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.

Do You Demonstrate the Courage to Lead?

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:

• Place a higher value on being liked than on being effective
• Embrace consensus management rather than take personal accountability
• Take great care to not “rock the boat”
• Sacrifice integrity for approval
• Deflect tough decisions to others or wait until the last possible moment so they make only safe decisions
• Work on the easy things at the expense of the most important things
• Avoid necessary and timely confrontation
• Allow the behavior of others to shape them, rather than taking the initiative to shape the behavior of others.

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:

• Job
• Domain of responsibility
• Duty to lead despite that which is happening around you.

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:

• Blindly follow processes and procedures regardless of their effectiveness?
• Retreat from confronting problems that negatively affect your performance?
• Consistently allow others to dictate and manage the use of your time?
• Consciously do things wrong the first time?
• Accept substandard work from others?
• Follow “group think” regardless of its effectiveness?
• Consistently ignore your instincts?
• Demonstrate little or no initiative in challenging authority on questionable issues and proposing a better way?
• Trade popularity for integrity?
• Routinely repeat past mistakes?
• Think you cannot make a difference?

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:

• Failed in business
• Was defeated for the legislature
• Failed again in business
• Suffered a nervous breakdown
• Was defeated for state elector
• Was defeated for Congress
• Was defeated for Congress again
• Was defeated for a Senate bid
• Was defeated for a vice-president bid
• Was defeated again for Senate

…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:

• Noticeably Better
• At Their Current Momentum
• Noticeably Worse.

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:

• Coaching and Counseling Employee Scenario–Should the resource manager stay abreast of his/her employees’ performance against their project plans or is that the exclusive territory of the project manager?
• History Repeats Scenario–Newer projects consistently suffer from the same old problems that were encountered on previous projects. Where’s the problem? Who’s primarily accountable?
• Test Plan Scenario–A project has no test plan. Who’s primarily accountable? Project manager? Test team lead? Test team lead’s resource manager? The project manager’s manager? Other?
• Missed Commitments Scenario–A project member consistently misses his/her commitments. Who’s not doing their job? Project member? Project manager? Resource manager? Other?
• Escalation Scenario–When two parties are unable to resolve a conflict related to a project, what role should the project manager provide in resolving the conflict? What role should a resource manager provide?
• Management Style Scenario–Which is worse: A project manager/resource manager overmanaging or undermanaging?

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.

• It’s not about the ability of those around you to lead; it’s about your ability to lead, in spite of what is happening around you.
• Mind your own business first. Behave as if you own the business and your business is defined by your domain of responsibility. This not only serves to strengthen your behavior and effectiveness, but, if everyone behaved similarly, your company would greatly benefit as well.
• Define your roles and responsibilities and obtain agreement from your boss. You are far more likely to rise to expectations when those expectations are clearly defined. We achieve according to that which we are measured.
• Treat all project members equally. Whether they are clients, vendors, contractors or company employees, a project suffers when preferential treatment is given to any group or person. A project’s success is dependent upon the success of each and every project member.
• Boldness! You cannot be a consistently effective leader if you don’t have it. The person who consistently displays bold behavior will far out-perform the person with similar knowledge and experience who does not. Bold behavior includes doing what is necessary, within legal and ethical parameters, to accomplish your job.
• Become a benevolent dictator. Micromanaging, consensus management and democratic rule all can be highly ineffective leadership styles in a business or project. A benevolent dictator leads, first, by actively soliciting information and opinions from team members and others, second, by listening, and third, by demonstrating the leadership, courage and boldness to personally make the right decision, and standing accountable for that decision.
• Practice the Golden Rule. Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you is the best time-tested behavior to adopt while performing on projects.
• Perform post-project reviews and ensure that the resulting lessons are applied to new projects. Lessons cannot be considered “learned” until they have been appropriately adopted.
• Seek out a mentor. There is no better way to learn than by having a mentor who has been there, done that, messed up and learned from the experiences. A mentor’s advice can positively impact your career and help protect your projects.
• Ask for help or become part of the problem. Asking for and obtaining help is a sign of professional maturity, not weakness. It sends the signal that you take pride in your work and care about the success of the project.
• For consistent success, focus on your top three priorities each day rather than your bottom 30. The top problems of a project are the areas that can cause the most harm. They must be effectively dealt with according to the urgency they require.
• Inspect what you expect. Don’t “trust” that things are progressing smoothly or will work out okay on their own. Plan it, measure it and, if necessary, mitigate it.
• Don’t delay or avoid escalating issues that are at an apparent impasse; escalations are a healthy and essential part of business. If you and another project member are unable to see eye-to-eye, then after an earnest attempt to negotiate a resolution without success, you must call on higher levels of project leadership for help.
• The No. 1 reason why leaders fail: being too soft! If you are too soft, your stakeholders will not learn effective behavior, nor will they respect you. Projects fail because their leaders fail.
• It’s not about being liked; it’s about doing the right thing. It’s called integrity!
• You are what you perceive yourself to be. Your vision of yourself becomes your reality.

