Believe in people.....

The greatest asset any organization has is it's people.  Without fantastic employees, no company can survive.  This is always intriguing to me when organizations make decisions thinking that there is a "silver bullet" that can solve organizational or leadership issues.  One of the most popular shifts right now is Agile.  When I first heard of Agile, I was skeptical.  I thought it would go by the wayside like ISO or Six Sigma.  When it started to gain steam, I devoted my full resources to understanding it.  Especially as I saw some of my favorite clients become derailed during the implementation of Agile.  Just like any methodology, software, or project, you have to trust your people.  The magic formula in business is people, then process, then technology.

Agile is fantastic as a methodology.  However, it is the people that can deliver results.  It actually requires more trust in teams and people than some of the other methodologies on the market.  So if an executive is having organizational issues, why do they think adopting a new methodology will solve it?  A successful Agile transformation requires a strong foundation of leadership and the ability to trust the team to make decisions.  I am seeing so many Agile transformations in progress right now that baffle me.  I was just talking with my good friend John Stenbeck as we were taping the next episode of the Web series AgilityCast about this.  In many of the Agile transformations, it is being suggested to take the entire organization through a transformation instead of incremental gain.  Alf Abuhajleh said it best that people are implementing Agile in a Waterfall way!  John suggests an incremental implementation of transformation so that experimentation and results can be understood and tweaked while expansion of what works can be rolled out to the rest of the organization.  I concur.  

What I have noticed in the most successful Agile implementations is the secure leadership and the profound trust that they instill in the structure and teams.  Agile is actually more disciplined than many of the methodologies if implemented properly.  If an executive already does not trust the team or staff, then Agile will not be the fix.  It will only create more confusion and miscommunications.  So many organizations are diving in to the Agile world thinking that it will just make everything faster.  It can, but with the right trust and leadership.

No Day But Today,

Rick

To Be A Great Leader, You Have to Eat Your Own Dog Food

A common occurrence these days is to implement processes, procedures, rules, and regulations to protect organizations or improve the business.  The worst thing a leader can do is to implement something that they do not follow.  Your employees, team members, and associates will see right through that.  I have been witness to many organizations and leaders circumvent something that they put in place.  What is the point in that?  If you believe in something, then do it!

I have some real life examples of this. An IT organization puts in place that you must have a functional and technical specification approved before you can implement new technology.  This makes sense.  The organization wants to make sure everything is thought out before implementation to alleviate risk.  They are so stringent in this request that they will delay the number one corporate initiative for the year to ensure that the process is followed.  They continually force the consultant and the project team to utilize the process and meticulously check the boxes.  Meanwhile, they get an initiative for the same type of technology.  In the time that the project team is filling out all of the required paperwork, IT implements their solution.  When asked, the IT team did not have any of the required documents that the project team was required to do.  This screams of hypocrisy.  If the process is stringent, both projects must follow it!

Another example is when the Sponsor states that the company will be regimented in their delivery process.  All requirements are documented, go through a system, coded, and validated.  If it is not in the system, it is not a requirement.  Except for when they tell the consultant requirements outside of the system.  The miscommunication from this activity can result in rework, missed functionality, and budget over-runs.

Another organization is frustrated with new technology coming in that disrupts other technology already deployed.  In this case, they implement a technology review.  This review is to look at the technology, establish risk, and test it with corporate standards to ensure compliance.  Every project is forced through this council that determines the viability.  Unfortunately, they did not convey this to all users, so it is being implemented on some projects, but not others.  Then, due to the amount of requests, they bottleneck the environment to go to a Technology Steering Committee meeting that is limited in time and every 2 weeks.  This can delay projects 4-6 weeks depending on the agenda.  In this example, the division followed every process requested and the council ended up denying the use of a new technology even with overwhelming savings to the organization should the technology pass.  The division objected and in the end, could not use the new technology.  Three months later, the project manager read the meeting notes from the council and saw that the very same technology had been approved for IT’s use without having to follow the process.  The division requested again to go forward with a crucial cost savings project that was again denied without reason.

