A Pocket Guide for Project Managers: Maximize People, Process, and Tools

A POCKET GUIDE FOR PROJECT MANAGERS

MAXIMIZE PEOPLE, PROCESS, AND TOOLS

Copyright © 2014 Michael J. Bettigole.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-3199-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-3203-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-3202-1 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 09/23/2014

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One The Problems that Cause Projects to Fail

Chapter Two Accountability

Chapter Three Communication

Chapter Four Transparency

Chapter Five Governance

Chapter Six Control

Chapter Seven Leadership and Style

Chapter Eight Tools

Conclusion

Appendix A Fundamental Aspects of a Governance Model

Appendix B Fundamental Elements of a Project Plan

Appendix C Meeting Agenda Template

Appendix D Interview Questions for Project Managers

Bibliography

The support of my family permitted this labor of love to endure:

My wife, Kathy; her love and support never waivers.

My children, who make it all worthwhile.

My parents, who instilled the gift of commonsense wisdom.

Introduction

A Pocket Guide for Project Managers is a collection of strategies, maxims, and suggestions for anyone with the desire to become a better project manager or simply to become more effective as a leader. This book assumes you are a project manager today, wish to become one, or are responsible for developing leaders.

The advice here is not revolutionary. It is consistent with the multitude of theories, methodologies, and practices that are available and well documented under the subject of project management. This collection seeks to organize, in succinct fashion, the most effective pieces of wisdom and offer them as practical, real-world advice that anyone can apply immediately and with confidence.

An unattributed author once penned, Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. The contents of this book were born from many, many instances of bad judgment and the opportunity to turn those circumstances into valuable experience. I once embarrassed a project participant for failing to produce his deliverables on time, but I didn’t have all the facts and I was wrong. That was bad judgment, and I learned a lot from it. My hope is that you can too, because, like you, I experienced countless situations when managing projects that tested my ability to grow and turn mistakes into opportunities.

As a manager and leader in the financial services industry, I spent decades managing projects, building project management offices, developing tools, mentoring project managers, and remaining accountable for the successful delivery of multimillion-dollar initiatives. Sharing my experience and helping others learn from it is my motivation for writing this book.

Chapter one outlines the fundamental aspects of project management that contribute to project success and failure: accountability, communication, transparency, governance, control, leadership, and style, and tools. Each chapter then examines these topics in depth and offers case studies and real-life examples to demonstrate the concepts in action. The case studies and stories are real, with names and places changed for obvious reasons. These real-life examples are included to establish the connection between theory and practice and are intended to help illustrate what to do when something goes wrong.

You can choose to read straight through the material or take these points slowly, a few at a time, and in no particular order. Some have a multiperspective view of the most important aspects of leadership and project management. An American proverb says that action without thought is like shooting without aim. This is a reference guide intended to provide thought to the actions a project manager (or leader) may take. It is intended to help leaders stay a successful course and prevent the trappings that usually doom a project—or, worse, prevent a project manager from rising above the mediocre percentage who never distinguish themselves as anything but glorified coordinators.

A project manager (or portfolio manager or program manager or delivery manager) is a leader and therefore must adopt the universal qualities that all successful leaders share. Many of the adages here are common to general leadership advice, a theme that is intentional and natural given the responsibilities of anyone with the word manager in his or her job title.

Despite years of experience, despite the certifications you may hold and your mastery of the industry you work in, the odds are already against you before you start a new project. Many projects begin to fail, in one respect or another, before the project manager gets involved.

By reading this book and incorporating its advice, it is my desire that you can avoid the majority of problems that cause project managers, and thus their projects, to fail. I hope you will establish yourself as a confident leader with an arsenal of tactics that will help you consistently deliver success.

Michael J. Bettigole

Chapter One

The Problems that Cause

Projects to Fail

My life has been largely spent in affairs that required organization. But organization itself, necessary as it is, is never sufficient to win a battle.

—Dwight D. Eisenhower

In many industries, including government, no matter what the economy is like, no matter how many hours are devoted, and no matter how bright the people on the team are, a certain percentage of projects will fail to realize the success of on-time, within-budget delivery. Many may terminate without reaching the (originally) intended goal.

What is it about all these ventures that causes such disappointing results?

I have studied the patterns and circumstances surrounding project success and failure for over twenty years, mostly in the financial services industry. I looked at big projects, small projects, global projects, multimillion-dollar projects, and mission-critical projects. What I found was a specific set of characteristics linking those undertakings that deliver on time, come in within budget, and achieve what’s anticipated at the project’s inception.

• Accountability among project team participants is essential.

• End-to-end communication must remain open and flow without extended downtime.

• Achieving a proper level of transparency for all levels of management is a must.

• A consistent governanceandcompliance model is key to repeatable success.

• Proper project control is always needed to provide early assistance to troubled areas.

• Active leadership is essential, combining an effective style with proven tactics to understand how to unlock the talent and expertise of the team in cohesive fashion.

• The right tools can make all the difference, but there is no silver bullet. Understanding how to employ the right toolset, including methodology, is a critical component to success.

