Project Leadership Considerations

Documentation is needed for all meetings, both internal and external, and everyone needs a chance to respond to and correct errors or misunderstandings.

There are several aspects to understanding and responding to the customer, and this project team did a good job on most of them. First, the team needs to understand who the various customer groups are. The SIPOC model is very useful for this task. Working backward from the identification of all the customer groups, the core team can discover much useful planning information regarding customer needs. The SIPOC model should also serve as a starting point in the prioritization process.

Typically, a project is planned assuming that if everything goes right, the project team can successfully deliver all four customer priorities: the full project scope, on the agreed-upon schedule, at the agreed-upon cost, with the agreed-upon quality. However, on most projects unexpected things happen that either allow a project team to improve upon one or more of these four customer priorities or prevent the full attainment of one or more of these priorities. The project leaders should have frank discussions with the key customer groups (often this means both the external paying customer and one or more key internal stakeholders within the parent organization). The focus of these discussions needs to be which of the customer priorities take precedence.

For example, if things are going very well, should the project team try to lower cost, speed up the schedule, add more features to the project scope, or improve the quality of the project deliverables? The same understanding must be developed if things go poorly: Which of the customer priorities can be compromised and by how much? Many customers will tell a project leader that all four must be achieved. The wise project leader should respond that if all goes according to plan, that will happen, but as a responsible leader, she wants to make the same kind of decisions the customer himself would make if he were on the jobsite every day.

One area in which the project team could have done a better job is in documenting the conversations with the customer. In Chapter 2, simple minutes forms were introduced for use in project meetings. The intent of these minutes is to capture important information shared, decisions made, upcoming issues identified, commitments agreed to, and a meeting evaluation. The same type of information is appropriate to capture from other kinds of customer contacts such as conversations. After a conversation with a customer, a simple email to the customer confirming this information can be sent and a copy kept as project documentation.

Whenever possible, the first meeting with the project customers should be in person. Much of communication is reading and interpreting body language, and this is not possible by phone. A videoconference might be a useful compromise. Also, it is often wise to have a first meeting with the senior players: the project sponsors and managers from both companies. It may well make sense later on for members of the project teams to talk with each other directly, but a phone conversation with seven plus people is not an ideal way to start.

Project Leadership Considerations

Uma acted responsibly as a project leader in overseeing the detailed plan development. She kept the customer’s priorities in mind and worked in a logical order for the most part. Some project leaders would prefer to work through more of the WBS before finalizing the risk plan. Uma worked through the higher levels of the WBS with her core team, then had each core team member develop the details of their respective areas with their SMEs, and finally integrated the entire plan with anyone on the complete team making recommendations where there were conflicts. By using this method, Uma achieved efficiency in the work process and a more empowered workforce.

Once the WBS and risk plans were complete it was time to determine who should perform each identified task, what the durations and predecessors should be for each task, and how all this information should be combined into a workable schedule. Project leaders need to facilitate this activity, but do not have to perform it all personally. Technical leads, schedulers, and others should be able to perform much of this work. Nonetheless, project leaders need to understand what questions to ask, when to offer help, when to take over, and when to back off.

A final component of detailed project planning is the project budget. Top leadership in an organization sees a budget as a tool to assist in prioritizing organizational goals. Through the budget, top leaders allocate resources to selected projects, with more resources going to higher priority projects, and no (or few) resources going to low priority projects. Thus, as projects serve as means of accomplishing the goals of an organization, budgeting serves as the means of prioritizing those goals.

Project leaders can develop their detailed budget only if they have an understanding of the project WBS and schedule. Once these are understood, it is possible to determine the cost. If the expected cost is significantly different from the spending authority granted in the project charter, a serious discussion needs to take place. This could involve using a different approach, changing the project’s scope or schedule, or canceling the project.

It was surprising and problematical that the detailed budget was shared with the whole team. While ideally teams share all information, it is debatable whether or not detailed budgets of other people’s areas should be shared with the project team.

