No-Nonsense Leadership and Project Management
PM Network, May 2007
There is no better way for an organization to consistently improve itself and become more competitive than to perform routine post-project reviews and to apply the lessons learned going forward. This article presents a 12-step process to help you and your organization improve its review process.
PM Network, February 2007
Members of a project team or organization cannot be expected to perform according to a specific preferred set of expectations or culture unless that culture is well defined. This article introduces the tool of Performance Expectation (PX) workshops to help define these expectations so they can be discussed and addressed across an organization.
PM Network, November 2006
Sharing power rarely works well and almost always harms people, projects and outcomes. This article shares eight reasons that sharing power should be avoided. By making one person accountable—in charge and driving the endeavor—we are more in control over our destiny and far more motivated to excel.
PM Network, August 2006
Leadership involves creating a more productive work environment. By adopting project analysts in performing a major support role for project managers, organizations can free up project managers to take on more projects and perform more effectively. This article reveals the more significant duties of the project analyst.
Don’t cut corners when it comes to your character.
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
More than ever, the business world needs leaders who routinely practice integrity. By integrity, I mean knowing the difference between right and wrong and choosing the right action.
All of us, as leaders, must be role models for integrity. Most of us have a great internal mechanism that helps us immediately recognize the difference between right and wrong. A problem can occur, however, as we find ourselves looking for that competitive edge to help us, our products and our companies be as successful as possible. What may begin as a slight shaving of the edges of right and wrong can turn into a wholesale belief that integrity is for others to practice and no longer applies to this situation. Wrong! Integrity applies to all of us all of the time.
Collateral Damage
What should you do if you encounter illegal or unethical behavior? First of all, never support someone who engages in it. If you do, expect to go down as part of the collateral damage. If you think the person will protect you, think again. People who commit illegal or unethical activities are notorious for selling out those loyal to them.
You have several choices: do nothing, distance yourself from the behavior or be a whistle-blower.
If you choose to do nothing, the danger is that you seem to support and condone the behavior. This can set you up for being an accomplice. Moreover, you could end up constantly looking over your shoulder. Fear can eat at you day and night—not a good way to live a happy and quality life.
Choosing to leave the organization or company is, of course, not always easy. There may not be another job for you in another organization. You might have to relocate. A job search also can be a great hardship. While clearly an option, distancing yourself can be a mighty high price to pay.
To many people, being a whistle-blower could be considered the high road. You are exposing illegal or unethical behavior and working within the system to make it a better place for all to work. Unfortunately, not everyone holds whistle-blowers in such high esteem, particularly those who have condoned or supported the poor behavior—or have friends that are being exposed for it. This can be a lonely road, albeit one where your conscience is clear. Because illegal and unethical behavior can take a long time to uncover and reach closure, you may have to continue to work around the very people you have exposed—and some may never be punished.
You say you don’t like your options? Nobody does. There is no simple answer. However, confiding in a trusted third party and talking through the options can help. Most of us will likely come across illegal or unethical behavior at some time in our careers. Again, whatever you do, do not become a part of it, or you will surely go down with it.
Speak Up For Yourself
What if your boss directs you to do something that’s not illegal or unethical but with which you disagree? Should you do it anyway? Yes. You can read an organizational chart. But first discuss the issue with your boss to make your perspective clear. This is integrity, too—have the courage to speak up for your own strongly held opinions.
If you do what your boss says, but later other people of equal or higher authority tell you that they disagree with your actions, is it okay to say that you were only following orders? In general, avoid being overtly transparent. You want to support your boss. However, in a case where your actions could harm your reputation or career, I would recommend not taking the blame for a decision that was thrust upon you—provided you had been clear in presenting your position. If you did not bother to offer a counter position, then you are just as much at fault as your boss.
Your integrity represents a window into your character. As a leader, you must use it to build your success and the success of those you lead.
“Good enough” leadership shouldn’t be the norm.
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
My experience is that most “leaders” don’t understand their jobs, roles and responsibilities. They think they do. They mean well. But they don’t quite “get it.”
And because so many leaders truly don’t understand what is expected of them, they fail to consistently achieve the level of success possible, the one that is increasingly required. Instead, they eke by with marginal leadership:
How can marginal leadership be so pervasive with so many successful products and companies in the world? Because it is often the norm. It’s viewed as “good enough” leadership. It gets the job done—albeit marginally.
Relying on marginal leadership is not good enough anymore. The global competitive environment we all find ourselves tied to demands the bar for effective leadership be raised.
Let’s look at some common examples of marginal leadership:
These people all think that they “get it,” that they are operating within an acceptable level but they all fall far short of the leadership required to be truly effective.
As a leader, you have the duty to clearly define the roles and responsibilities of those who work under your direction and within your domain of responsibility. But you have the same responsibility to those who work alongside and above you. You must define your own roles and responsibilities and negotiate expectations with your boss.