Now go make a difference!

PM Network is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

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:

• Resolving problems that could eventually delay or sink a project
• Instilling a sense of urgency for project stakeholders to deal with their problems
• Providing a support system to help stakeholders obtain the attention they need
• Demonstrating a level of discipline that project stakeholders expect and need from the project manager.

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:

• The target date will likely have special meaning to the business. For example, it may coincide with an important trade show, allow revenues to be earned before the fiscal year ends, meet or beat a competitor’s date for the launch of a similar product, or it may meet a legal deadline such as a regulatory date.
• The target date will stretch the project team to be more creative. Left to our own preferences, many of us will take the path of least resistance, that is, a comfortable plan rather than a more aggressive (but achievable!) plan. We often perform our best work when we are being challenged.

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!

Every project should have a sponsor, someone who champions the project from a business perspective and helps to remove obstacles that might harm its overall success.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

Project sponsors typically are members of senior management who carry a respectable level of influence and authority and serve as proponents of projects. Project sponsors often are called by different names, such as product sponsor, project director, account manager or business unit manager.

Some projects do not have clearly defined project sponsors. Even more common are projects that have sponsors, but the sponsors’ duties are not defined and documented. If a project has no apparent sponsor or a weak sponsor, the project will suffer a severe handicap whenever senior management support must be obtained.

As a project manager, if your project does not have a project sponsor, you can work to cultivate that role with a likely senior manager. If your project has a designated project sponsor, but the duties are vague, it is in both your and the project’s best interest to define and document a proposed set of duties and negotiate them with the sponsor. Let’s look at a short list of the more significant duties of a project sponsor.

Ensure the project’s strategic significance. The project sponsor endorses and defends the project as a valued investment of organizational resources, an investment that serves the organization’s strategic objectives.

Provide approval and funding for the project. Organizations have more opportunities than funds and people to work them. The project sponsor lobbies for the approval and subsequent funding of the project.

Promote support by key stakeholders. The project sponsor maintains a good working relationship with major stakeholders such as the project manager, client and senior project players from other internal and external organizations and companies.

Support broad authority for project manager and team. The best project sponsors do not micromanage a project. Instead, the project manager enjoys great flexibility to promote best practices in planning and managing the project, and making day-to-day decisions. Decisions related to scope, schedule and costs that affect changes to external commitments must include the project sponsor.

Resolve conflicts. The project sponsor resolves conflicts that require senior management involvement: funding, priorities, external commitments, cross-organizational boundaries and clients, for instance. The project sponsor strives to buffer the project team from political issues. Timeliness to close issues is critical.

Be accessible and approachable. The project sponsor must be available to the project manager and other stakeholders on relatively short notice. The project sponsor should be viewed as a stakeholder who is always willing to listen and get involved as needed–to be used as a sounding board and to provide advice and guidance.

Support periodic reviews. The project sponsor approves the need and frequency of project reviews to appropriately assess the health of the project. Actions then are recommended to immediately address any significant problems that are identified.

Support post-project review. The project sponsor promotes the implementation of reviews upon project completion or following a major phase of a long-running project. A post-project review identifies what went right, what went wrong and where improvement can be made on future projects. The objective is to learn from project experiences so future projects can benefit.

