POTI: A Model for Programme Blueprints
Posted by Elizabeth
The OGC’s Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) framework uses a categorisation process to identify areas of scope that should be considered by the programme Blueprint.
A Blueprint is a detailed vision for the organisation, covering what the organisation will look like when all the projects are completed, the programme is wound up, and the business transformation is done. Typically, you would only write a Blueprint at programme level, so project managers will ‘inherit’ a Blueprint from their programme manager. If you are leading a project as part of a bigger initiative being managed as a programme, ask to see the Blueprint if you haven’t already. It will help set your project in the wider context of what the business is trying to achieve.
In particular, Blueprints use the POTI model as a way to define the scope of what is going to change once all the projects in the programme are complete. POTI sets out the scope of the programme at a high level.
POTI stands for Processes, Organisation, Technology and Information. These four areas make up a comprehensive view of all the elements that form the programme scope.
4 Categories of Stakeholders
Posted by Elizabeth
The OGC’s Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) framework uses a categorisation process to identify all the stakeholders for a programme, and this works equally well for project management.
There are four categories of stakeholders, which provide a starting point for your to brainstorm all of the relevant parties involved. The four categories are: users, governance, influencers and providers. Let’s look at each of those in a bit more detail.
Users
These are the people who will use the products of your project or programme. They are the beneficiaries of the outputs. For example, these could be customers or another internal department. In the case of delivering a new software package for your Sales team, the users would be the Sales team.
Governance
These are people or groups of people who have an interest in how things are managed on the project or programme. For example, management boards or steering groups would fall into this category. Auditors, regulators, health and safety executives would also be categorised as governance stakeholders.
What is Portfolio Management?
Posted by Elizabeth
You’ve mastered project management and program management. The next thing to get to grips with is portfolio management. “A Portfolio gets its name from a case used for carrying documents such as maps, photographs, or drawings,” write Pat Durbin and Terry Doerscher in their book Taming Change with Portfolio Management
Being able to group projects and programs together means you can then make decisions about them – decisions that can affect budgets or staffing levels for the work required, as well as which areas to focus effort on to meet the company’s strategic objectives.
Portfolio management is the way in which you manage and make decisions about groups of projects and programs. It’s a strategic role – but if you don’t think your project sponsors have got their heads around it, ask the PMO to get them a copy of An Executive Guide to Portfolio Management
Productive Laziness and the ‘Open Door’ policy
Posted by Peter Taylor
I’m all for being there for people, honest I am. It’s just that people take advantage of it if I am.
So for the ‘productive lazy’ project manager I would suggest that it is perfectly acceptable for the lights to be on and for no-one to be at home; not all of the time obviously, and at critical times access and visibility are all too important. But for the rest of the time, why not let the whole of the team work a few things out for themselves, take some degree of responsibility and decision making, and generally get on with the tasks at hand.
Being there when you are really needed and being there all the time are very different things indeed.
Being reachable in a controlled manner, and within an acceptable timeframe, to answer appropriate questions (and not stupid ones) is equally important. The last thing you want is a long line of people queuing up at your desk waiting to ask advice, and you phone flashing with an ever increasing number of messages, all the time whilst you inbox is reaching capacity with incoming demands for your attention.
This can lead to the ‘lights on all the time’ syndrome, a very dangerous condition:
‘What should I do now?’
‘Breath’ you might reply
‘In or out?’
You have so many other more useful things that you could be doing, like reading a good book in the comfy chair for example.
Applying the ‘Productive Lazy’ approach
Avoid the swamp
This is linked in so many ways to the communication topic already covered. If you create a communication plan that guarantees to swamp you from day one, what is the benefit; to you or to the project?
None!