People will perform to your expectations only if they know what those expectations are. Don’t assume that people understand their jobs—even if they’ve been in their positions for years. People do not know how to be held accountable for something that they fundamentally do not understand.
Demonstrating marginal leadership, up to now, has often been sufficient. But tolerance for marginal leadership is declining—and rightfully so. The best leaders define the jobs of those that can affect their domains of responsibility. Then they work alongside them to coach them to greatness.
To make a difference in your current position, think about how your next employer would view your accomplishments.
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
You have a challenging job. You have a lot of responsibility. You work hard—often longer hours than you would like. There’s a lot riding on your leadership to make things happen. At the end of the day, when the dust has settled and you reflect on your decisions, actions and their impacts, ask yourself these questions: What have I achieved—or am I achieving—that is truly noteworthy? What is my impact to the project, organization or company? In other words, do your actions foreshadow a great resume? Are you making the difference you want to make or need to make?
I have reviewed countless resumes over the years. Most of these resumes had one thing in common: They were void of truly noteworthy accomplishments. They did not inspire or make my jaw drop in awe. They begged the question: How can a person work so hard for so many years, yet have achieved so little that is truly noteworthy? But it happens to most people, to most “leaders.”
Leadership is not about the ability of those around you to lead; it’s about your ability to lead despite what is happening around you. Your resume should show how you consistently have a major positive impact on your projects and organizations.
Answer this list of questions to find tangible accomplishments to build a really jaw-dropping resume:
Now take your answers, step back and ask yourself, would I be eager to hire this person? If not, why not? In other words, what’s wrong with this picture that you would like to change?
This exercise can be quite telling and perhaps not necessarily a story you want to hear or confront. But your reaction to this reality check can have a profound impact on the rest of your career. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re looking for a job or even a promotion. You need to decide whether you want to really make a difference.
There are two major groups of people in an organization or company. There are the sustainers—the 95 percent of people who maintain the current momentum. And there are the trailblazers—the remaining 5 percent who are moving the organization forward, pushing needed change and making a difference on a larger scale. These scouts arrive first and clear a path for others to follow.
Sustainers are not bad for a company, quite the opposite. They represent the foundation, the core, for implementing the products, services and results that sustain the company. But without the trailblazers—the visionary risk takers—the sustainers could find themselves out of a job.
Your new resume should show which group you belong to. It should enable you to see what you’re leading and how well you’re leading it.
Leadership means acknowledging a job well done by thanking the project team that accomplished it.
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
When was the last time you celebrated a noteworthy accomplishment by your team?
If it was within the past three months, you are to be commended. From my experience, most leaders—whether project managers, sponsors or senior managers—fail to celebrate major milestones or noteworthy events that their teams have worked hard to achieve.
Special milestones or events should be planned to occur at least every three months and should be challenging, but achievable. Teams need these noteworthy goals as a means to productively pace themselves. Moreover, as a team approaches a major milestone, it may need to work harder and smarter—just as you did in college when you were heading into final exams and the end of the school term. When the milestone is finally achieved, you should celebrate in recognition of all those who pulled together to make it happen.
Celebrating the successful completion of the milestone is motivating, exciting and helps the team to bond; it feels good. It doesn’t have to be a big or costly celebration—lunch, an afternoon off, tickets to a movie, an after-work get together. Just the act of pausing to celebrate—to recognize and thank the team—can go a long way.
If there is no time to pause for celebration—whether a half hour or a half-day—then the integrity of the goal is highly suspect. If months and months pass and there seems never to be much to celebrate, then you have far bigger problems: leadership.
Either you are not setting the bar high enough to make the effort noteworthy or you are not successfully leading your staff to worthwhile outcomes. In either case, results worth celebrating are really the only results worth having.
My experience shows that the number one reason that employees leave a company is that they don’t feel appreciated. They feel like objects or commodities that are moved from one project to another, from one crisis to another. As people, we are high maintenance; we need to be routinely and positively stroked. Obviously, a project, organization or company cannot be successful without people performing successfully. Promoting a culture that encourages the best from people—that shows its appreciation for their contributions—will give back great returns on that investment.
When we feel appreciated, our morale rises and our workday goes faster. Our dedication and loyalty also increase. I know many, many very bright and talented people who could make more money working elsewhere but they feel so appreciated in their current work environments that they have no interest in pursuing other opportunities.
If you subscribe to the school of thought that people should not need to celebrate or be told “thank you” for simply doing their job, end your subscription. We all need to feel wanted, needed and appreciated.
What are your celebratory plans for your team’s next major accomplishment? People will never forget how you made them feel.
Courage is only a thought away.
