The Hard-Nosed Project Manager

A must read

If you don’t know Glen Alleman and his Herding Cats blog what are you waiting for?  I suggest you start with this post which I really, really enjoyed.

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How to make enemies

Every project manager has had situations where he was not feeling the love; for example team members that do not provide feedback on their tasks, people that “forget” to provide important information, or team members that are always late for meetings.  Derek Huether describes this last situation in this post.

I do agree with him until he states:

“So, how do you correct this negative behavior?  I like to zone in on something that makes the violator uncomfortable.  I’ve made them sing.  I’ve made them dance.  I’ve stopped the meeting when they’ve arrived late and then made them go from person to person on the team and say “I’m sorry for wasting your time”.  This may sound a little over-the-top but they slighted everyone on my team.  Everyone else was there on time; they should be as well.”

Taking this path is horrible.  Under no condition should a leader humiliate a team member; if you do this you are creating an enemy.  Projects have enough challenges without having to watch your back because a team member is now an enemy.

My suggestion is to take the person aside and discuss the matter.  If there is no legit reason for the person being late; for example they can’t make it at that time because of daycare hours which could be accommodated by changing meeting time, tell the person that the next time they are late they will hit a closed door.  Have this conversation only ONCE and then act as you said you would.  Never make a threat, make a promise.  Walking the walk creates trust.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Trust and doing the right thing

Trust and having a backbone are probably the two most important components of leadership.  This was illustrated plainly by the Obama – McChrystal incident that unfolded over the last couple of days.

For those of you that did not follow this on the news, General Stanley McChrystal and some of his staff publicly made disparaging remarks against President Obama and some of his staff and entourage.  The end result was that General McChrystal was removed from his command.

Do not confuse these events with politics; the issue here is loss of trust.  Students of history will know that this kind of situation has happened over the centuries both in the USA and in other democracies.  Typically the political leader of a democratic country is also the leader of the armed forces; this means that the President is the master of the General and that the General has to either follow his orders or resign.  Undermining his superior is not a option as it destroys trust for that superior all the way down the chain of command.  This most likely also undermines the person that questioned his superior, compounding the problem.

I’m certain General McChrystal understood that there could be only one outcome to the situation; his removal.  That’s why he offered to resign but he knew that the offer would be refused and that he would have to face the President because his dismissal could not be delegated to others.  The President had to show that he has a backbone and the General, being a leader, even if a mistaken one, had to show that he also has a backbone by facing the music.

How does this relate to project management?  Undermine your leader, betraying his trust and you can expect to have to fall on your sword.  That’s where the leader’s backbone becomes useful.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Motivation and leadership

I’m in the process of reading a book on leadership and project management.  The author mentioned Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs and its five levels: Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging, Esteem, Self-actualization. 

Our work environment fully satisfies physiological and safety needs; people are far from going hungry or homeless and are in no physical danger.  I think we also handle well the love/belonging needs as team members are generally friendly, respectful, and welcoming

Where I believe we might have problems is with esteem and self-actualization.  Going back to the book I’m reading, the author mentions the usual “esteem” related items; acknowledgement, rewards, and compensation.  Acknowledgement and rewards we could be better at but in the current economic climate compensation is pretty much a taboo subject.  Knowing that our people are far from being in any kind of hardship, what would you do to motivate someone who appears to have only one driver; more $$$?

Regarding self-actualization, the author includes in this level items like people’s interest in professional and personal growth, the will to outperform, and ambition as in climbing the hierarchy.  In the somewhat flat organization we work in the latter is not really an option.  Going back to my underlying question about motivation, what would you do with someone that appears to have stagnated and be happy in that stagnation?

In the past I have had to cajole some people with the hope of getting them to raise their game which in turn gives leverage and justification for rewards and increased compensation.  I have also had success in getting some to better themselves which better our organization at the same time and leaves them with a more marketable product (themselves).  Those who would not move either on productivity or skills have been shown the door.  By this I don’t mean fired but I’ve had to explain to them that their needs could not be accommodated in the mid to long term. 

I’d really like to her from all of you on this topic.  What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Risk management; no rose colored glasses please

We are all sadly aware of the situation with the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.  I am certain that after the leak is plugged, the cleanup is completed, and the finger pointing is over, we’ll find out that proper risk management would have minimized the damage.  Maybe we can even learn from this although I doubt it.

I am not an oil platform expert but listening to a Chevron representative talk about their new 2600 meter deep well (that’s 1000 meter more than the one in the Gulf) east of Newfoundland I thought I was having a nightmare.  Think about what would happen if there was a leak there and it got picked up by ocean currents. 

Why would the Chevron guy say that they have thought it through, that they have a better blowout preventer (a new design by the way), that they don’t need relief wells to be drilled now, etc.? I think Chevron thinks they are better than BP.  I’m pretty sure the BP guys thought that they were better than their peers too.

Risk management and rose colored glasses do not go together.  Risk management and ego do not go together.  Brushing away a risk because of a low likelihood is not good enough; you have to have low impact too.