The plan should ensure you are not seen as the oracle for all matters, nor that you are the bottleneck for a constructive information flow within the project team. Most projects develop communication plans in a certain way; that is as a plan that is the documented strategy for getting the right information to the right people at the right time. We all know that each stakeholder has different requirements for information and so the plan defines what, how and how often communications should be made. What project managers rarely do is consider and map all communication flows, official, unofficial, developmental or complete, and do a load analysis across the project structure of these communication flows. Of they did they would spot bottlenecks much earlier on that they normally do, usually this is only identified when one part of the communication chain starts complaining about their workload.
Consider the open door policy
The ‘open door’ policy has become a real management cliché.
‘Of course’ managers pronounce in a firm voice’ my door is always open to you all, day or night; I’m really there for you’.
Empowerment in this way has become more an entitlement for the project team than a project manager’s choice; they just expect you to be there when they want you to be (and not even when they need you to be there either). An ‘open door’ policy can easily transform a project manager’s role from that of an authority, and managing, figure to that of a subservient accommodator with little chance for exercising control on those that demand access to them.
Be a good manager
The best manager is the probably the one who reads the paper or MSN every morning, has time enough to say ‘hi’ at the coffee machine, is isn’t always running flat out because they are ‘late for an important meeting’. By that I mean that a good (an obviously ‘productively lazy’) manager has everything running smoothly enough that they have time to read the paper or MSN and so on. This is a manager who has to be confident in their position and capabilities.
A good manager will have time for their project team, and being one who has everything running smoothly, will allow that to happen.
A good manager does not to be on hand twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. They do not have to have the answer to every question nor do they have to be the conduit to the answer to every question. There is a whole project team out there – go talk to some of them – they probably will have a much better answer to hand anyway.
Think about number one
You honestly want the best for yourself as well as for the project; I understand that, so give yourself that chance. Have you ever met a project manager who has put themselves down as a project risk? ‘Yeah, well I am just too nice a guy, can’t say no, can’t turn someone away, love to chat’ – likelihood 80%, impact 100%, mitigate now!
But hopefully by now you also want to apply the productive lazy approach so consider this; let the team deal with 80% of the communication, 80% of the questions, 80% of the issues, and let the 20% come through you for consideration and guidance. You don’t even have to ‘solve’ that 20%, I would further suggest that only 20% of this 20% are likely to be answered by yourself in an adequate manner, there are always others that can better advice.
Think about the rest
OK, you have dealt with the ‘thinking about number one’ thing, now what about your team? Well by dealing with ‘number one’ you will have already done the team a huge favour. You will be accessible when you need to be accessible. The lights will go on as and when they are really needed – it is a kind of ‘green’ project management policy.
The worse thing that can happen is that just at the moment when there is a ‘clear and present’ need for someone to speak to you, whether that be on a project or on a personal matter, you are just too tied up with a whole pile of nothing to even give them the time of day. Remember the whole ‘respect’ and ‘reputation for team support’ team thing we spoke about earlier, well this is a major contributor the that.
Analyse and reduce
And this is not a one off action; you need to keep on top of this as well. Projects change, communications develop, and roles flux. Do a quick analysis of what information and queries flow through you, and how and regularly re-assess. Can others deal with some of this? What are the important components that you should be involved in? Are there too many questions and communication from certain sources? And so on.
Make sure that everyone knows that the lights will go on and when and how they can turn that light on fast if they really need to.
A project manager’s tale about the importance of position
This one is not my tale; it is the story of a friend of mine, a friend who is, of course, a project manager. A project manager who I know to be very good at team building, a real ‘people’ person.
Picture a new project with a new project office. Apparently the company my friend was working for had reserved some brand new office space in a building that they were going to move other departments in to in the coming months. In the meantime the project team could take over one floor.
Now, I have been in many project offices over the years ranging from a single desk to a temporary office unit (grey boxes that get lifted in to place by a crane and officially described as ‘relocatable and modular accommodation’ apparently). But, by all accounts, this new building that my friend moved in to with his project team was superb.
He chose a nice new desk by a window and with a view facing the doors so that he could see all that went on, people coming and going, working (or not working I guess), and so on.