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
—Anais Nin, French-born U.S. writer
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
The number-one reason that leaders fail is that they are too soft; they have weak backbones. They lack the courage to be as effective as they should be and need to be. As examples, they often:
Is this anyone you know? Do you demonstrate this behavior? It’s not easy standing up to those that surround and consume your day, be they executives, clients, vendors, contractors, peers or team members. But if you expect to be consistently successful as a leader, you must demonstrate the courage to lead yourself and your team to success. It’s not about effort or lofty intentions; it’s about results.
To help you muster the courage to lead, we must talk about understanding your:
Having the courage to lead first requires that you understand your job: your roles and responsibilities. If you are uncertain about them, define them at a high level as bullets on a single sheet of paper and present them to your boss. Don’t ask your boss what your job is; tell your boss what you perceive your job to be and seek agreement and support. This approach demonstrates initiative and leadership and shows that you care about your success and your boss’ success.
Once you understand your job, you are now in a position to “mark your territory.” Your domain of responsibility is defined as all responsibilities and commitments that fall within the scope of your job: your assignments. You are entrusted to demonstrate the leadership required to execute everything within your domain successfully.
A project manager’s domain of responsibility includes the performance of everyone on the project team and the dozens of others whom you need to perform some service to ensure the project executes and ends successfully.
One’s domain of responsibility is almost always broader than most people first think. One of my clients recently had a project completed significantly late and over budget. The project manager said that it wasn’t her fault primarily because the vendor’s deliverables were late and sub-quality. She continued that there was nothing she could do about a vendor who was halfway around the world.
The project sponsor said, “I don’t recall you coming to me during the project and requesting funds to travel to the vendor’s location to do whatever was necessary to help the vendor deliver on time and with the expected quality.” Had the project manager fully understood her job and the domain of responsibility that came with it, she might have been able to lead this project to a more successful conclusion.
Everywhere I travel, I encounter leaders who become voluntary victims. They might not always readily admit that their predicament is of their own doing, but it almost always is. In my experience, at least 90 percent of leaders who are micromanaged by higher-ups caused themselves to be micromanaged by their own actions—or I should say by their inactions: their lack of consistent demonstration of courage to make things happen.
Being consistently successful as a leader requires courage. How can you acquire the courage—the backbone—to consistently lead effectively? It’s not always easy, but with the right mindset, you can turn around weak and ineffective behavior. Most times you know the right thing to do. Why would you want to go through your job—your life—being too soft, fearing failure, afraid to assert yourself, taking abuse from others, playing the victim, not pursuing your dreams, not believing in yourself, not demonstrating the courage to make things happen? This is your moment. It is a duty. It is an adventure. It is yours to seize!
One last thought: Many people wish they could muster the courage that they respect so much in others. If this applies to you, fake it! As insincere as that may sound, fake it! Why? Because no one can tell the difference. And after a while, you will believe it yourself. You become what you think about all day long. Courage is only a thought away.
You are a leader. Everyone is waiting for you to demonstrate the courage to lead. You can do it!
Thinking for yourself—a trait of the best leaders.
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
Do you think for yourself? Or do you allow yourself to be lead by the maze that surrounds you?
The most important lesson to learn on projects and within organizations—even in life—is to think for yourself, to challenge tradition, authority and the status quo professionally and maturely and routinely question your own behaviors and actions. Otherwise, you become enslaved by the past and its outdated or ineffective ideas, a willing victim of indifference, mediocrity, narrow-mindedness and unimaginative thinking. Then, you are stuck inside the proverbial box, doomed to repeat past mistakes. Eventually, you and that which you lead become grossly ineffective.
Many—perhaps most—so-called leaders do not consistently think for themselves.
Do you:
Many of us have not been sufficiently trained or convinced to think for ourselves. We are “encouraged” to conform even if conforming is harmful to our well-being or the well-being of our project, organization or company.
For example, consider an organization with a project office that has defined, documented processes and procedures. I commonly hear members of such organizations complain of the rigidity and bureaucracy imposed on them. When I ask for specific examples, many cannot articulate a problem. Most of those who can identify a legitimate problem or annoyance still follow the processes and procedures blindly. They don’t think for themselves. They allow processes and procedures to “think” for them instead of professionally seeking to tailor the system to better suit their business needs.
From a different perspective: Your company lacks good processes and procedures and never seems to learn from its mistakes so you leave for a company that has its “act” together. But when you get to the new company, you find the same conditions. Why? Because you are the problem and you bring the problems with you wherever you go. If you were unwilling to dig your heels in at your last company to fix the problems, you probably won’t be motivated to fix them at your new company. Again, you wait for someone else to solve them and resist thinking for yourself.
One more example: Ask yourself what you would do during a “hiring freeze” when you need to hire someone with unique, hard-to-find skills, without which, you cannot meet the delivery or revenue commitments of your project. You assume that no hiring can occur even for the perfect candidate. However, if you have, first, an approved and funded project, and, second, no out-of-control problems, most executives would support such a hire in order to protect business commitments.