The last example is where a large organization had implemented a governance process.  They asked for a study on how the process was doing and then wanted automation of the process.  It was found that the process cost roughly $35M to operate and there were no true savings that could be attributed to the process.  As part of the governance meetings, no project was truly course corrected, cancelled, or accelerated as a result of the process.  Therefore, the process could not be attributed to any cost savings.  The consultants requested that the process be eliminated and a new governance process be created that delivered the value of the time being spent.  In the end, the owner of the process deleted the bad portions of the report and published the findings to seemingly approve of the existing process.

These are real examples of things that I have witnessed.  I am not saying that any of these processes are bad.  I am not saying we shouldn’t have key processes in place.  What we need to determine is if the process is worth doing, then everyone does the process.  Also, the process has to deliver value to the organization!  Else, why do it?  Why implement a PMO that then says none of the project managers report to the PMO manager?  Why establish a governance process if it isn’t going to determine the fate of the project?  Why implement technology restrictions only to allow a select few the ability to circumvent them?  It is amazing how much waste of effort and cost can be applied to processes that do not deliver on the value promise.

To be a leader, ensure that there is a driven value out of a process.  Know what that value is and how to measure it before implementing it.  Then run the metrics to see if the process is living up to the metrics.  If not, kill it.  If so, then there is a definitive value that you can state you brought the organization.  Also, if the process exists, you must follow it just like everyone else!  That is leading.  Believe me, when you as a leader are circumventing the process, your people will know it.  Then they begin to question the leadership value that you provide.  Think about it.  Have you ever really followed and respected a leader who implements one thing and then does another?

No Day But Today,

Rick

The Iron Triangle of the PMO: People, Processes, and Technology

Project management has always been fond of the "Triple Constraint" or the "Iron Triangle." In traditional terms, the sayings represent the three constraints on a project: cost, schedule, quality. It is often taught as the iron triangle because if one shifts, one of the other sides must also shift in order to stay balanced. For instance, if schedule is the constraint and you are behind schedule, you either add staff (cost) or reduce scope (quality) to bring the date back within the constraint. As I continue to work with executives and their PMO's, the iron triangle for the PMO is people, process, and technology. Company after company continue to make significant investments in one of the three areas and often neglect the other two. For instance, a company will purchase Clarity, but then not hire project managers thinking that the tool will fix their issues. Another company may make significant investments in creating the process but then not hire enough project managers to complete the process. Each time this occurs, the company will then question the value of the investment. Just like in projects, the PMO must make investments and measure their success on the three sides of their triangle.

Process
In most of the organizations that I work in, they have some sort of governance or process that is documented. Many times, these have been purchased from various consulting firms and consist of templates and mandates of which documents are completed when. As outlined in an earlier post, "What About My Capacity" I outline how to quickly determine the amount of work it takes to complete the project management process. Companies are often frustrated at the lack of information or quality of information that they receive during project reviews. Their answer is to create templates and mandate the completion of the templates. However, they ask people who are not familiar with the concepts or the templates to fill them out. This is akin to handing somebody who finished high school math a tax form and expect the same results that a trained accountant would give them. An investment in the process is a key factor in the creation of a successful PMO. However, the process alone can't fix your issues.

