Project Operations: Lost in the Shuffle

Yesterday, I posted a review of the book, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half Truths, & Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management, by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton.

As I pointed out in the review, the authors caution that too much focus on strategy often happens at the expense of effective operational execution. The same is true in project management, especially with PMOs.

While it's rewarding to implement portfolio management and strategic alignment of initiatives, it's equally important to tidy up the operational aspects of project management, such as better estimating, effective work breakdown structures, up-front problem analysis, better scope management, and so on.

If these fundamentals aren't correct, you can end up doing all the right work the wrong way.
Also, getting these fundamentals right doesn't happen overnight. It's an evolution. Often, senior management doesn't recognize this and they expect too much too soon from PMOs. The PMO graveyards are full of PMOs that weren't given an opportunity to grow.

Don't Do This To Your Project Team Member

CIO Articulates Business Value of IT

The business value of IT can be described in financial terms, but should be balanced with other perspectives. Framing and re-framing IT in the context of the business is a good start. ...

... "One way this can be done, says Salvadori, is by explaining the business value of IT's deliverables in terms of a tangible return on investment (ROI). " ...

Via ITWorld Canada: Business Value of IT

Just the Facts: Evidence-Based Management

I recently read an enlightening book by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton, titled, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management.

The premise of the book is that many organizations follow the guru du jour, or manage according to the book of "someone said so." As the book points out, if we only looked at the evidence, we'd see that may of these so-called truths are anything but.

Here are some examples of the lessons the book has to offer, always supported by evidence:

1) Forced ranking of employees doesn’t work, especially where people’s performance depends on interdependence with others. Furthermore, a survey of over 200 HR professionals by the Novations Group found that forced ranking (employed by more than half of the companies) resulted in lower productivity, injustice, skepticism, less employee engagement, reduced collaboration, lower morale, and mistrust in leadership.

The authors add that, if an organization trains people right and places them in an effective system, there’s no reason why 10 or 20 percent would automatically become incompetent every year.

2) Beware of your biases as a manager. Studies of NBA drafts showed that players picked earlier and paid more were less likely to be traded and had longer careers, regardless of their actual performance.

3) In the war for talent, don't forget that bad systems cause far more damage than bad people. Try redesigning systems and jobs before judging individuals. And don’t give people objectives unless the system and staffing can support it.

4) Watch out for dangerous incentives. One organization's salespeople shipped too far ahead of schedule just to win a prize. Some salespeople would hold customer returns in the trunk of their car so they still get their commission for that period. Others opened bad credit accounts because any order counted as a good order. In another company, incentives to complete truck routes early led to increased accidents and overloading of trucks to avoid multiple trips.

5) Strategy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Operational execution often has a greater impact on performance. The CEO of Wells Fargo once said, “I could leave our strategic plan on a plane and it wouldn’t make any difference. No one could execute it.” In U.S. football, virtually every play is designed to go for a touchdown. Unfortunately, reality gets in the way, as do mistakes in execution.

The authors point out that time spent pursuing strategic options could be better spent solving operational problems or focusing on customer needs. Organizations such as eBay and Intel use a “learn as you go” approach, putting something in the market and tweaking accordingly. Doing the right things is important, but not at the expense of doing them effectively.

6) Many changes, including mergers and acquisitions, ERP implementations, Six Sigma programs, Business Process Reengineering, cost cutting initiatives, and others, carry risks that outweigh the benefits and can be easily misapplied. People tend to underestimate the costs and overestimate the gains.

However, if it is determined that the change is still needed, the authors suggest we:

a) Ensure dissatisfaction with the status quo (i.e. the burning platform)
b) Communicate the same message repeatedly about the need for the change
c) Express extreme confidence in the change, but listen to concerns and adjust accordingly
d) Expect setbacks, errors, and miscommunication; Learn from it and revise processes. Never point fingers.

7) Based on proven evidence, in order to gain respect and trust, leaders should:

a) Act "as-if" - Be sure to act and talk like a leader
b) Have some sense of modesty. Understand the difference between knowledge (knowing things) and wisdom (knowing what you know and knowing what you don’t know).
c) Know when to get out of the way.
d) Above all, be an architect of systems, teams, and cultures.

These are but a few of the valuable nuggets in the book. The book offers additional tips as well, plus loads of supporting stories, examples, and research. Perhaps most valuable is the chart on the various types of changes and risks associated with them. I highly recommend this book to all leaders.

Federal-IT Project Management Progress

Feds make progress on the IT project management front, close gaps in security, and have more work to do on talent. ...

... "OMB also reported that, based on current agency submissions, 83 percent of major IT investments have qualified project managers compared with approximately 70 percent reported in last year's submissions. " ...

Via GCN: IT Perspective on the Federal Budget

Intuition Creates the Futurescape

Though not exclusively, women exhibit the ability to process volumes of data, sythesize the meaning, and predict a potential future ... a skill all of us could benefit from. ...

... "Capturing the zeitgeist is about the future, an inexact - but invaluable - ability to sense where the world is going before it gets there. " ...

Via Fast Company: Intuition

IT Project Consideration: Data Center Power Consumption

Hardware, software, internal and external labor go into any analysis of IT project investments. The impact of new hardware investments on the data center power consumption needs to be considered in order to plan cooling and energy capacity requirements. ...

... "Power and thermal demands are changing drastically within server rooms, he says. Any IT project these days has to consider heat density as an important factor. " ...

Data Center Energy Consumption