Encourage recognition. The project sponsor, working with management and the project manager, supports the timely recognition of noteworthy individual and team achievements.
The project sponsor provides ongoing, on-call support for the project manager, who, in effect, is the project stakeholder charged with planning and executing the project plan–which leads to successful delivery of the product/service. A close, supportive relationship between the project sponsor and project manager can greatly benefit the performance of the project manager, project team and the overall success of the project.

Now go make a difference!

By paying attention to these “people principles,” project managers can smooth project execution.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

The dignity and value bestowed upon and felt by each individual is central to the overall continued success of an enterprise. The best-run organizations–and often those with the highest morale–typically are organizations where members demonstrate a basic respect for one another.

The core principle underlying effective interpersonal communications is the Golden Rule: “Treat others as you would like to be treated.” There is no better rule to follow when working with or serving others such as project stakeholders.

Here is a starter list of seven actions to adopt to foster and improve effective communication among project members.

Exercise tolerance; be quick to assist. More than ever, your job requires you to know more, resulting in a greater dependence on the knowledge and experience of others. We need to exercise tolerance of others when they come to us for help. After all, we will need their help some day. As members of a project willingly share their knowledge and experiences, the collective strength of a project increases. Moreover, “helpers” are frequently the most respected and admired members of a team. Four words to speak if you want to be remembered: “I will help you.”
Caution: Do not voluntarily assist others at the sacrifice of your own commitments.

Make direct contact. Interactive communications is still the best kind. Go out of your way to meet the people on whom you depend or who depend on you. Talk to them via telephone or face-to-face. Invite them to your meetings; ask to attend theirs when appropriate. E-mail has great value but do not overlook the need to build relationships and bonds that only your voice or presence can cement.

Relay your message in the fewest words possible. The higher you communicate up an organization’s hierarchy, the fewer words should be spoken and with better clarity of point. Higher-ups assume you know more but are far too busy to sit still for the unabridged version. They only need the net.

Use tact. Howard Newton, an American advertising executive, said, “Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.” The message you send may not be heard as loudly as the manner with which you send the message. Keep emotion out of a discussion. Focus on the facts at hand. Show people that you are willing to work with them where appropriate and that you are attempting to add value to the product or process.

Be a good listener. Communication is a two-way process. To be an effective communicator, you must be able to send and receive information. Helpful tips include: Maintain frequent eye contact, voice brief responses to show you are listening; don’t prematurely change the subject; ask questions; and restate what you heard. We learn through listening.

Be willing to break with tradition. We live in a rapidly changing world. All of us must be open–more than ever–to new ideas and new ways of thinking. Tradition can be a bad thing. It can cause us to narrow our thinking and to jump to erroneous conclusions. It can cause us not to grow, to be less effective, unable to see that which is possible and even necessary. Be open, even eager, to new ideas and methods. However we performed yesterday, we must perform better today and still better tomorrow.

Ask questions, never assume. Incorrect assumptions that you make on the job can cost your project considerable rework, lost time and, ultimately, lost revenue. Asking a question at the appropriate time can help you avoid missing a commitment, save money, save time and even save face–yours or someone else’s.

Although one person can influence change in an organization, the more members that rally behind a cause, the stronger its impact will be. To this end, consider developing a set of people principles, such as those presented here, to be adopted across your project or organization. Because a project consists of people of diverse backgrounds and experiences, these principles may not be intuitively obvious to everyone. If they were, projects and organizations would not have so many people-related problems.

Now go make a difference!

Don’t “trust” anyone. Question everything. Assume nothing.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

The phrase “inspect what you expect” has been around for a long time, but its message goes unheeded for many project managers. Who hasn’t had a project where a team member insists that things are fine? That the delivery will be on schedule and will meet the quality expected? But then the delivery date arrives, and it’s not ready.

Case in point: I was asked to perform a review on a troubled project. The project originally was planned to run about eight months but continued for nearly twice that without convincing data on when it will be complete. After a project review and the resulting recommendations, the project was replanned and estimated to be complete in another six months.

One month later, I asked the project manager, Sarah (not her real name), what were her top three priorities? Every project manager must deliberately manage these daily. (See “The No. 1 Reason for Projects in Trouble,” PM Network, February 2000.) After some thought, she eventually identified her top three. Her top priority was to validate the long list of requirements with the client to ensure that both parties had the same interpretation.