PeopleThe right people in the right positions can make a tremendous difference in the quality of project management. I will state it as plainly as I can for the record: projects should be run by trained project managers. It is that simple. As an example, you are at a car repair shop because you have something wrong with your engine. You are told that the mechanic that is going to fix your car will not be able to fix it for 4 hours. Right then, a 17 year old kid walks up and says, "I know about cars, I can fix it." Do you wait for the trained mechanic even though it means waiting four hours or do you let the kid fix it? Most of us would wait. Why? We want someone who is trained, certified, and warranties the work. We also want someone with experience. You want experience and training. This is true for many professions: Teachers, Doctors, Dentists, Surgeons, Executives, Accountants, Home Builders, Engineers, Architects, etc. This is true for just about every profession.......except project management. I have worked with organizations that have invested many millions of dollars mandating processes. These processes require the project managers to complete forms, risk planning, project scheduling, etc. The process is so important that it is mandated. Then when they roll out the process, they do not have enough people to complete the demand for project management. This forces them to select someone who is not a project manager to complete the work. However, if the work is completed with poor quality or the results do not add up, it is the profession of project management whose value is questioned. Not the people performing the task, but the profession itself. In some cases, I have seen resources that cost three or four times the amount a project manager would cost to complete the activities. These people do so begrudgingly and will readily admit they don't want to do that type of work. I have seen organizations lose highly valuable resources because they were making them do activities outside of the job that they were hired to do. Why do we invest so much in a process, but do not invest in the people to complete the process? Or better yet, we think that if we by the right product, it will solve our issues.

TechnologyI have completed over 70 project and portfolio management technology implementations. I have worked with Clarity, Microsoft Project, Planview, Primavera, Daptiv, @task, and others. These are all great tools. However, they do not solve your project management process or people issues. What they will do is make your poor processes run faster or expose the lack of quality of information. They are compliance tools that help make your processes and people efficient. If the project manager you have selected on a project has never really written a project schedule or been trained how to do so, why do we think making them enter it into Clarity is going to make it better? I will give you the number one reason why PPM tool implementations fail: lack of executive mandate. Unless the executives prove that they are in the tool, looking at the data, using the data for decisions, and mandating compliance, then the tools just become another process that project managers (or the people selected to do project management) must fill out. I have taken over many failed PPM tool integrations. In each case, the executives were never really looking at the information or making sure that the information within the tool is accurate. I worked with one organization where they spent a significant amount of money purchasing and installing the tool. They never trained their project managers to use the tool properly because they thought that the cost was to high. In three months, the data was so disjointed that the project managers held a meeting and decided that the tool was too hard to use. So they all agreed that they would use the tool as a project reporting tool, but would maintain all plans and schedules outside of the tool. The executives never really checked the tool because they were using printed reports that came from the tool. The tool had become an afterthought. The next question then become, what is the value of the tool? In other organizations, they will say that the tool was the wrong tool and will consider purchasing yet another tool to try to do the same things. This tool then is not implemented properly so they will question the value of project management itself. It is a downward cycle that happens in roughly 70% of the clients that purchase the tools. They think that the investment in technology is going to solve their issues. It just exposes them.


PMO Value: Process, People, and Technology
Unless there is investment in all three branches, the PMO will usually either fail or become a non-strategic resource. To build a successful PMO, the following must occur:

• People - If project management is important to the organization, then invest in project managers. Stating that you do not have the funds to hire a project manager and then turning over the duties to someone who costs three times as much is not only a waste of money, it is provides poor quality. Invest in the right people and the right training.
• Process - Do not just invest in templates and mandates. Make sure the investment is made to educate the executives on the value of project management and the value of the proper process of project management. Dr. James Norrie in the book "Breaking Through the Project Fog: How Smart Organizations Achieve Success by Creating, Selecting and Executing On-Strategy Projects (Jossey-Bass Leadership Series - Canada)" has the best answer to the value of project management that I have heard to date: the value of a project manager grows exponentially the earlier you involve them in the process. The other key to proper process is to ensure the right amount of governance to the right amount of projects. There should always be some sort of tier system within projects so that the process to complete the governance of the project does not cost more than completing the project itself.
• Technology - Invest in technology that will enable the organization to enforce compliance, each roles data builds on the other roles, and provides key decision metrics to executives. The technology should be invested in that streamlines the process, stops duplicate entry of information, is the single source of the truth, and provides value add activity. If you are entering the same information into three different systems or the system that you are entering information in is not the single source of the truth, then we are adding cost for process, not for results.

I have seen many organizations spend tremendous amount of money on one or two of the sides of the triangle while neglecting the others. To be successful, the three sides must be balanced to an organizations needs and ample focus should be placed on all three.

Be strong and stay true to your principles,

Rick