Is it Possible to Successfully Deliver a Project without Really Good Project Management Resources?
Guest post by Susan de Sousa
image by Yodel Anecdotal via Flickr
The reality is that good project management resources are hard to come by. If you are fortunate enough to have more than one good resource on your project, then count yourself lucky. However this shouldn’t be a surprise. After all if the entire project team were of the highest calibre they wouldn’t need a Project Manager to control it all; just a glorified admin assistant!
I should mention that as you move up the career ladder this becomes less of a problem, as you start managing the more high profile projects. Organisation’s tend to put their best people on their most important projects. Not only because they have to be delivered on time, but also because they usually involve the most complexity in terms of the solutions which have to be delivered.
Unfortunately when you start out you quickly discover that the smallest projects are usually contrained in terms of number of resources and their skillsets. So what can you do to successfully deliver without the necessary team resources? Well there are 3 points you must follow. These are:
1.0 Take Control and be a Leader
By this I mean you not only have to take control of the delivery, but also be seen to do so. Your resources need to be clear in what goal is being delivered and for when. They also need to know that you are someone who won’t just listen to their problems and then raise them in a risk and issues log, but be someone who will proactively try to get them resolved.
2.0 Foster Team Spirit
The sum of the parts always amount to more than the individual parts. Therefore to bridge the experience problem, get your team to work as one. Foster a “blitz spirit” which equates to “we’re all in this together so let’s help each other”. This includes you as well. Being an extra pair of hands and getting stuck in where required from detailing requirements to executing scripts all helps and you’ll be surprised at the results.
3.0 Locate the Experts
Often it is easy to get bamboozled by your colleagues. Deep down you have an instinctive feeling that you’re being led up the garden path, but because you aren’t technical enough you can’t really challenge what you are being told.
In this instance you need to seek out the “centres of excellence” within your Organisation and the internet. After all just because you don’t have the best resources on your project, it doesn’t mean that no-one does. You’ll quickly find that there is always someone who is an expert in a specific area, or who has delivered something similar to what you are doing who’s brain you can pick.
By following these points you will have a good basic head start in this important area, which when you are starting off in project management is absolutely vital to get right if you want to progress onto the high profile cutting edge projects.
My-Project-Management-Expert.com provides further information on this vital area regarding managing project teams as well as developing successful project teams which you must know if you want to succeed.
Sep 29th, 2009 at 6:50 am
I like your points Susan, especially the part about stepping in to get your team’s problems resolved; what I call removing obstacles so they can perform.
My experience on project teams has been different though. Just as with any team there’s a distribution where I’ll have a few low performers and a few overachievers. I’ve been fortunate to have mostly good and great performers on my teams though.
In my experience, most people want to do a good job. Perhaps I’ve been living in Lake Wobegon where all the project team members are above average…..
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Susan de Sousa Reply:
September 29th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Hi Josh,
I think you’ve been really lucky. I’ve managed projects and programmes at over 30 companies (I’m an interim, not someone who get’s fired alot!), and quite frankly the team members have been a real mixed bag.
Yes most people want to do a good job, but whether they either have the knowledge, experience or the ability to meet deadlines when under pressure is a whole different question.
I just count myself fortunate if I end up managing a team where 10% are of a high calibre. Maybe that’s why the project’s are always in trouble and they need someone like me to turn them around……………..
Regards
Susan de Sousa
Site Editor http://www.my-project-management-expert.com
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Sep 29th, 2009 at 7:58 am
Hi Susan,
You are not clear whether your company is an owner organization or contractors, but from what you describe, it sounds like an owner organization, where projects are an expense (investment) and not a source of revenue.
Very often, owner companies, especially those working under matrixed organization structures, tend to keep their star performers to take care of functional responsibilities and provide the “second” or even “third” string players to project teams.
Speaking candidly, in a contractors organization, OR an owners organization that is seriously projectized, you tend to get your pick of the “best and brightest”, although as you point out, the larger, higher visibility the project, the more likely it will be to get first pick of the choice resources.
On the positive side, what better opportunity for a young and promising project manager to earn his or her stripes than by taking a second or third string team and getting them to perform beyond their own expectations, much less those of management?
BR,
Dr. PDG, Jakarta
http://wwww.getpmcertified.com
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Susan de Sousa Reply:
September 29th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Hi Dr Paul,
I admit I’m not really clear on the difference between an owner organisation and a contractor organisation. What I can say is I mainly consult at major blue chips in the private sector and the projects are usually generating revenue rather than being investment.
I do agree though that delivering the undeliverable is a great way to make one’s reputation and it’s certainly worked for me. However the problem comes in when certain resources are perceived to be good, when in factin reality they are a nightmare to work with. Then it becomes a lose, lose situation and quite frankly a nightmare to manage.