One of the most important traits of a consistently successful leader is thinking for himself or herself. Practice the mindset that it’s not about the ability of those around you to lead; it’s about your ability to lead, regardless of what is happening around you. There is no substitute for thinking for yourself.
Your future success, in large part, reflects how you dealt with your past failures.
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
As leaders, we all have failed at something. We all will fail again. If you are not failing, then you are not growing. Failures can be small—not passing the PMP® exam—or large—your project came in 40 percent late and 50 percent over budget. Many leaders not only fear failure but allow failure to eat away at their confidence, their boldness, their passion and, ultimately, their overall effectiveness.
When we are bitten by the failure bug, we recoil—we want to go into hiding. We hesitate to take big steps with our dreams and endeavors; we become content with baby steps or no steps. We churn inside and nervously look over our shoulders. We cower at change. Many of our decisions are haunted by the possibility of failure. We become immobilized and substantially lose our effectiveness.
Maybe we’re afraid to look stupid, of losing our coworkers’ respect, to disappoint our mentors. We might fear reprisal, that we’ll be marked a failure by others or by ourselves.
Ironically, without failure, we cannot grow, learn and master those things that are important to us. Many of the things that we easily do today, i.e., swimming, riding a bike or playing a musical instrument, are things that we failed at repeatedly as we were learning to master them. Many more accomplishments are less overt—developing leadership skills, working well with others and making things happen—but not less subject to potential failure.
Many so-called failures are not failures at all but instead are steppingstones to progress—to success. Without these steppingstones, we could never arrive at the many destinations and goals we have attained. In the end, we call it experience.
We have all marveled at the athlete who wins an Olympic gold medal, the master painter who creates a priceless work of art, the biologist who discovers the defect-causing gene, the Oscar winner, the Nobel Prize winner. None of these great achievers seems to be a failure. Yet each of these champions of champions failed many, many times before achieving their victory.
None of these people saw their failures as indications that they themselves were failures. Instead, they grew stronger from each attempt. They realized that they were producing results that offered them opportunities for learning, for assessing, for growing, for achieving. The failures represented lessons, not defeats. They were not even viewed as setbacks as much as necessary steppingstones to reaching some personal summit.
Great achievers not only learn from their own mistakes, they learn from the experience and advice of others. They know that no one lives long enough to make all the mistakes themselves. They know that the only real failures are the experiences we don’t learn from, particularly when they are our own.
One of my favorite, famous-failure stories is of an American who:
…then became 16th president of the United States in 1860: Abraham Lincoln.
Being able to deal effectively with failure is one attribute of an effective leader. If you watch closely the leaders you admire the most, their careers may be littered with failures, invariably some large ones. Yet their ability to rise from the ashes and move on makes them all the stronger and more valuable.
This best-practice technique can continuously and dramatically improve your leadership effectiveness.
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
When your day ends, the dust settles and you can see the results of your efforts and actions, what picture emerges? Is it clear and concise? Does it support a vision? Or is it fuzzy, in disarray and lacking conviction?
Here’s a technique that can help you grow your leadership skills and become more effective today than you were yesterday—and even more effective tomorrow than you are today.
At the start of each workday—when you are at your freshest—spend a few quiet moments reflecting both on your noteworthy achievements from the day before as well as on your “missed opportunities.” Make two lists: the top three things that you did that made a difference for the best and the top three things you did (or failed to do) that made a difference for the worse.
Assess your performance and contributions along three axes: leading, sustaining and impairing. Compare the state of things at the start of yesterday with the end of yesterday. Your day’s activities include a broad range of areas to reflect upon such as commitments, relationships, morale, costs, quality and the client. Based on your deliberate actions, ask yourself what things are:
Of course, you hope that what you did yesterday caused events, activities or situations to noticeably improve, on balance, from where they began. In other words, as a leader, were you the catalyst for positive change for those around you?
If your actions resulted in the middle option—maintaining things at their current momentum—this can be either an OK thing or a bad thing depending on the direction of the momentum: positive or negative. If things are deteriorating, this is obviously not a momentum you want to sustain. In that case, you’re looking to lead rather than sustain.
Basing today’s actions on yesterday’s behavior enables you to adjust via lessons learned. Moreover, this immediate self-assessment can help you recover from missteps while the trail is still warm and deliberate recovery actions can have the most beneficial impact.
Performing the adjustments routinely—preferably each day—can have a strikingly positive impact on your effectiveness as a leader. We often avoid self-assessments, especially if they are routine, because we prefer to avoid any reminders of our so-called “failures.” But, as professionals, these self-assessments of our actions are essential for our continued growth, maturity and effectiveness.
Even more powerful, occasionally include a trusted friend or mentor in assessing your past behaviors and discuss how best to apply the resulting lessons to present and future actions. If you and a friend perform this exercise with one another once a week, the positive impact will occur over a relatively short period of time.