As project leaders oversee the development of the detailed project plans rather than get caught up in the details themselves, they need to:

•  Understand who gives good advice on the project plan and who gives poor advice. Some project team members will have a much better understanding of how to plan than others.

•  Ensure that risks continue to be uncovered and addressed. Hiding risks may be tempting to secure project approval, but gaining acceptance of a project with buried risks may be a Phyrric victory.

•  Encourage the project team to pursue innovative approaches where appropriate and to reuse or adapt approaches developed previously as appropriate.

•  Understand that project team members both remember best and commit to those things that they “discover” on their own. Orchestrate the plan development process so that team members can make “discoveries.”

•  Realize that by active listening and following, a wise project leader both gains influence with her team and encourages the team to self-manage.

Before this step was complete, it was very important that Uma ensure that everyone fully understood and was comfortable with the details of their own budget so that they could take “ownership” of their part of this project as well as the entire project.

Project Leadership Considerations

Uma was facing a common project leadership dilemma. She was being pressured by powerful stakeholders to move forward, yet her core team members had stated they were not ready yet. This was a “leadership moment.” She needed to recall the project priorities. In this case the non-negotiables were quality and time. Since she was within the allocated time, it became her responsibility to consider pushing back because moving too quickly could create an unacceptable risk.

While the key issue in developing integrated project plans is to ensure that the various components have consistency, sometimes there is time pressure to move along and iron out details later. This often creates problems that could have been easily handled with just a little more time in planning, but if discovered during execution, are much more disruptive to the project. The issue that faced the core team was whether they had enough information to complete the planning process. While very few teams feel they have all the information they would like, one component of project leadership is to know when the team has enough information to proceed.

Project leaders should remember a few key principles of project leadership planning at this time:

•  Understand a project at different levels—as part of a larger system, as a system itself, and as a collection of parts. This understanding requires that the various parts of a project “fit” together in the integrated plan and reduces unpleasant surprises during project execution.

•  Remember that both numbers and ideas are important in an integrated project plan. Many project participants primarily want to see or use either numbers or issues, but not both. An effective project leader needs to be comfortable with both.

•  Analyze complex tradeoffs and understand their potential consequences. This can be helpful when making integration decisions.

•  Understand cause and effect relationships so issues can be identified that, when improved, will also improve other areas. This also helps in making integration decisions.

•  Know when to make decisions and when to allow decision-making by the project team or by certain stakeholders. Enlightened project leaders try to push the decision-making process to as low an organizational level as practical. This helps all project participants—the project team and other stakeholders—develop a sense of shared risk and reward. This ownership of decisions often is the extra intangible that helps project participants achieve a little more when faced with challenges during project execution.

Project Leadership Considerations

Project leaders should realize that selecting appropriate people for subteams has a great deal to do with project success. The comments on selecting key project participants made in Chapter 2 also apply here. However, at this level, technical competence may be more important. Many project managers and sponsors try to act in a collaborative manner with the members of the core project team and others in the organization as the remainder of the project participants are selected, but some do not. The subteam leader usually is in the best position to identify people who have the expertise needed. However, the sponsor or project manager may need to use their political acumen to actually get the person they want assigned to the project. Project leaders want to ensure that they are not simply “stuck” with workers that functional managers want to unload or with whoever happens to be available regardless of whether they are the best people for the job.

By totally delegating the responsibility of choosing subteam members to her core team, Uma abdicated responsibility. She could have empowered her core team by working collaboratively with them. The best long-term method of ensuring the ability to recruit eager and competent people is for a project leader to take care of both the projects and the people they are responsible for; such a project leader’s reputation will spread. Wise project leaders want to be able to say convincingly, “If you work with me, you will be successful both on this project and after it. I can say that because that is what has happened to the people and the projects I have been associated with.” In effect, the project leader is recruiting based upon both past success and future potential. Everyone wants to work with a winner. If a project leader and a project both appear to be winners, willing and competent participants will be much easier to find.