Regards
Susan de Sousa
Site Editor http://www.my-project-management-expert.com
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Dr. Paul D. Giammalvo Reply:
September 29th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Hi Susan,
The older I get the more I am coming to realize that there are two kinds of people who do project management. There are those who do them as the primary source of REVENUE- that is, they make money by planning, executing, controlling and closing the project. They are generally known as contractors or in PMI’s parlance, sellers.
Then there are those for whom a project is an EXPENSE or INVESTMENT. They do NOT make money on the project but hope to make money on the PRODUCT of the project. They are generally known as owners or in PMI speak, buyers.
What I have found it for CONTRACTORS, project management MUST be a core competency- that is, if you are NOT a competent project manager or do not hire competent project managers and project team members, you will quickly manage your way into bankruptcy.
However, for owner company’s project management is NOT generally a core competency. Usually, “OPERATIONS” (making or creating a product or providing a service that is NOT “one off” but is ongoing) is their core competency and invariably, their project managers are drawn from the ranks of OPERATIONS people, who have subtle but demonstrably different skill sets and perspectives than those necessary to be successful project managers. Also in an operations driven company project management is considered to be a necessary evil- a supporting role that negatively impacts the primary business temporarily in hopes of a longer term return on investment.
These two organizations are VERY different in their perspective of how project management works or should work. And what works for a contractor or seller may or may not work for an owner or buyer.
Now, to muddy the waters a bit, in many large contractor organizations, (i.e. Huawei, Siemens or Ericsson), you may have both “buyers” and “sellers” operating in different parts of the same company. (Even though they are contractors, selling the manufacture, installation and in some cases, operations and maintenance of their equipment their own in house IT department is a “seller” of internal professional services and the company itself, even though a contractor, is for the purposes of IT, a buyer)
But to get back to the thread. There is one BIG difference between contractor project managers in IT and contractor project managers in construction that addresses the problem you describe. As a construction project manager, I have (and empower my people) to hire, fire, outsource, insource or whatever to get the resources they need. Our project managers have full and total P&L responsibility for the project and have the authority to match that responsibility. This is something I rarely see in IT and Telecommunications, however, I am seeing that trend STARTING to change.
Hope this has helped your understanding some?
BR,
Dr. PDG, Jakarta, Indonesia
http://www.getpmcertified.com
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Sep 29th, 2009 at 8:04 am
Josh, you have hit the right spot with point 3, locate the experts.
Earlier this year I wrote about the need for project managers needing networking skills – to find out who can support the project. This is a real skill; one often not thought about and one that when used really does work.
If readers want to follow this go to http://snipurl.com/s7nur – which I hope is OK Josh!
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Josh Nankivel Reply:
September 29th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Just to clarify, this entry was written by Susan de Sousa, not me!
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Susan de Sousa Reply:
September 29th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Hi Ron,
Thanks for the comment.
Just to let you know that I wrote the post not Josh. But you are right. Networking is so under-rated and yet being a successful project manager is all about knowing the right people who can get the job done.
More importantly when things go wrong, (as they always do) it is in pulling in the favours with people to get yourself out of a hole. And you can’t do that without a mobile phone full of the key individual’s numbers who you can call. As we both know, you only get that by networking!
Regards
Susan de Sousa
Site Editor http://www.my-project-management-expert.com
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Sep 29th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I always like for the context of any advice to be clear. I think Susan’s advice works pretty well for smallish projects staffed by employees of the company the PM works for. Not sure I would want to generalize it much past that domain.
As to getting led down the garden path by technical staff … one of my early (and best) bosses used to say, “if you can’t explain it to me, then you don’t understand it.”
(ps to Josh: I don’t get notified of follow-up comments. Should I?)
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Susan de Sousa Reply:
September 29th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Hi Bill,
Thanks for the comment.
You are right, I should probably have explained the context. However it really applied to most projects. Certainly it is advice I follow myself and pretty much all the projects and programmes I end up managing have diverse teams made up of external resources usually based in other countries as well as resources from the client company. For example my current project has 220 external resources from 3 different suppliers based in the US, Poland, India, Ireland and London, and it has a budget of $18 million, so not small change.
The problem with the advice from one of your early bosses is that certain technical staff have a vested interest in leading project manager’s up and down the proverbial garden path. Which is often why the wrong technologies and methodologies are used. And few project manager’s are willing to sit there and insist that unless they understand something they will not proceed with it. Now I don’t mind looking like a fool for not getting something, and I won’t go ahead with it unless I do, but few others are willing to do the same.
Regards
Susan de Sousa
Site Editor http://www.my-project-management-expert.com
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Bill Duncan Reply:
September 30th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Susan –
I like your 3 subheadings. I’m not sure the details always work so well. I wouldn’t expect a PM on a large project such as the one you describe to have time to produce technical deliverables.