This best-practice technique may seem simple but it is disarmingly effective. Routinely applying this technique allows old habits to be questioned and immediately replaced by more effective “new” habits.
I am reminded of a saying by Thomas J. Watson, industrialist, entrepreneur and former chairman of IBM: “Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.”
Just because you have a leadership role doesn’t mean you are living up to the expectations of those who lead you.
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
Your leaders want you to know–need you to know–the behavior they expect from you. You may be a project or program manager, manager, senior manager or executive, project sponsor–or strive to become one. But just because you have a leadership role doesn’t mean you are living up to the expectations of your leaders.
Listed below is a starter list of behaviors that your leaders expect from you but often are not fulfilled. Routinely adopting these behaviors can enhance your image, effectiveness and career–and they make your leaders’ jobs easier.
Don’t dump and run. When you have an idea for an improvement, don’t transfer that idea to your leader and then wash your hands of it. Be willing to be its champion and become part of the solution.
Make it brief. When you are dealing with your peers you can speak in sentences–sometimes in paragraphs. But as you communicate higher up the food chain, you should speak in sound bites. Your leader doesn’t have the time for the unabridged version.
Don’t complain. People who habitually complain are a bore and a waste of time and energy to those around them. If you are complaining, you are not solving. For example, complaining to person A about something that person B can fix wastes everyone’s time. But “complaining” directly to person B is the first step toward a solution.
Bring solutions with problems. When you need help, articulate both the solution and the specific help required. Tell your leaders exactly what you need from them, such as funding, letter of support, escalation, new hires, new tools, etc. You are far more likely to secure their support when you have a solution in hand.
Wear one face. Don’t be one person when your leader is around and someone different the rest of the time. Choose the same face regardless of the audience.
Close issues. Don’t allow issues to linger or drift. Close them with the urgency that they deserve.
Meet commitments. Show others that you can be counted on and that you are reliable.
Promote dialogue. Don’t be a “yes” employee–or more specifically, a silent employee. Don’t just take notes, nod and leave your boss’s office. Listen thoughtfully, ask good questions, raise concerns.
Make your leaders look good. Satisfying the needs of your leaders–fulfilling, even exceeding, their expectations–is your job. That makes them look good which makes you look good.
Keep your leaders informed. Don’t work in a vacuum. Keep your leaders informed. Avoid surprises. Don’t let them hear about your responsibilities from someone else.
Offer professional criticism. If your views run counter to your leader’s, then constructively and discretely share those views. Your value increases when your interest, honesty and passion are apparent.
Offer praise. When you observe noteworthy ideas, actions or deeds by your leaders, show that you appreciate their behavior. Do not focus only on criticism–as constructive as it may be.
Demonstrate integrity. Know the difference between right and wrong–and do the right thing. Do not support or condone illegal, unethical or immoral behavior.
Solicit feedback of your performance. Ask for constructive criticism as well as praise based on your actions and behavior. Make it easy–be a willing student–for your leaders to work with you and professionally “shape” you in becoming a more effective leader.
Support your peers. Be quick to support noteworthy ideas and actions by your coworkers. Choose the collaborative path rather than the competitive or contentious path.
Show you can be trusted. Don’t subscribe to loose lips. Earn the reputation of being a trusted confidant. Support the company mantra and work to continuously improve its effectiveness.
Be a role model. Without fanfare or recognition, behave in a manner that others can emulate. Promote an organizational culture that supports continual success.
If you are relatively new as a leader, this list may appear daunting. But to your leaders, it represents what they strive for when recruiting, coaching and mentoring.
It is my experience that far more leaders are made than born. Regardless, you have the ability to shape your behavior and, therefore, your effectiveness.
Take advantage of a best-practice tool that can develop effective leadership skills among project managers and resource managers.
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
Project managers direct the planning and execution of a project and are held personally accountable for the success of the project. Simply stated, they nurture the project to meet its objectives.
Resource managers hire, fire, make job assignments, coach, counsel, evaluate, award, promote and secure future work opportunities for direct reports. In other words, they nurture people to both reach their individual potential and to meet their commitments on projects. Everyone in an organization works for a resource manager.
The project manager champions the project. The resource manager champions people. These are oversimplified definitions but the important thing is to understand the difference in the roles and responsibilities between these two critical leadership positions and how they can best work together for the mutual good of the enterprise.
The success of an organization is largely in the hands of the people who hold these two vital positions.
A best-practice tool for developing the leadership skills of people in these key positions is the One-Day Project Manager/Resource Manager Leadership Workshop. Here’s how it works.
The attendees are a mix of project managers and resource managers, up to 20 participants. A week or two before the workshop begins, attendees are required to identify the top three work-related scenarios that they would like addressed in the workshop. These are compiled into a single list with duplications removed.
