When Leadership is Lacking

Leadership, not just project management, is critical on all projects.  Whether it comes just from the project manager – where it must be prevalent – or from others on the project team … leadership is very important.  The problem is, it is often lacking on some of the projects that need it the most.

The reasons for this are many, and are worth noting…. please read on…

There is a tendency to select people solely for their technical expertise. While expertise is important, it is a mistake to assume that expertise is equivalent to leadership. Leadership goes beyond technical prowess, increasingly recognized as subordinate to other qualities. Often, a person selected for his or her technical expertise relies on that quality at the expense of the project.

There is a failure to distinguish between project leadership and project management. Project management deals with the mechanics of managing a project, such as building a schedule; project leadership deals with much bigger issues—for example, ensuring that people focus on the vision.

There is a tendency to wear blinders. In a complex, constantly changing environment, many project managers seek security by grabbing on to a small piece rather than looking at the big picture. They may focus, for example, solely on technical issues or on the schedule at the expense of more important areas.

There is a tendency to be heroic. That is, they try to do everything themselves and be all things to all people. They eventually start to over control and in the end, as many experienced project managers know, control very little, even themselves. They fail, for example, to delegate.

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Promoting Your Project in the Organization

An organization with a PMO may have just a few or as many as a few hundred projects going at any given time at various stages of starting and completing.  Priorities are set, projects are assigned, and project resources are divvied up by the powers that be and as the project manager you may have no say other than maybe what kinds of key skill sets you need on the projects that are eventually assigned to you.

So, how do you go about making your project visible?  Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?  How do you ensure that your project gets the proper executive attention?  Gets the right resources assigned?  Gets funding if it grows through project need or customer request?  Gets needed cooperation and resources from outlying business units if the project ends up calling for it?  Those are all big tasks and if your project isn’t visible enough and some or all of these things are needed, then you may be sunk before you even get started.

Here are a few steps I’ve taken on projects or in preparation for projects that have seemed to help promote the projects that I am leading to a point of visibility necessary to smooth the process somewhat:

Generate pre-kickoff interest

Once the project is assigned to you work hard to generate some pre-kickoff buzz.  Run through the statement of work and verify any critical items that may need special team member skill sets.  This will allow you to campaign very early about getting the proper resources assigned to your project.  I don’t know about you, but in most professional services organizations, getting the right resources at the right time and with the right experience is always a struggle.  Plus, any pre-kickoff buzz you can create with upper management will only help serve your interests in gaining project visibility with this group later on.

Involve executive management in your project

Get your executive leadership involved in your project.  Invite them to the kickoff meeting and to several weekly status meetings with the customer.  The customer will think they are a very important customer and your leadership will be well versed in the project when you come asking for funds or resources or some other favor for the project.

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How to Keep Project Management Fresh

Ok, let’s face it.  Project Management – while it is very challenging – isn’t the most thrilling or exciting career choice in the world.  It often isn’t even a career choice – most project managers are thrust into the role at some time or another and then possibly continue down that path by choice or just out of need for a job.

So, if it’s not particularly exciting, how do we keep it fresh?  How do we keep it interesting so that we’re excited about the future challenges and fresh in how we approach each project?

For me, it’s not about the thrill of the project and the technology that will be utilized.  It’s also not about how high-profile the client is or isn’t.  Some of the most interesting projects for me have involved startups that no one has heard about.  It is, however, about the challenge of the solution and the makeup of the team that I will be managing.

We can keep things fresh and challenging on our projects by incorporating these three practices into every project we take on as a project manager:

Treat each phase of the project as a mini project

This works especially well on a longer-term project.  As the project manager, when you’re putting the project schedule together keep an eye to the future and plan the project out into phases, if possible.  That way, smaller successes can be realized and celebrated as a team and with the customer throughout the project.

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Four Project Decisions You May Regret Later On

Sometimes, depending on the size and visibility of the project, there is a tendency to want to cut some corners on.  This may come about due to pure laziness.  Or maybe it comes as a directive or request from your executive management.  However it evolves, it can be a slippery slope and it can cause big problems on your project.  You may have to ‘scale’ your best practices for the project depending on its size and budget, but it’s never a good idea to skip key activities altogether – even if you’re being told to do this by superiors.  If the directive to cut corners is coming from above, you may need to educate them on the risks that are invited into the project by eliminating key best practices steps along the way.

At any rate, it’s important to pay attention to detail no matter how big or small the project is.  And, given that thought, I’ve outlined four poor decisions you could make on your project just to save time or money – these could come back to haunt you in a big way later in the project.  They are:

Skipping key up front planning documents

What you or  your customer may consider time wasters are actually building blocks to good project documentation and understanding.  Even if the customer isn’t paying for the early planning documents some of them still should be created – especially ones like the Communications Plan, the Risk Plan, and the Change Control Document outlining how project changes and change orders will be handled.  Creation and signoff of these plans at the beginning of the project will ensure everyone understands how to handle these issues and processes when they come up and customer satisfaction will be higher as a result.

Not putting together a detailed master schedule

This should be done even for the smaller projects.  A detailed project schedule created and distributed early in the project provides the customer and project team with a solid understanding of the tasks, goals, level of effort, and timeframe for the project.  Even if the project is extremely simple and you never update it after the first creation, it will still help your project team and customer – and you – far more than you realize.

Not creating a requirements traceability matrix

Thorough requirements documentation with a matrix to trace the requirements through the design and development of the solution will help ensure that key requirements aren’t missed in the process.  With a requirements traceability matrix, you’ll be able to document how and where each customer requirement is met in the solution.

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What Qualities Do We Seek in our Project Team Members?

I have to admit, this is a tough one for me.  Not because I don’t have an opinion -  but because I rarely get to choose.  As project managers we’re often working in a matrixed organizations and we can identify what we need, but rarely do we get to indicate who we will get.

I often suggest who I want, but we all know how well that works out.  Resources are usually overcommitted as it is and chances are the ones you want are the best and probably not all available at the same time to grace your project and help create a ‘super team.’

So, even if we don’t always get to choose who is on our project teams, there are certainly still qualities we look for right?  If those qualities aren’t present and they become an issue on the project, we’re likely to seek a personnel change – so it’s nice to go into an engagement knowing what you need.

Here’s what I generally seek in project team members:

Attention to detail

Running projects requires a lot of attention to detail so this quality is no surprise.  As I assign project tasks, I expect that they be performed well and with the proper attention to detail so that we aren’t presenting the customer with an error-filled deliverable.  I went through that process once with a business analyst and a frustrated customer and I never want to go there again.  I did come out of that project with a lessons learned however – peer review every deliverable possible.  Repeated submissions of documents with typos can make a customer uneasy and cause them to lose confidence in the team’s ability to deliver quality on anything.

Good communication skills

It’s important for team members to be able to stand in front of the customer and provide updates when needed.  Team members are expected to make periodic presentations to the customer or executive management.  They are also expectd to hold discussions with them at key points throughout the project and it’s important that they can conduct themselves in a way that will instill confidence in the team’s ability to deliver on the engagement.

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