And by context, I also meant non-IT/software projects. Not sure I want the PM on the design of a new Boeing aircraft to be tightening bolts on the first test plane.
As to my boss’s comment … I was referring more to the person who tells me “you’re not technical enough to understand.” On the other hand, if someone on the team is actively lying and attempting to mislead the PM, I doubt that you are going to be able to discover such malfeasance very easily.
Duncan
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Sep 29th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Hi Susan, thanks for your article. I generally agree with your comments and would like to point out that in my view good projects do not necessary require “really good project resources” as that, in itself, does not and cannot guarantee successful delivery. The more important aspect, often difficult to achieve, is the cohesiveness of the team, such that they all pull the project wagon in the right direction and with a common view of the objectives. When looking for project resources I will look, first and for most, for the team players, those who will share the load when necessary, and apply themselves to the project. Obviously they would need to have the hard skills necessary to perform their job, but I would, as a matter of principle, prefer the average performer but good team player, over the poor communicator, self centric, maverick performer.
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Susan de Sousa Reply:
October 1st, 2009 at 4:20 am
Hi Shim,
Thanks for your comment.
I agree that it is possible to deliver projects without really good resources and obviously the ideal team resource is one who is technicall adept whilst being a team player.
However whilst I wouldn’t want an entire team made up of maverick geniuses, in certain key positions I would always prefer someone like that over an average performer who is a team player. This is simply because sometimes you just need really brainy people who can come up with solutions for you.
Regards
Susan de Sousa
Site Editor http://www.my-project-management-expert.com
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Sep 30th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
The three titles are good starting points. But there is a disturbing statements here:
1. After all if the entire project team were of the highest caliber they wouldn’t need a Project Manager to control it all; just a glorified admin assistant.
The Program Manager of the Crew Exploration Vehicle (Cleon Lacefield, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleon_Lacefield) would be shocked to hear this. With likely the best manned space flight engineering team working for him, his role is one of the most challenging – to lead this A-Team.
Or Alan Parker, the CEO of Kaiser-Hill, the “leader” of the Rock Flats closure program, and Nancy Tour, the recipient of the PMI Project of the Year.
One of the roles of the PM is to make sure they are not “victims” of their environments. If you don’t have the right people in the right seats on the bus, the project is in jeopardy on day one. Look for work elsewhere.
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Susan de Sousa Reply:
October 1st, 2009 at 5:15 am
Hi Glen,
I have had to manage numerous projects without the luxury of having any good resources working on them. The key skill a project manager must have is to ensure they can deliver even without the right people in place. After all there are many more projects running than there are enough really good resources to work on them.
My comment re the glorified admin assistant was a tongue in cheek remark not one to be taken literally. Perhaps my “Englishness” just didn’t come across.
So to give you an example of this:
When I was in the US I once wore a T Shirt which had the slogan “got oxygen?” on it. You find them all over the place as a momento of visiting usually a ski resort which is at a high altitude, and is a play on the fact that until you acclamatise, it’s easy to get out of breath quickly.
Needless to say in the UK no-one would have taken it literally because it obviously was a flippant comment and not mean’t to be taken seriously. But in the US I had to stop wearing it because so many people kept stopping me to ask whether I was OK or if I wanted them to call an ambulance. I was getting really paranoid and wondering if I looked that ill, until a friend pointed out it was just Americans taking the slogan literally.
What I was trying to get across was than on smaller projects, if you have a really good team working on it, you won’t need as experienced a project manager to run it. Obviously on huge projects and programmes this doesn’t work because having a really good team simply means you have a better chance of finding solutions to all the problems which arise.
So my apologies that that obviously didn’t come across. I need to remember in future that I’m talking to an international audience.
Regards
Susan
Site Editor: http://www.my-project-management-expert.com
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Glen B. Alleman Reply:
October 1st, 2009 at 9:02 am
Susan,
I think you’re generalizing too much. Could you describes the size of a “small” project and what domain and context? It’s more informative to your readers when you do that.
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Oct 1st, 2009 at 1:54 am
I agree with many comments above (esp those of Shim Marom), however, wanted to offer a different point of view to your comment about “high profile” projects.
Many high profile project have indeed great/highly skilled people on them, however, from my experience, these projects are also the ones that need the highest level of PM Leadership to pull together…especially in terms of team dynamics. For ex, take a top priority project to integrate the infrastructure of two legacy org’s in a post M&A environment. The project team may have the best people from across the org, however, ego, style, communication, and ultimately trust issues need to be addressed prior to any real accomplishments. It does get easier if you work w/ the same team repeatedly as you can build on previous successes (or failures)…
I often go back to the teachings and practices of Lencioni related to team dynamics. I find them helpful on getting high profile projects done successfully…
Best,
Robert
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Oct 1st, 2009 at 1:58 am
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