Looks to me like history may end up repeating itself; let’s hope not.  What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Blenders are not for team building

In a previous post I talked about building teams that are reused from project to project. Well, it turns out that in the June 2010 edition of Wired, an article about Pixar mention this as being instrumental to the success of the company.

Let’s stop building teams by throwing people in the blender hoping for a successful outcome.  Building and reusing teams works in the Army, it works at Pixar, could it be that it just plain works?  What could be further from an Army section than an animated movie team? 

I’m thinking that soon we’ll hear that all that 1990’s business reengineering stuff was just a way for consultants to make money while laying waste to perfectly good companies…  Don’t send comment on this particular topic; I know it’s already been said…

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Stick to your guns

Have you ever had a stakeholder that had a knack for getting people on the defensive?  I once took over a project that was in deep trouble because scope concessions had been made without a proper analysis of the impact of the change on the schedule and budget.  That project was now in crisis mode and the stakeholder was using the weekly progress (what progress?) meeting to attack the current project management staff.  That person was so good at getting under people’s skin that the meeting would turn into a shouting match within minutes.  This was amplified by the stakeholder insisting on a set of topics to be discussed and the project management staff not complying.

When I took that project over I decided to do two things and to never move from that decision:

• First thing was to use the same tactic that allows a young soldier to survive a stark raving lunatic maniac aka his drill instructor. What you need to do is have a master interlock that paralyses your mouth while being yelled at. It helps if you have a little voice in your head that yells back at the abusive moron.

• The second thing was to stick to the list of topics that had been requested and agreed upon. Every time the stakeholder would try to move to something that was not on the list I would obstinately resume my briefing from that list.

Eventually the stakeholder from hell got tired of not being able to get under my skin and “delegated” the meeting to someone who truly wanted to work at resolving the project’s problems.  It took time but we got to the end of it.  Moral of the story?  Stick to your guns.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Tom, Dick, and Harry are Agile

I have nothing against Agile, Agilests, Agilistas, etc. so take the following with a grain of salt.  Having just read Derek Huether’s post “Agile is in the PMBOK so it must be true” and in particular these two statements:

• “Things can be so slow and expensive, we rarely get to see actual value delivered. Rather, successes are measured with earned value.” I’m not Mr. EV but when I declare earned value, the actual value has been delivered. I do not declared 33% earned value because said that they are 33% done. I declare 100% earned value when 100% of the feature is done, tested, and delivered.

• “If you start using terms like Sprint, ScrumMaster, and Burndowns, when they understand contract periods of performance, project managers, and EVM reports, you may lose that essential stakeholder buy-in.” Very, very true; you have to speak in a common language to be understood. However, this statement could be interpreted as saying that Agile is nothing but a renaming of PMBOK jargon. That would be far from the truth and anyway, you can’t compare apples (Agile) to oranges (PMBOK).

If all that is needed to get the Agile and PMBOK religious wars over is selective renaming, then let’s go for Tom, Dick, and Harry instead of contract periods of performance, project managers, and EVM reports.  I’m sure some already think PMs are Dicks…

What do you think?  As always questions and comments (not about PMs being dicks) are welcome.

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The Idiot Switch

Recently I discussed the need for team members having crystal clear communications.  In some settings this can be hard to achieve.  Sometimes you could swear that someone is attempting to pull the wool over your eyes.  I call that flipping the Idiot Switch.

How do you know that someone is trying to flip your Idiot Switch?  Let me give you an example.  I consider myself a reasonably intelligent guy (not an idiot).  When I ask a question I assume that I will be able to understand the answer.  Once in a while, after asking a fairly simple question, I get an answer that would probably make a quantum physicist’s eyes glaze over.  I suddenly feel like an idiot; my Idiot Switch has been flipped.  If I move on, the Idiot Switch gets flipped back and I’m suddenly back to my normal self.  What happened?

I’d say that one of two explanations is possible:

• The person I was talking to knows his stuff but not well enough to give a plain language, clear answer. I typically state that I didn’t get the answer and ask again, asking for a plain language answer. If my initial assessment was right the person makes an effort and we get closure. The Idiot Switch was not actually used and we have a happy ending.

• The person I was talking to is actually intent on being evasive and is using the Idiot Switch to get me to go away. I will restate my question, again asking for a plain language answer which I will not get. The typical outcome is a loss of trust in that person which will mean increase oversight. Trust leads to increased autonomy, distrust leads to your friendly PM reverting to battery sergeant major mode. Fair enough deal, no?

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Processes and best practices need to become second nature

I just read a post on best practices by Ted Hardy on Craig Brown's blog. Very insightful and I allow myself to chip in.

In the military, processes and best practices are the subject of much training.  This training is called drilling and the aim is to have the process or best practice become second nature.  When that is achieved, the process or best practice can be followed even while under high stress or extreme fatigue.

I would contend that the same aim, creating a second nature response, is a desirable outcome in civilian life.  Although it is true that forcing someone to adopt a process or best practice is simpler in the military, it is possible to do so in any environment as long as the process or best practice makes sense and is beneficial not only to the organization but also to the employee.  Trying to push through complex or make work processes or best practices is a lost cause; don’t even attempt to do so or you’ll face a rebellion even if it is a silent one.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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