At the start of the workshop, a brief refresher of the roles and responsibilities of both the project manager and resource manager is presented. The list of scenarios drives the remainder of the workshop. They include:
During the workshop, everyone is called upon to provide the “correct” answer to one or more scenarios. First-time participants likely will be surprised at the number of scenarios that they answer incorrectly. Coming into the workshop, many attendees assume they know what is expected of them in their job. One of the workshop goals, however, is to give people a renewed understanding of their roles and responsibilities as they relate to projects, people and the overall organization. These workshops both teach leadership behavior as well as reinforce effective leadership behavior already in play.
At the end of the workshop, the scenarios and their correct answers can be documented and distributed for reference and reinforcement. In relatively new, inexperienced or weakly run organizations, the workshop should be conducted monthly. As the experience of the project managers and resource managers improves across an organization, the workshops can be scheduled quarterly.
For senior managers struggling with the issue of whether leadership can be taught, this works! For project managers and resource managers, being the catalyst to adopt these workshops across an organization is a great demonstration of leadership. And the whole process proves that leadership happens at all levels–and if it isn’t developed, the enterprise will not succeed.
Are you leading within your domain of responsibility, or are you waiting for others to lead you?
What is a company’s most cherished asset? If you don’t know the answer, you probably don’t know where you’re going.
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
Here are some common answers to what companies value most–all are important, but only the last is correct.
People? Many companies mistakenly say so in their core beliefs.
Profit? Obviously important to a for-profit company, and sound financials are a sign of effective management even for nonprofits, academic institutions and public sector entities.
Products and services? Magnets for clients.
Clients? Without them, the company has no future.
Intellectual property? Past investments help secure future success.
Brand? How will customers know you otherwise?
Marketing? The only way to tell customers about your products and services.
Cash flow? Solid companies can pay their bills and invest in their future.
Productivity? An ever-rising bar.
Quality? Of course.
Creativity and ingenuity? A company cannot rest on its laurels.
Integrity? Getting warmer …
Leadership? BINGO! A company’s most cherished asset is its leadership.
If a company has mediocre leaders and the best employees, it will be a mediocre force in its industry. However, a company with the best leaders and mediocre employees will be a formidable force in its industry. Yes, formidable. It’s all about leadership. Interestingly, companies with the best leaders don’t have mediocre employees. Employees rise to the occasion for their leaders.
We all want to follow a leader even if we are leaders ourselves. We want someone in whom we can believe. Someone who helps give our work meaning, legitimacy and purpose. It doesn’t mean we need to always agree with the leader; we can accept different points of view. But we need to believe in the overall vision and direction in which we are being led.
The best leaders lay claim to their “domain of responsibility”–all actions, responsibilities and commitments that fall within the scope of completing their assignments successfully.
A project manager with 10 direct reports, for instance, must interface with dozens of other people related to the project. Human resources, infrastructure, the client, senior management, legal, purchasing, procurement–all of these groups can impact a project. They are all part of the leader’s domain of responsibility.
An executive with a 100-person company is not only responsible for the performance of those 100. The domain of responsibility encompasses people and groups outside the organization who can influence the company’s performance. Customers, potential customers, trade groups, legislators, unions–the domain of responsibility does not stop at the company’s front gate.
Leaders lay out a clear vision for all those people within their domains of responsibility, so everyone understands their mission and steadfastly remains focused. Moreover, leaders identify the major goals to be attained and provide measurements to establish and track those goals to ensure that the journey is deliberate and successful.
A person’s domain of responsibility almost always is far broader than seems apparent. Recognizing that fact and responding appropriately are keys to great leadership. Companies, organizations, projects that are consistently successful aren’t so by accident. Success is due to the passion, boldness and focus exhibited by its leaders.
Are you leading within your domain of responsibility … or are you waiting for others to lead you?
Continual evaluations cultivate skills and knowledge necessary for today’s leaders. Project review workshops allow you to mentor your staff, bringing them to the next level.
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
Institutionalizing project management best practices across an organization is a work in progress. It never ends. Project review workshops are great tools to foster the skills and transfer the knowledge necessary to being a world-class project organization.
The executive is in the best position to drive this practice across an organization and ensure it is routinely applied. The commitment to project review workshops shows the executive both cares about project success and team development.
Project review workshops are a formal classroom technique used to examine active projects and assess their overall health, identifying both areas of praise and improvement.
A project review workshop typically lasts two workdays–any longer and it can be too exhaustive for the participants. Three to four projects are selected, and their project managers and two to three members of each project team are invited to attend. The audience should total about 20, no more than 30.
The team prepares a set of slides describing the state of their project. As the slides are presented, the workshop instructor and attendees probe with questions in order to assess the true health of the project.
Two sets of blank flipcharts–Praise and Problems–are posted on the meeting room walls. As the presentation progresses, noteworthy praise items and problems are recorded.