This was a new six-week activity that she had assigned to John; he was just starting the fifth week. I asked if John was on schedule. She said “yes.” I asked how she knew that. Sarah said that John, a senior level project member, repeatedly announced in the weekly project tracking meetings that he is on schedule. Because there were only two weeks left of the six-week activity, I asked Sarah if John and the client would work over the one remaining weekend available, if necessary, to protect their commitments to the schedule. Sarah said that she had full trust and confidence in John. After all, she said, “John is a professional.”

John was four weeks late in completing the activity and did not work any weekends. Moreover, John said the activity “should be completed by next week” for the next four weeks. Ouch!

If your clients or senior management micromanage your projects, it’s for a reason: You invited it by your inaction. When a project member has made a commitment to you either directly or by way of the project plan, what are you doing to ensure that the words, “I am on schedule” are true and meet your expectations?

As the project manager, you are the commander of your ship. If a failure occurs, you are responsible and accountable — even if someone else misses a commitment — the failure occurred under your command.

All eyes are watching you. These eyes belong to the other project members, the client, your boss or some other project stakeholder. They are relying on your leadership, your integrity, your boldness to assert yourself when and where needed. (See “Boldness! You Cannot be a Consistently Effective Leader If You Don’t Have It,” PM Network, January 2000.) Consistently successful projects don’t just happen; they are made to happen.

Project members must know what they are being held accountable for; that is, what you expect from them. Furthermore, these expectations must be measurable. Project members then routinely must report progress against those measured expectations.

As a general principle: Don’t trust anyone. Question everything. Assume nothing. It’s not personal. It’s business. It’s good business. How many times must a project manager get drawn into this trap? Requiring a trackable plan and routine progress reports demonstrates good leadership.

When your instincts alert you that there is something suspect about a commitment, trust those instincts. We all have remarkably good instincts. Too many of us are too soft to act upon those instincts. Be fair, but firm. Inspect what you expect. Your projects will benefit greatly, not to mention your career.

Now go make a difference!

Without passion, boldness and focus, consistent success is elusive.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

We are always on the lookout for that silver bullet in project management. We upgrade to “better” planning and tracking software, continually improve documented processes, review lessons learned at the end of projects or phases of projects, routinely seek to improve our knowledge and skills through training and mentoring, and obtain PMI certification or the equivalent. All these things can help, but none can match the power in applying passion, boldness and focus to your duties. This is as close to a silver bullet as I know … and is it close!

What’s so remarkable about these three attributes is that they are within reach of each of us. They come from within. It’s not about one’s educational level, gender, wealth, age, religion, ethnic origin or who you know. It’s about who and what you choose to be.

What do I mean by passion, boldness and focus?

By passion, I mean an intense inner drive or feeling that compels you to achieve a specific objective. It is a steadfast enthusiasm and eagerness you demonstrate in the pursuit of a cause. It is a spirited embracement of a mission. It is behaving as if you own the company and the company is defined by your domain of responsibility.

By boldness, I mean the act of responding to a situation in a manner that may be viewed as daring to some but is essential to effectively address the issue at hand. I do not mean being rude, reckless, insensitive or arrogant. None of these attributes are acceptable to any of us. I mean doing whatever is necessary to achieve the objective, providing it is legal and ethical. It’s about demonstrating integrity and doing the right thing.

By focus, I mean concentrating on a handful or less of the most important problems (also includes risks) that currently exist, even at the exclusion of most other problems. The most effective leaders always know their top three problems and focus most of their time each day on solving these problems.

All too often project managers maneuver in the shadows of their leaders waiting for–even expecting–these attributes to be exhibited. But most of us will be disappointed most of the time. It is not about the ability of those around you to lead. It is about your ability to lead, in spite of what is happening around you.

It’s a lonely job being a project manager–a leader, a teacher, rallying others when you may not be receiving from your superiors the care and feeding you consistently and continually provide others. You are a professional. It is your job. Get a backbone. Believe in something. Make things happen. It’s not about your intentions; it’s about your actions. Your project members expect it of you. Your higher-ups, clients and sponsors also expect it of you. Moreover, they all are within their rights to expect it of you.

