Controlling stakeholder relationships ... did they just go there??

The Project Management Institute (PMI) is revising their seminal document, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, PMBOK Guide 4th Edition to version 5.  These revisions are made by committees subject to countless comments, arguments, lamentations of the commoners and gnashing of teeth...

This revision is interesting - to me it reflects a rather dramatic shift to what I call the "right", or the end of the control spectrum that represents high levels of definition, proceduralization, controls, or in English - the level of micromanagement necessary to support our old friend, EVM.  So why would I like this one?  In their attempt to more strictly regulate and control the execution of the project, PMI has actually done us a favor by forcing more emphasis on the "fuzzy front end" of the project, which is where the ability to succeed as a project manager resides.

PMI has hinted at this shift before - the 4th edition drove home the importance of good requirements and the impact that level of definition can have on scheduling, cost estimates, and legitimate controls during execution.  So here is the rub - where do these requirements come from?  The list is long and exhaustive, just look it up...but is this really a "one size fits all" situation?  If you can legitimately tell me what it is you are looking for with good detail, chances are we are dealing with what we call a "technical" project - which fits nicely into the PMI framework.  So what do we call those projects that are what I call "fuzzy" - those that are ill-defined, experimental, require deep thought and assessment, have a heavy reliance on knowledge workers, and often exist without a solid potential for ROI?  Adaptive? Agile? The term nightmare works for me, but more often than not I simply call these my "reality".

Requirements for these "fuzzy" projects tend to originate with a stakeholder(s).  These stakeholders, believe it or not, are normal people just like us.  The 5th edition places significant emphasis on these people, and uses terms such as "satisfaction as a deliverable", "engagement", "controlling relationships", "fostering", and "continuous dialogue" - all with the intent of controlling them to control the execution and ultimate outcome of the project.

HOW COOL IS THAT? 

I'm not sure if I'd be so subtle about it though, as the term I've always used for this behavior (right or wrong) has been MANIPULATION.  Sure that sounds ugly, but is that not what we as leaders really do?  So how does one effectively manipulate without negative effect?  By knowing your stuff as both a leader and a manager, fully understanding the mission and objectives, and most importantly by knowing people and how they function.

See how that ties back into our discussion on Leadership?  As if by design...

Until next time ~ Cheers!

Finding a leadership framework that actually works...

This is the first in what I suspect will be a series of posts that attempt to capture my views on project leadership and the roles that are played by so many - the project leader, default leaders, stakeholders, the team...even the organizational context in which the team exists.   I also plan to explore the reasons why we act and react the way we do in group settings - ranging from personality types, orders and disorders, IQ and EQ, and may even crawl into a little Freud to discuss his views from his second essay, "Group Psychology and Analysis and the Ego" to address "the mental dynamic that holds together the individuals in a group, creates the group's forms, ensures its continuity and stability, or causes its disappearance, otherwise known as the morphodynamics of groups".

That all sounds great - so why should we care?  I believe the ability to assess not only your own "current state" but that of other individuals and groups is critical to your ability to effectively lead, especially in those project environments where you are given the responsibility to make things happen without the benefit of actual management of the team that is performing the work, or leadership sans the authority...stay tuned!

Dog spoor and Project Managers...really?

Did that just happen??  Yes, it did...

Somehow we've managed to tie dog spoor into one of my favorite themes in Project Management:  getting the right answer by mistake, or "unexpected wonderfulness" as Rick Brenner eloquently put it at the November Central Virginia Chapter of PMI dinner meeting. 

So what does it mean?  Did Norwegian explorers truly plan to follow a "bread crumb" trail of dog poop back from the South Pole back to the safety of their home base or was that just some sort of nasty, unexpected wonderfulness?  Who thought that would be a viable option?  But it was...they made it home, where as their British competitors did not...so much for risk management planning...or was it?

Why is it that the more we decentralize and adopt a guerrilla approach to managing projects, the more successful we actually become?  There is significant talk on the streets regarding Agile - is this the appropriate term for this guerrilla approach that always seems to work best?  I for one consider myself "old school" when it comes to running a project - tell me exactly what you want done and I'll get it to you on time, within budget, as expected - every time, at a price.  I don't react well to this "we're not really sure what we want, but we'll know it when we see it so just get started" approach...unless we drop the traditional measures of earned value and embrace the trial  & error, hit or miss perspective and actually accept that as reality when the things we never really defined don't turn out the way we wanted them to...

The Project Management Institute subscribes to what we call a "traditional" approach to Project Management - in PMI-ese that means building the project to support Earned Value - in English it means an inordinate amount of planning, precision and expense.  The benefits of this can certainly be discussed, but for those of us with that alpha-personality, laser-focused, just get it done mentality there is something to be said for following a trail of poo and declaring victory.  I'd do it, and probably find a way to rationalize this as something that was actually planned in advance...