, who to hire, promote, or fire, and more. Opinions directly affect performance because they influence decisions.

Clearly, we want to make sure we understand the need to put opinions under the microscope and see their source and why we have them. Our approach is to balance opinions and fact-based analysis to make decisions that consider opinions and seek optimal results.

Attached

Being attached to and identified with opinions gets in the way. What does it mean to be attached to and identified with your opinions?

It means that you are so convinced that your opinion is “right” that you reject or suppress alternative opinions and refuse to question and validate your own. You are cherishing your opinion as if it were a part of your body. When you see it as an idea, a concept, you can value your opinion without being attached to it. This allows you to be open and respectful of other opinions.

Valuing is different than cherishing. You value your opinion because you think it is well founded on a strong belief, experience, data, theory, etc. You value it enough to state it and argue for it. And you also value the learning you get from exploring and validating your opinion.

Learning

Learning may strengthen your conviction that your opinion is worthy of being acted upon. Or it may show you that your opinion is not worth holding onto.

Learning comes out of dialog with opinions being shared and supported by the reasoning behind them. Be open to changing opinions to reach win-win outcomes and the actionable decisions that resolve issues most effectively.

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Beliefs

When opinions are based on strong beliefs, for example the belief that agile project management is always better than alternatives, there is a need to explore and question the underlying belief.

Fortunately, in project work we are less likely to find strong underlying beliefs driving decisions. When they do present themselves, we can justify confronting them because it is part of our best practices.

With beliefs regarding social and political issues it is not so easy. While these beliefs and the opinions that grow out of them is important, it is best to address them outside of business decision making.

Exploring Opinions

Should the sponsor of a project express her opinion, for example, “AI is too immature to waste our time looking at it”? Even if she isn’t convinced about her opinion, it will influence the team. As a leader, it is wise to hold back and open the space for opinions to be shared easily.

Other team members may have the opinion that there is something to be gained and that it won’t take much to explore how an available tool might be used to make the project go more smoothly with less effort and higher quality.

Wise leaders ask questions that lead the team (including the leader) to identify opinions and explore them to find the best outcome.

Are assertions backed by facts? For example, is AI not mature enough? Would it be too costly to explore? What biases are at work? What does ‘too costly’ mean?

Decision Making

Managing opinions is one part of decision making — the process that settles conflicts, underpins planning, vendor selection, and every aspect of team performance. It is a mission critical capability, no matter what the mission.

In the following articles I have explored decision-making from different perspectives:

Tag: Communication

How Project Managers May Help Address Construction’s $30-$40B Productivity Problem

The Role of Project Management in Construction Projects