Most problems that fester on a project can be linked directly to a project manager that does not consistently exhibit passion, boldness and focus. The most effective leaders are driven from within themselves: their inner signals, their conscience, their integrity. It takes courage and boldness to sometimes stand alone with our beliefs. But true leaders are no strangers to adversity or finding themselves alone with their convictions. We all have a great source of strength within ourselves.

On your project, all eyes are on your behavior and your ability to lead. You should run your project with the same passion, boldness and focus as if it were your own personal business. You just might be surprised at the great potential that lies within you and that wants to be unleashed.

Now go make a difference!

Project members need extra time allocated when working across multiple projects.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

Anna, Brian and Carlos report to David, their resource manager. Anna has been working full time on project A, Brian on project B, and Carlos on project C. David decides to reassign them so that each works a third of the time on each of the projects: A, B and C.

The result? David no longer has enough people to work on the three projects. How can that be? Because, in this case, 1+1+1 does not equal 3, it adds up to a smaller number in terms of overall effectiveness. There is a price that a person pays when working on multiple projects. It is a price that is easily and often overlooked.

Typically, a person’s productivity is at its highest when focused on a single task, such as writing a chapter of a book. Once one chapter is written, the next chapter is started. But what happens if the author writes three chapters simultaneously? She begins the morning working on Chapter One. There are start-up delays as her creative juices begin to flow. But now it’s time to put Chapter One aside and focus on Chapter Two. There is real and measurable time required to temporarily shut down the work on Chapter One and set it aside so that it can be resumed the next day.

To focus on Chapter Two, there is start-up time required to effectively readjust her thinking and get up to speed on the new chapter. Again she finally reaches a productive point in writing, but soon it’s time to pack it away and begin on Chapter Three. And so on.

Each day a heavy price is paid for this start-up and shut-down sequence that must be followed for each chapter. A person working across multiple projects goes through a similar but even more time-consuming process because projects typically require far more interaction and communications with others than writing a book. For example, on project A, Anna attends two routinely scheduled meetings each week. Now that she works on three projects simultaneously, she must attend two weekly scheduled meetings for each project. She spends a larger portion of her day being less productive as she attends a greater number of meetings, reviews a greater number of documents, interfaces with a greater number of people, and performs more start-up and close-down activities.

The goal should be to assign people full time to single projects and to have them predominantly focus on one task at a time. This not only aids their productivity, it can reduce the commitment-related risk that a person brings to a project assignment. Project members are responsible for managing their commitments effectively. But it is the project manager’s duty to routinely review the plans of project members to ensure that commitments are being worked effectively.

It typically is the resource manager’s duty to ensure that employees are not spread perilously thin across projects and are making reasonable commitments. This is an example of how a resource manager works on the sidelines to support the success of a project manager and his or her project.

Even though it is not always possible to assign people to single projects, it is important to understand that people working across multiple projects (and tasks) are typically less productive than they would be if they could be singularly focused. Understanding this can help ensure that people are not spread too thinly, potentially harming project outcomes.

Now, go make a difference!

Refine estimates at the end of major milestones.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

Most of us have been taught that, at the beginning of a project, we make commitments that carry us all the way to the completion of the project. That’s a reasonable directive if the project is up to three months or so in duration. However, projects that are longer should not have their end dates committed. You read correctly. Once again, I am going to go against conventional wisdom, so put your thinking caps on.

Projects should be managed by major milestones, and major milestones should be set one to two months apart. The closest major milestone is firmly committed. This means that the members of a project will do everything reasonable to achieve that committed date.

All remaining major milestones are estimates, including the ultimate major milestone: the delivery date. They are not firm commitments. They are, however, sincere estimates and every reasonable attempt should be made to achieve them. It is imperative to estimate these dates for planning and business purposes.

Just after the identification of each major milestone in a project plan, an activity called “resize project plan” is added. After a major milestone has been reached, the project manager (working with the project members) determines if the next major milestone and subsequent major milestones are still reasonable to achieve. At that point, major milestones can be re-estimated and the relevant portions of the project plan are updated and rebaselined. This approach to planning and estimating follows the rolling wave concept whereby estimates are refined as better data becomes available.

Many types of projects, but especially software projects, get a bum rap for missing schedules. But think about it: Who in their right mind would commit to an end date before knowing what it is that is to be built or how it will be built? Most of us! But this is old-school, archaic thinking.