And so life was good and thus did the project move forwards in a pleasing way.
The only feature that was lacking was a decent coffee machine. They had a temporary one to begin with but the team waited with baited breath for the new, top of the range, super-dooper, hot beverage dispenser.
It arrived one week day morning, wheeled in on a trolley barrow. My friend was elsewhere at the time on important project business. When he arrived back in the project office he was somewhat surprised to see that his desk now had a new neighbour. A coffee machine.
‘Hey, grab a coffee, its great’ was the general cry from the project team. I am sure that that is what he did, before walking the two feet back to his desk.
The project office was full now and so it was too late to move desk. Oh well, a great project office with a great coffee machine was not something to make too much fuss about.
And then things went downhill:
Day 1 – People started saying ‘hello’ each time they lined up for a coffee at the machine by his desk.
Day 2 – People started conversations as they waited for their freshly simulated brewed cup of java by his desk.
Day 3 – People started sitting on his desk, whilst they waited for coffee, said ‘hello’, engaged in conversation and were generally sociable.
Day 4 – People asked him where the spare coffee cups were and what ‘error 54g’ was.
Day 5 – People asked him what the telephone number for the coffee repairman was so that they could report ‘error 54g’ and get the coffee machine fixed.
Day 10 – People started using the phone on his desk whilst waiting for a coffee etc.
Day 15 – The project manager left the building.
In actual fact he did move desks, he manage to secure a small space across the landing from the main project office. It wasn’t ideal as he was now removed from the project team but, on balance, it was better than the alternative.
It doesn’t matter that you want to run an ‘open door’ policy in order to be as accessible to everyone, if your want to get on with your job you do need some ‘space’. To be right at the centre of everything all of the time is not conducive to being a good project manager.
It was the coffee machine or the project manager, and the team made it clear that the coffee machine won hands down!
A final comment
So for the ‘productive lazy’ project manager it is perfectly acceptable for the lights to be on and for no-one to be at home; not all of the time obviously, and at critical times access and visibility are all too important. But for the rest of the time, why not let your project team work a few things out for themselves, take some degree of responsibility and decision making, and generally get on with the tasks at hand.
Being there when you are really needed and being there all the time are very different things indeed.
‘You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are; but you must approach each man by the right door’. Henry Ward Beecher
The Art of Productive Laziness – What is productive laziness?
Posted by Peter Taylor‘Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.’ Robert Heinlein (1907 – 1988)
By advocating being a ‘lazy’ project manager I do not intend that we should all do absolutely nothing. I am not saying we should all sit around drinking coffee, reading a good book and engaging in idle gossip whilst watching the project hours go by and the non-delivered project milestones disappear over the horizon. That would obviously be plain stupid and would result in an extremely short career in project management, in fact probably a very short career full stop!
Lazy does not mean Stupid. No I really mean that we should all adopt a more focused approach to project management and to exercise our efforts where it really matters, rather than rushing around like busy, busy bees involving ourselves in unimportant, non-critical activities that others can better address, or indeed that do not need addressing at all in some cases.
Science behind the laziness – being focused
The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule) states that for many phenomena 80% of consequences stem from 20% of the causes. The idea has rule-of-thumb application in many places, but it’s also commonly misused, for example, it is a misuse to state that a solution to a problem ‘fits the 80-20 rule’ just because it fits 80% of the cases; it must be implied that this solution requires only 20% of the resources needed to solve all cases.
The principle was in fact suggested by management thinker Joseph M. Juran and it was named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of property in Italy was owned by 20% of the Italian population. The assumption is that most of the results in any situation are determined by a small number of causes.
So ‘20% of clients may be responsible for 80% of sales volume’. This can be evaluated and is likely to be roughly right, and can be helpful in future decision making. The Pareto Principle also applies to a variety of more mundane matters: one might guess approximately that we wear our 20% most favoured clothes about 80% of the time, perhaps we spend 80% of the time with 20% of our acquaintances and so on.
The Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule can and should be used by every smart but lazy person in their daily life. The value of the Pareto Principle for a project manager is that it reminds you to focus on the 20 percent that matters.
Woody Allen once said ‘80% of success is showing up’, I’m not so sure about that, I have seen projects where there was a physical project manager around but you would never have believed that looking at the project progress, or lack of progress.
No, better I believe to appreciate that of the things you do during your day, only 20 percent really matter. Those 20 percent produce 80 percent of your results.
So, you should identify and focus on those things during your working day.
Science behind the laziness – being smart
It’s no good just being lazy; you have to be better than lazy, you have to be lazy in a very smart way.
Productive Laziness is not just about being lazy, it requires something more and that is a powerful and magical combination of laziness and intelligence. Smart lazy people have a real edge over others in society and are most suited to leadership roles in organizations.
This theory has existed for many years and applied in a number of interesting ways. One of the most famous of these was in the Prussian Army.
Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke (1800 – 1891) was a German Generalfeldmarschall. The chief of staff of the Prussian Army for thirty years, he is widely regarded as one of the great strategists of the latter half of the 1800s, and the creator of a new, more modern method, of directing armies in the field.
In 1857 Helmuth Moltke was given the position Chief of the Prussian Großer Generalstab (military staff), a position he held for the next 30 years. As soon as he gained the position he went to work making changes to the strategic and tactical methods of the Prussian army; changes in armament and in means of communication; changes in the training of staff officers; and changes to the method for the mobilization of the army. He also instituted a formal study of European politics in connection with the plans for campaigns which might become necessary. In short, he rapidly put into place the features of a modern General Staff.
Moltke had a particular insight to and approach to categorising his officer corps, something which lives on to this day within many armed forces, and something which can apply to all forms of leadership.
If you consider the two ranges of individual characteristics, those that go from diligent through to lazy, and those that go from non-smart through to smart (yes I am being politically correct here) then you end up with the four character types.
General von Moltke divided his officer corps into these four distinct types, depending on their mental and physical characteristics. He ended up with (and he never had to be politically correct being born in the 19th century and being chief of the Prussian army) type A: mentally dull and physically lazy, type B: mentally bright and physically energetic, type C: mentally dull and physically energetic, and type D: mentally bright and physically lazy.
Type ‘A’ officers, who were mentally dull and physically lazy, were given simple, repetitive, and unchallenging tasks to perform. They had reached their career peak in the army. That said, if you left them alone then they might just come up with a good idea one day, if not then they won’t cause you any problems either.
Type ‘B’ officers who were mentally bright and physically energetic were considered to be obsessed with micromanagement and would, as a result, be poor leaders. Promotion was possible over a period of time but not to the status of commanding officer of the German General Staff. These officers were best at making sure orders were carried out and thoughtfully addressing all the detail.
Type ‘C’ officers who were mentally dull but physically energetic were considered to be somewhat dangerous. To Moltke, they were officers who would require constant supervision, which was an unacceptable overhead and distraction, and because they would potentially create problems faster than could be managed, these officers were considered too much trouble and were dismissed. No career there then!
Which brings us to type ‘D’ officers; these were the mentally bright and yet physically lazy officers who Moltke felt could and should take the highest levels of command. This type of officer was both smart enough to see what needed to be done but was also motivated by inherent laziness to find the easiest, simplest way to achieve what was required. Put in a more positive way they would know how to be successful through the most efficient deployment of effort.
So, smart lazy people have a real edge over others and are most suited to leadership roles in organizations. The Lazy Project Manager is all about applying these principles in the delivery and management of projects. It is assumed that you are not stupid so you are already on the right-hand side of the diagram, what you now need to do is hone your lazy skills in order to rise to the top right hand side of the diagram. Do this and not only will your projects be more successful, you will also be seen as successful and a safe pair of hands for future leadership roles.
‘Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.’ – Walter Chrysler
