Dictionary of Project Management Terms: A Surprisingly Valuable Resource

I recently received a review copy of J. LeRoy Ward's Dictionary of Project Management Terms.

In case you're thinking this is redundant with the PMBOK, or a dry collection of PM nomenclature such as Earned Value, Forward Pass, etc., you'd be pleasantly surprised. I was.

This is much more than what I expected, which was a collection of PM terms known to anyone with a PMP certification. Instead, it's an almanac of both project management and business phrases, with concise explanations of familiar and not-so-familiar concepts currently in use.

Want a brief outline of Agile Project Management and its principles and phases? How about SCRUM? They're both here, with a concise overview of each. So is a list of various Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) methods, with each conflict management approach summarized for convenience. Even fundamental business concepts such as bottom line, top line, present value, ROI etc. are explained in simple terms, for those PMs are aren't quite as business-savvy.

Less common, but increasingly prevalent terms, such as Could Cost (a method used to estimate what the cost of a project could be if all non value-added work was removed), or 7 Wastes (the forms of productivity-related manufacturing waste identified by Toyota) are included.

Emotional Intelligence theory is explained, as are the elements that enable an Egoless Team Structure, and a brief explanation of Systems Thinking.

If you can think of a business or project management term, it's here, along with many you've never heard before. This is more than just a reference book, it actually can help generate ideas through its including of such a wide variety of concepts.

Although the book runs nearly 500 pages, it's in a compact paperback form that should be on anyone's desktop. I highly recommend this. No matter what your experience, I guarantee you will find useful concepts and new ideas here. I know I'm going to make good use of it.

Kudos to J. LeRoy Ward for making a significant contribution to the project management field with this book!

Leadership Inspiration: The Wisdom of the Flying Pig

A while back on PMThink, I referenced a great blog site by Jack Hayhow called Pig Wisdom. Well, I finally got around to reading Hayhow's book, The Wisdom of the Flying Pig. It's an insightful book, chock full of common sense ideas, where you can pick it up at any page and be inspired to lead better.

Some examples of the insights found in the book are as follows, each supported by a wealth of examples and quotations in the book (I've summarized in some cases):

• Great achievement is always preceded by great expectation (which is communicated, the individual has the skills to achieve, and which can help the individual grow).
• The number one reason people don't do what you want them to ? They don't know what you want them to do.
• Great managers provide the information and resources to do the job right (note: this would seem to go without saying, except that so few managers really do this!).
• With proper measurement (key drivers), productivity can double.
• No one responds well to manipulation, no matter how cleverly or skillfully the manipulation is done.
• According to research by Dr. Gerald H. Graham, "the most powerful motivator was personalized, instant recognition from their managers."
• When an old pond gets a new frog, it becomes a new pond (great leaders are compelled to find a better idea and put it into action).
• Management and Leadership are not the same, although managers sometimes lead, and leaders sometimes manage. In simplistic terms, managers look first to the individual, in the present moment. Leaders look first to the group, and toward the future.
• Leaders are responsible, not only for their personal relationships, but also for the relationship environment that exists in the companies they lead.
• In the past, the manager kept people in line. Today the manager must lift people up. Managers must be concerned with getting the barriers out of people's way.

These are just a few of the many seemingly common sense lessons found in Hayhow's book (and you know what they say about common sense). But the real value is in the concise, well supported, and curmudgeonly advice that supports these truths. I highly recommend it.

What is a Project? Think Again!

Max Wideman’s very impressive Comparative Glossary of PM Terms contains 23 different definitions of the word project – all written by very knowledgeable people. Creating a sticky definition of the word “project” (a sticky definition is one that can be easily memorized by a general audience) requires battling the Curse of Knowledge. The Curse of Knowledge is the result of forgetting what it’s like NOT to know what you know. The more you know, the stronger the curse. That’s why truly sticky ideas often come from unexpected sources, and different fields. (Unexpected is one of the Made to Stick principles.) In my opinion, the very best definition of the word project comes from personal productivity guru David Allen, in his brilliant book Getting Things Done. Here it is...

• A project is any outcome you’re committed to achieving that will take more than one action step to complete.

Why is this a great definition?

(1) This definition is water tight. Unlike the other 23 definitions, I can’t think of a single exception to this definition. (If you can, please post a comment.)

(2) The word outcome covers a lot of PM territory. The word outcome includes the concepts of “deliverables” and “creating unique products, services or results.” It applies to your garage project and it applies to “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”

(3) The word action captures an essential element of every project – making progress one discrete step at a time.

(4) The word committed filters out activities that are not projects.

(5) The three key words outcome, action, and committed are simple and concrete (two more Made to Stick principles).

Most of the definitions in Widemans’s glossary define projects as the way very knowledgeable people LIKE TO MANAGE projects, especially large ones. Knowledgeable project managers like clear specifications (or user stories), they like budgets and change control, they like project-friendly cost accounting, they adore network schedules (or iterations), they like to manage risk, they manage resources, they create return on investment in their project portfolio, etc. There's nothing incorrect about any of these ideas, but these XL clothes don’t fit very well on small projects. After all, small projects are projects too, and there are far more small projects than there are large ones!

Example: If we are visiting a science museum (just a casual visit) it is certainly not a project. However, if we are committed to organizing a safe, enjoyable learning experience at the science museum for a large group of Third Graders, our project is the set of actions that we take to achieve this intended outcome. It isn't about abstractions like temporariness and uniqueness. This project does not have a budget, it doesn’t have a logic-driven schedule network, there’s no accounting system, there are no deliverables, we might repeat the adventure every school year, and it isn’t formally risk-managed or resource-managed. But anybody that has organized a major field trip for a large group of kids knows that it is indeed a project! Why? Because it has an intended outcome, it has action steps, and it requires commitment.

David Allen's definition deserves to be in the Hall of Fame of Sticky Ideas.

P.s., Thanks for reader Kurt U. for prompting this post.

Made to Stick -- for project managers

Projects are about implementing new ideas, but it's difficult -- sometimes incredibly difficult -- to translate new ideas into new action. For this reason, the book Made to Stick is a "must read" for project managers and project sponsors. This book will entertain you, but more importantly, it will compel you to be a better communicator. Written by brothers Dan and Skip Heath, this book describes two communication skills:
(a) Find just one core idea. Experts in any subject find this very hard to do, because their enemy is the Curse of Knowledge.
(b) Follow a six-step checklist to make the core idea "sticky." The six steps are summarized by the words Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotional, and Stories.

I have written a two-page book review for project managers (PMI Tulsa Chapter, June 2007 newsletter, pp. 10-11.) Also, check out the Heath Brothers' blog.

Made to Stick is a book that will transform the way you communicate ideas, and the way your team translates ideas into action.

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.