I often hear executives say that they can see some benefit to this thinking for noncontractual projects but not for contractual projects. They tell me that there is no point in resizing the project plan at the end of major milestones because the deliverable date is fixed in a legal document. Why perform a useless, wishful exercise?

Projects that require resizing are exactly the ones that are defined in contracts. Why? Because of the culture surrounding contractual projects. When asked, “Are you going to complete on time?” a project manager typically answers, “I have to.” The next question is, “I know you have to, but are you going to complete on time?” On contractual projects, no one feels empowered to question or revise dates. Instead, hope and optimism spring eternal.

Hope and optimism are not enough to make a project successful. Good planning and judgment are required. Contractual projects particularly must be considered for resizing at the end of major milestones to avoid sweeping problems under the rug. Projects need a culture where all problems are visible so that they can be solved effectively. Note that if a project is resized and its problems are brought into focus for resolution, that still does not guarantee that the project can or will be delivered on time. However, not confronting the problems is certain to further delay any chance to achieve the committed delivery date. Resizing helps to minimize the collateral damage that can build up on a project.

Commitments should be viewed as sacred ground. However, if a person believes that a commitment cannot ever be revised–and the commitment is in jeopardy–then the tendency is to deny or ignore that there’s trouble and, therefore, avoid seeking the best corrective action. Better to admit a problem, create a fix and potentially be marginally late than to ignore the problem and suffer far greater damage. Commit to that which you reasonably understand. Estimate for that which you have a weak understanding, and resize when new information is available.

Now, go make a difference!

We all make mistakes, but we don’t always learn from them.

by Neal Whitten, PMP, Contributing Editor

There is much more to learn within the project management profession than meets the eye of the casual practitioner/observer. Many of the lessons are not obvious but become clearer once we have been exposed to them. Over the years, I’ve learned–sometimes painfully–that the following beliefs are false:

• If you don’t lead project members, they will lead themselves. Most project members require someone to direct them in creating plans, tracking progress and mitigating problems. People and teams typically do not function as effectively as possible when left to their own devices. Strong leadership is a prerequisite for consistent success.
• Run the project by agreement. Consensus management often reduces the personal level of accountability across a team. Members hide behind the facade of the team. The best decisions are often sacrificed for decisions that everyone can live with. Running a team on consensus is akin to running a motor on idle–it can work but optimal effectiveness will remain out of reach. Instead, manage through the concept of benevolent dictatorship, actively soliciting information and opinions from team members and others. Project managers must listen, demonstrate the leadership, courage and boldness to personally make the right decision, and then stand accountable for that decision. All project members are benevolent dictators for their domains of responsibility.
• If you treat others with respect and dignity, they will respond in kind. Most people will, but there are a few rotten folks out there who defy civil norms. The sooner you recognize this to be true, the quicker you will be able to deal with these vermin.
• You can trust the planning and reporting of your project members. Never trust anyone on a project. Require proof with data or exhibits to support a claim. How many times do you have to hear that someone is 90 percent finished before you realize that they’re only 50 percent complete? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!
• Manage your day by the plethora of interruptions that come your way. Instead, manage your day by focusing on your top three priorities. It is the top three that define the truly important and urgent problems and where your time most effectively can be invested. Your contributions, your success, your career are defined by how well you manage your top priorities daily.
• Committed dates are fixed. Commitments should be viewed as sacred ground. However, if a person believes that a commitment cannot ever be revised–and the promise is in jeopardy–then the tendency is to deny or ignore that there’s trouble and, thus, avoiding corrective action. Better to admit a problem, create a fix and be marginally late, than to ignore the problem and suffer far greater damage.
• The grass is greener elsewhere. If you believe that management is the root cause of most problems, then you may look for greener pastures to graze. You will likely find the grass not to be as green as you thought because the problems are most likely related to you. If you are not willing to dig in and be a project management leader, you will bring the same problems to your new organization or company.
• Project culture is the responsibility of management. The project will be planned, tracked, communicated and nurtured according to the best practices that the project manager employs. No one is in a better position to shape the culture than the project manager.

Note: This article has been modified slightly from the original published version to correct editing snafus.