What does it take to be GREAT?

Obviously one must have technical project management capabilities. But that is NOT enough to be a GREAT project manager. To be called upon to lead the most important projects, one must also have backbone, leadership skills and the ability to think broadly as well as in detail.

1) Backbone – You have to be willing to take on a tough project and tell the TRUTH to people who may not want to hear it; people who are powerful and who influence your career and income.

2) Leadership – This covers a lot including timely decision-making under pressure. Your team members need to know that you have their back and you will stand up and say “they did a great job” when things are going well and “it is my fault” when something goes wrong. See also BACKBONE.

3) Broad and detailed thinking (the PMO Executive Council calls this "seeing the forest AND the trees") - there are some people who can think “big picture” and strategicially but have no tolerance for details; there are many people who can think in details but lose sight of the big picture; there are fewer people who can create a big picture that everyone can rally around as well as break that picture down into all of its pixels and then lead the effort to build it one pixel at a time. See also LEADERSHIP.

Note that none of these can really be tested in a multiple-choice exam. They often come as part of someone's "chemical make-up" or DNA. This is why, despite my PMP designation, when I am hiring PM's, I look for evidence of these characteristics as well as clear expertise in the use of solid project management practices. And as a manager of project managers, it is important to support and nurture these elements. If you do that, your team of PMs will be well on the way to being a GREAT success!

People - Love'em or Hate'em?

Are you the type of person that comments on a regular basis, “you know, I really can’t stand people!” Perhaps you should consider whether or not this view impacts your success as a project manager and/or leader. I argue that it does.

I was just checking out Pete DeYoe’s blog and he has two recent entries that led me to this post. In his entry titled “Flock or Fleece”, he quotes:

Effective leaders are those interested in the flock – the people they are leading. They see their role as that of a giver – to get behind their people and support them in ways that bring out their best.

Ineffective leaders are interested only in the fleece and couldn’t care less about their flock – they’re takers…

The lesson here is to be a giver and show an interest in your flock. If you do, your flock will respond in ways that will guarantee your success as a leader.

Instant Turnaround, by Harry Paul and Ross Reck

The other article is called "Why Being a 'Good' Manager is 'Great'", which he posted after reading the book, “Lead Well and Prosper” by Nick McCormick.

I believe that being a good project manager who cares about people IS great. We all know that projects are hard and often involve strange hours and/or time away from what we really care about. If you are in a job where you aren’t sure you are doing as much for the world as you had hoped, look around. If you are genuinely interested in and care about people and their success and do everything you can to help them be successful while simultaneously understanding that sometimes people actually have lives outside of work, you are doing a GREAT thing for the world! You are doing your part to help to create a healthy work environment for people. When they feel good about coming to work, it truly is a gift that keeps on giving - for them, for you, for the project, for the company, for the world.

Do your team members feel good about working for and/or with you? What even slight change can you make right now, to bring out the best in people even more? Let me give you a hint…it’s not by “sheering“ them when they walk into your office…

Project Managers Dig Deeper

Project managers perform the smell test on key measures of success and do not always accept the immediate answer without appropriate validation. Ultimately, the steering team is placing their trust in the project manager to execute on the plan, but also to understand the full business context and respond accordingly. Project managers that hone these skills are ideal candidates for future leadership roles. Keep on sniffing! ...

... "To gauge sponsorship accurately, you must gather perceptions across the project. After all, someone reporting directly to the CIO may have quite a different view than one working 1000 miles away ... " ...

Via ZDNet: IT project success factors

The Nervous Project Manager

"I just wanted to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you."

They say it's always good to hire a rich lawyer and buy from a poor salesperson. We might add to that to hire a nervous project manager. I'm of course half joking. Still, it's important to be vigilant about the things that can go wrong, and to confirm that issues are being addressed as required, especially in hot areas such as communication, testing, contingency plans, etc. The devil is often in the details.

This does not mean micromanagement. On the contrary, it's best to delegate work packages to the experts. But it's also important to be aware of what's going on in your project, and circulate regularly among your team. If details are being overloooked, often a gentle reminder is all that's needed.

At any rate, I'd rather have a nervous project manager than one who's running on autopilot.

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.

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

Empathy: Lessons from Iwo Jima

I just saw Clint Eastwood's magnificent film, Letters from Iwo Jima, this weekend. Of course, as usual I end up looking at everything through the lense of leadership and project management lessons, which drives my wife crazy.

The film offered numerous contrasting examples of good leadership and poor leadership. The differences weren't hard to spot. Besides strategic intuition, what separated the effective leaders from the rest of the pack (on both the Japanese and American sides) was an undeniable sense of empathy (much like the film's director, Clint Eastwood, did in making the film from the Japanese perspective).

Empathy, a key component of Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, is an undervalued trait in leadership. Equally important is the wisdom to know what to do with that empathy. In the film, the leaders who showed empathy and restraint were able to make the right decisions, even in the heat of battle. Their moral compass served them well. Ironically, it was empathy that led them to be able to predict the moves of the enemy as well.

Then there were the less effective leaders who blindly followed rules, thought only of themselves, were obsessed with power, and looked at people as objects to be used. Go see the movie. You'll see leadership styles worthy of emulation, and those to avoid. Ultimately, the film is about human decency and indecency.