Accountability

Accountability is maintaining responsibility for all aspects of delivery for a project, a program, or the effectiveness of a project management office. We all like to think that our team of professionals—most of whom carry impressive certifications—are and remain accountable to the mission, the sponsors, and the overall initiative. Most project management offices (PMOs) have little choice but to rely on said professionalism or on threats to ensure that everyone maintains their accountability.

The underlying reason for this lack of choice is that most project participants don’t feel a sense of urgency to communicate their statuses. When and if they do, the updates are sanitized to ensure nothing is communicated or published that could reflect negatively on themselves or their group. There isn’t a great conspiracy at work. It’s human nature, but that doesn’t remove the need to achieve the highest degree of accountability from all project team members throughout the life cycle.

Communication

Communication is conveying necessary information to needed parties at the right time and in a way that leaves little room for misunderstanding. Many years ago—and it may still hold true today—one of the two hundred questions on the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam was Which percentage of a project manager’s day is spent on communication? Ninety percent was the correct answer.

When executing a project of any size or importance, it’s difficult to overcommunicate to the project team. When everyone is aware of the big picture, knows what’s going on, and feels connected to the decision makers, there is simply better participation and teamwork. However, when project members feel out of touch or out of the loop, productivity and morale suffer.

Most projects are managed through e-mail and spreadsheets. Ironically, many believe this is the very epitome of communication, when in fact these are some of the most inefficient methods to manage a project or a team. It is the project manager’s job to ensure communication remains open and available to all the project participants. This includes access to appropriate documentation, such as the project plan and schedule, as well as meeting minutes and risk action plans. E-mail is a wonderful tool, but it does not replace the need for well-run meetings, a central repository for project documentation, and informal, personal interaction among project team members to share ideas.

Transparency

Transparency, in the context of project management, refers to the ability of project participants, including sponsors and stakeholders, to maintain awareness and understanding of project details (issues, risks, dependencies, and constraints) as the project is executed and circumstances change. Without adequate transparency into the day-to-day operations of a project, project managers are at a disadvantage. They are unable to monitor items closely enough to ensure corrective action is taken early, when it is needed most. Senior management, as well as sponsors and stakeholders, are also at a disadvantage because their reliance on the project manager to raise risks and issues is compromised. Most PMO staff react to issues and manifested risks because they did not have sufficient forewarning of developing issues to position the team to take proactive action.

The benefit of increased transparency is the ability to take corrective action early, when it has the best chance of positively impacting project results. No one enjoys reporting bad news, but as the adage says, bad news early is good news. PMO staff, stakeholders, and managers need a better strategy to ensure everyone has the necessary transparency, rather than hope project team members provide all the needed details in a timely manner.

Governance

Governance is sometimes a scary word. In this context, governance refers to a set of standard practices, procedures, rules, definitions, and nomenclature that everyone within a team, logical unit, business area, or organization agrees to adopt. The benefit of a governance model is standardization, which permits everyone to speak the same language across different businesses, departments, or geographical regions.

Project managers, especially the seasoned ones, are sometimes reluctant to adopt a new governance model for fear it will introduce different, untested tools or methodologies that offer nothing more than a lot of overhead and little assistance to get things done. Fair enough. Most governance models do seek to impose standards, but this doesn’t mean governance is a bad thing.

When properly administered, a good governance model is as simple as standard values. For example, Green = No Issues, Red = Major Issues. A governance model allows different project managers to use different tools but maintain an agreed vocabulary that doesn’t require translation from one project to another or one region to another. Setting up and documenting standards allows everyone, no matter their geographic location, to operate independently while knowing their process, methodology, vocabulary, and definitions are understood by all. A well-defined governance model allows project managers to take over different projects with seamless transition in shorter time periods, thus ultimately reducing overhead on training and knowledge transfer. A good governance model can help us move closer to that Holy Grail of doing more with less.

Control

Control is the ability of those in charge to take necessary action or make important decisions in order to provide course corrections when needed. It’s not as daunting as it might sound. Sure, images of the PMO monster dictating policies and practices to the project managers may pop into your head when you think of project control, but this issue is much more subtle.

Every project is subject to ever-changing risks, scope creep, and issues that have potential to take matters in the wrong direction. It’s the project manager’s responsibility to present actionable intelligence to the appropriate people at the appropriate time. Maintaining control of a project requires the ability to drill down and spot problems before they become major issues.

The mantra The higher you go, the fewer details are needed highlights the need to be careful with the details you provide as you go up the chain of command. Senior leaders don’t need to concern themselves with the nitty-gritty particulars of every task. However, if management doesn’t have a mechanism to ensure accountability, transparency, and communication, supported by a proper governance model, then the ability to control a project is certainly lost.

Perhaps the most recent example of a project without adequate control was the failed launch of the Healthcare.gov website in October 2013. Despite the participation of talented people and a respected firm with plenty of experience, plus an impressive budget, the cross-functional project team lacked the necessary control to avoid a major