One of the key aspects of the detailed project plan is assigning responsibility. If this is done clearly, it helps with identifying and recruiting the additional participants that are needed. The more specifically a project leader can delineate what a participant will be doing, when, under what conditions, etc., the easier it will be to find the right people for the project. Team needs and diversity of input also must be considered.

Project Leadership Considerations

While much of what Uma did in developing the communications plan was appropriate, she missed a fundamental concept of good communication. The concept behind effective project communications is simple, even if the implementation is almost always a challenge. The concept is to first understand who needs to know what, in what format, at what time, under what circumstances. The rest of the concept is to construct a plan to give the various stakeholders the information they need in a timely fashion. Too much communication can be a problem, just as too little usually is. To understand what various stakeholders need to know, ask them! Uma did not ask anyone what they needed.

Project leaders should keep the following points in mind when developing a communications plan:

•  Project leaders need to continually articulate their vision to all stakeholder groups.

•  Project leaders should ensure that team members have regular, complete, and effective contact with their counterparts in the customer’s organization. Engineers should talk with engineers, accountants with accountants, and programmers with programmers, etc. There may be a need to filter certain information, but that should not come at the expense of limiting important contacts.

•  Project leaders need to develop well-grounded explanations for all questions that may arise. When possible, these should be developed before the need arises.

•  The project communications plan should include clear guidelines for team meetings.

•  The project communications plan should address the professional development of individuals as well as of the project team.

•  The project communications plan should be an efficient means of organizing data and reporting results.

•  Different people have different communication needs at different times. Keep asking if the current flow of information is adequate.

Project Leadership Considerations

Having a variety of “fun” activities is often a terrific idea; however, it is usually wise to let the group plan their own activities. Different people have very different ideas of “fun.”

Throughout the project, project leaders have ongoing responsibilities to develop commitment in all stakeholders; the first part of this commitment is the unofficial desire or motivation on the part of everyone to do what is necessary. The second part is to publicly and officially commit. Motivating all participants is the unofficial commitment work that should take place during project planning in anticipation of everyone formally committing at the end of the planning stage.

Bob, Gary, and Uma focused their informal commitment efforts on the morale of the project team. While that is important, it is only one component. Each project leader should be articulating the benefits and excitement of the project and conveying the “what’s in it for me” message. To motivate people it is wise to help them understand that the work they are doing is important, it is likely to be successful, and they will be rewarded fairly for their efforts. In this case Gary did articulate the vision for why the project is important. He could have told the team why he thought the current project approach would be successful.

We know the project team is celebrating, but what about all of the other project stakeholders? Have all the customer groups—internal and external—been involved in celebrating thus far? Do they share the project leaders’ enthusiasm for the importance of the project?

Have all other stakeholders who could interfere with the project been communicated with? In some cases it may be difficult to excite them about the project. (Think of unwilling neighbors of a major construction project.) Have the project leaders at least dampened the negative feelings of those people who could be disruptive to the project if they were sufficiently antagonized?

If the project leaders have been communicating effectively and unofficially all along with all project stakeholders and key influencers, and if trust, integrity, and reciprocity have been established with them, then securing their formal approval should not be in doubt.

Project Leadership Considerations

Project planning often culminates in a formal project kick-off meeting with the intent of answering all questions and securing approval from all stakeholders to proceed. If all the other project leaders’ planning tasks have been carried out well, the chances of securing approval are quite high. It is not uncommon for the project core team to first meet with all internal stakeholders to ensure that each of them fully understands and commits to the project plan. Then it is time to meet with the customer for concurrence.

In an ideal world the concerns of various stakeholders have been considered and there are no “surprises” at the kick-off meeting. In Uma’s interaction with the accounting representative, she needed to be careful not to promise more than the project can deliver.

Project leaders should demonstrate that they understand the details in each area, but that they are concerned primarily with the overall project instead of any one portion. The project leaders often must convince reluctant stakeholders that their particular area may not get exactly what they prefer, but the project as a whole will be well served. Good communications planning and effective work on motivating these reluctant stakeholders in advance should help avoid disruption at the kick-off meeting.