When a project review is nearly complete, the instructor asks each attendee to assess the likelihood of that the project will achieve its delivery date. Then the instructor openly reviews each of the problems recorded and weighs them according to importance in their impact on the delivery date. The instructor then provides an assessment of the overall health of the project.
After the workshop, a brief report outlines the findings from each project reviewed. The report captures the items that were listed as praise or problems for each project as well as the risk assessments made by the instructor and participants. The project managers whose projects were reviewed then can develop action plans to address the most important problems identified.
A project review workshop benefits all who participate as well as the executives who make it happen. Project managers learn a great deal about how well they and their teams are performing, and they walk away with specific items to address. All participants learn from the other presentations and take back new ideas and thinking for current and future projects. The executive team witnesses the continual improvement in applying project management best practices across the organization contributing to lower costs, increased productivity, improved schedule and budget commitments–all leading to improved customer relationships.
The project review workshop develops more than skills. It can be difficult to hear others publicly call your baby “ugly,” no matter how constructively the analysis comes across. The lessons learned will not soon be forgotten. Furthermore, often just preparing the presentation forces a project team to think through and solve many of their problems before publicly exposing the state of their work.
For maximum benefit, project review workshops should be conducted every four to six months. The goal is to focus on the major projects across an organization, as well as provide follow-up reviews on longer-running projects to ensure progress.
The project review workshop is one of those defining tools that transitions an organization from good to great. It is the sort of tool that executives find themselves constantly in search of.
There is no better method than mentoring to develop effective project managers and teams. But the special note here is that this technique does not focus on helping an isolated project succeed; it helps projects across the whole organization achieve success. Project review workshops push the envelope on continuous positive change required across an organization by which all stakeholders benefit. Sponsoring never felt so good!
Are you leading to success?
Abraham Lincoln said, “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
I have collected project management-related tips from among my favorite and most promising–many learned too slowly and too painfully. These tips can offer pause for thought and help promote job performance effectiveness. Adopting one can benefit your project; adopting many can benefit your career.
Now go make a difference!
You get from others what you invest in others.
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
As a leader, do you both preach and practice professional behavior? Are you role-model caliber? You should be. In my experience, most leaders have a credibility gap in this area with coworkers. By coworkers, I mean the full range of organizational hierarchy from people who work under you, to your peers, to higher ups.
Here is a starter list of professional behaviors to embrace that can help you be a more effective leader.
Develop great working relationships. Make relationships with your coworkers not just work, but work well. The higher you report in an organization’s hierarchy, the more you are expected to solve problems without requiring help from higher-ups. If something you did gets back to your superiors, you want it to be because of the good it provided, not because of a problem you caused, contributed to or could have diffused.
Make your boss look good. Your actions are a reflection on your boss. Your job includes helping to make your boss look good and making his/her job as easy as possible.
Be a role model to your peers. Strive to act and behave in a manner that motivates people to emulate your style. You want your peers to look forward to being in a work meeting with you or including you as a welcomed contributor who can help bring harmony and effective resolution to the challenges at hand.
Be a role model to your staff. Show your staff (don’t just tell them) how you expect them to behave. You want your staff to ask themselves often, “How would [your name] handle his.”
Count to that proverbial 10 before saying or doing something that will cause problems. Once the words leave your lips or your actions have been shown, you cannot pull them back. Moreover, it can take weeks, sometimes months, to recover from a moment of indiscretion. For example, consider not sending potentially inflammatory e-mails at the end of the day. Your patience is lessened, and you may not be at your best in demonstrating good judgment. Write the e-mails, but wait until morning to reread them before sending them. More often than not, you will change the wording or not send them and handle the problem is a different way.
Meet your commitments. Whether to your boss, a peer or a subordinate, meeting commitments is one of the best things you can do to establish a great reputation. If you cannot meet a commitment, then reset it before the original due date when the collateral damage can be minimized.
Ask others for their advice. Bouncing ideas off others serves two great purposes. First, it improves relationships. People are flattered and feel important to be asked. Second, you will learn in the process. Sometimes the lesson learned is a validation of your original approach, but other times you will walk away with a better idea.
Look for solutions. Don’t become an obstacle. Search for all the reasons that something can be made to work, rather than focusing on why it cannot.
Expect from yourself what you expect from others. Hold yourself to the same high standards that you expect from others. Practice what you preach. Some examples: Arrive at meetings on time and prepared; be timely in returning phone calls; increase person-to-person communications while decreasing over-reliance on e-mails.
This is not an exhaustive list, but it is a start. Think about the leaders you know that you admire the most. It’s not just about being nice, it’s also about being effective.
Now go make a difference!
The project manager should not allow project-related problems to drift.
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
How does a project get behind schedule? “One day at a time,” wrote Frederick Brooks in his classic, The Mythical Man Month. Many of us have been associated with projects that completed late or not at all. It is not unusual for projects to be days or weeks late, but some projects are–yipes!–months or years late.
Reflect on this for a moment: Based on recurring industry statistics citing that a large number of projects finish late, the likelihood is high that you will experience–perhaps cause–one or more of your future projects to finish late. Not a comforting thought.
Obviously, there are many causes for late projects: incomplete/misunderstood requirements, poor planning/estimating, weak change control that allows unmitigated scope creep, ineffective project tracking and problem management, and weak project sponsor, to name a few. A big problem is that, in spite of our desire to have an effectively run project, it is not unusual for the project to “get away from us.”
A powerful tool to help keep your project on track is to reserve one day each week for work and escalation meetings. The day that immediately follows your project tracking meeting is best. All project members should be available on this day if called upon. By reserving the day after the project tracking meeting, project managers also buy a few more hours (between the tracking meeting and the scheduled work/escalation meeting) for the principals to resolve the problem. However, avoid scheduling the day before or after a weekend because it is common for project members to be away from work due to holidays and vacations.
Let’s say that in last week’s project tracking meeting, some project members were behind on completing an activity, but appeared to have reasonable explanations and plans to recover by next week’s project tracking meeting. Next week has arrived and they still have not recovered as committed.
The project manager now becomes directly involved as a catalyst–a facilitator–to ensure that these problems are resolved appropriately and as soon as possible. The parties involved had the first crack at resolving the issues, but failed to do so. The project manager is not upset with anyone. It’s not personal, it’s business. The team members may have performed as well as they could. However, the project manager has no intention of allowing these problems to drift any longer. As the last action of a project tracking meeting, the project manager schedules the appropriate work or escalation meetings for the next day to help move the problems to closure.
Reserving one day each week to conduct work and escalation meetings does not mean allowing problems to drift until that day arrives. On the contrary, problems should always be resolved with the sense of urgency they require for project commitments to be successfully met. The one reserved day per week is a safety net to address the problems that escaped a quick resolution and may require special attention.
When a project manager reserves one day a week for closing out problems that are drifting, the project can reap noteworthy benefits, which include:
Brooks is right, of course, to say that a project gets late one day at a time. But a project also remains strong or gains strength one day at a time. The reserved day can provide a gate for project stakeholders to open and use when problems require special attention. This gate can significantly help project stakeholders corral their problems before they fester and cause serious harm to the project.
Now go make a difference!
You must have a target—otherwise you won’t know what to hit.
by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor
Ever have your boss, client, product sponsor or someone else in a position of authority give you the delivery date for a yet-to-be-planned product/service? This is common practice, but is it a good practice? In other words, should you be given a target date or should you be left to determine the most appropriate date for you and the project team?
In almost all cases, it is good business to provide the project team a target end date. An end date yields two primary benefits:
Picture this scenario: The boss provides a target end date of six months. This gives your team a solid goal upon which to focus. Planning decisions are balanced against the requirement to complete the product in six months.
But what if the best plan that you and your team can create requires eight months? What do you do? You present the eight-month plan to your boss and articulate why the plan’s duration cannot be reduced. And if it is reduced, you identify the negative consequences that are likely to result. However, be prepared for an onslaught of questions about whether you and your team have fully exhausted other options such as outsourcing, acquiring off-the-shelf components, reducing the features offered and hiring proven experts to help in the implementation.
If you can professionally defend your eight-month plan, then most bosses will yield to your due-diligence and accept the end date moving out an additional two months. However, some bosses will say, “I want it in six months! Find a way to make it happen or …” (“I will find someone who can” is the inference). This is bad business! All stakeholders lose!
Demanding that the proverbial 10 pounds be placed into a five-pound sack does not make it possible. Laws of physics will not change just because someone wants them to.
It’s All About the Target
Notice that I have used the phrase target end date throughout the article. It is good business to provide a target end date. It is bad business to demand an end date that is not achievable.
Target dates are good business—as a starting point. Moreover, the project manager, while working with the project team, can apply the same concept to creating a project plan. For example, say the boss requests a target date of six months for the delivery of an improved product. The project manager, in working backwards from the six-month delivery date, determines target dates for the project’s major milestones. These target milestone dates help the project members focus on building a plan that can meet the six-month end date. Most project members likely can meet the target milestone dates. For those who cannot, the project manager works with them creatively to either meet or modify the dates somewhat to achieve the best possible delivery date for the project.
Setting target end dates for final delivery or for intermediate major milestones is good business so that the best plans can be created. But be prepared to defend your plan, especially if you believe that you cannot achieve the target dates. Offer alternatives, but do something. As a project manager, all eyes are on you to ensure the right plan is committed.
Now go make a difference!
Copyright © 2012 The Neal Whitten Group