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One of my colleagues and I were recently discussing how most people get their start in project management.  She was a formally-trained and certified Project Management Professional (PMP), while I am what would be called an "accidental" project manager.  I started by managing projects as part of my responsibilities, although we didn't call them projects at that time.

With that in mind, I thought it might be interesting to see how all of you got your start.  I've put together a short (only four questions) poll to see where the rest of us stand.  I have an opinion, which I won't share until after we see the results.

Click HERE to participate in the totally anonymous poll.

I recently attended an inspiring webinar that discussed the importance of resource management to a project's success; it impressed me so much I wanted to share some of the things I learned with you.

The speakers focused on some important aspects of resource and capacity control to help project management teams increase the potential for success: Capacity (know your limits); People (get the right ones and build your team); Time-tracking (capture data, track progress, reset limits going forward, and monitor results); Change management (scope creep, adjustments to spec, etc.); and Tools (have the right ones and tailor them to your needs). All critical elements for project success.

My only concern is that the speakers were discussing all the right things, but perhaps with a somewhat rosy view of reality. In a perfect world, the right team members are available when you need them, and everyone is honest and realistic about need, capacity, limitations, and the elements that make up the project plan.

In the real world, this is seldom the case. Which is probably why so many projects fail.



It's incredibly important to monitor and manage resources during the course of a project's life-cycle. But without some stringent controls, I fear it's easier said than done. Of course, if project management tools were incorporated into the mix, it's likely that managing resources would become a whole lot easier.

To hear how Allconnect is doing this using project management software, check out Amy Dowis' interview HERE.

How do you track and manage your resources? Is it working for you? Let me know!

In baseball, the base coach's job is very important.  It begins the moment he enters the ballpark.  During the opposing team's pre-game infield warm-up, his job includes:

• Scouting the strength of the outfielders' and catcher's throwing arm and where the fielders position themselves in the outfield
• Analize the pitcher's pick-off moves and determine whether or not there is a clue in his body movement before he thows to the base.
• Is the pitcher's delivery predictable—can you time it with a stopwatch?  If the pitcher takes more than 1.5 seconds to deliver a pitch from the stretch position, a fast base runner might be able to take advantage of the delivery to steal second base.
• Does the pitcher tip off his pitches or follow a pattern in his pitch selection.

Like the base coach, the project managers job starts before the project begins.  However, it doesn't stop there, I've noticed that project managers share some other common traits, here are the top four:

1. Communicate Clearly: Good base coaches are effective communicators—even when it's in "code" or with a "sign."  A project manager must be able to communicate objectives clearly to ensure the success of any project based work.
2. Be Animated & Loud: A good base coach is easily seen and heard by runners and batters.  An effective team leader can't hide in the office buried in reports all day—successfully leading a project team requires that he or she be seen and available to give direction, advice, and remove impediments. 
3. Good Decision-Making Skills: A good base coach is ready to react to the unexpected—good decision-making skills are vital to being a good base coach.  Projects seldom seem to turn out exactly as planned.  Project managers need to be great decision-makers.
4. Encourage Aggressiveness: A good base coach sets the tone for the offense.  When the coach shows confidence in the player's ability to execute, it boosts their confidence.  Recognizing the individual talents of the project team, and leveraging them to the benefit of the project is a critical skill.  Helping individual team members stretch and improve helps ensure consistent success.

It doesn't really matter what your work management methodology is or what project managment tools you use, there's a lot a project manager could learn at the ball diamond.  Would you be a good base coach?  Successful baseball coaches also rely on the right equipment to help their teams win.  Project management software can be invaluable at automating reporting, data collection, along with encouraging collaboration and communication for project leaders—making it easier for them to successfully lead their teams.

With the baseball season just around the corner, maybe an afternoon with your favorite team could be a good team-building, training experience—or maybe I'm just craving some peanuts and Craker-Jacks.

Project management professionals tend to be highly technical, process-driven individuals.  Both are great qualities for managing projects.  However, those who seem to rise to the top also understand that there is something more to successful work management than the technology used or the process employed.

As the technology incorporated within business project management software continues to improve and automate many of the tasks project managers once had to perform manually, the role of project managers is changing.  The ability to "roll up the sleeves" and interact with individual team members is making some project managers very effective at facilitating collaboration and eliminating the impediments faced by project teams.  The more project managers are able to spend time leading project teams rather than collecting data and building reports, the more likely we are to see a drop in the project failure rate and a more positive bottom-line in our organizations.

To facilitate this, project managers need to make sure they have a couple of things nailed down:

1. They need a thorough understanding of their process and how to best use project management tools to successfully execute that process.  PPM software has the ability to automate much of the data collection and reporting requirements of project management and should make it easier for managers and project teams to collect and evaluate information.  Software, or any project management tool for that matter, that forces double entry or encumbers the process, should probably be abandoned.
2. Project managers need exceptional people skills.  A command-and-control management style is not the most effective way to lead a project team.  It's becoming more and more critical that project managers encourage collaborative communication to drive project success.  Successful teams are where the rubber hits the road—and successful project based work has more to do with people than technology.

Has your role as a project manager changed in recent years?  How do you utilize technology to make you a more effective project leader?

In my previous discussion on creating a success plan, I shared the secret sauce:

Success Plan = Realistic Scope + right skilled resources + achievable timeline

In this discussion, I want to focus on the first ingredient of establishing a realistic scope.  The scope of the project sets up the approach a project takes.  I always keep in mind that the goal is to define the scope that is achievable within a 60 day cycle.

Have you ever been to a kid's dance recital?  You know the 3 hours of back to back dances of all genres including tap, ballet, modern, jazz, lyrical and hip hop.  You sit for the entire show to watch one of your family members dance for 6 minutes.  Have you ever thought about the process they go through to put that show on at the end of the year?  Many people wonder how the kids remember all that choreography and perform all those dances.  They do it in small phases throughout the year.  They teach one number at a time by creating classes or small groups of people to focus on a genre for a certain age group.  By having many various small groups working separate dance pieces, they can focus on the quality of their technique and performance abilities.  At the end of the year, they put all these groups together to create an amazing showcase.

I like to use a similar concept when planning projects as well.  There are always long term goals and objectives.  Within each of these, I would define smaller goals and objectives that become the steps needed to get to the long term goal.  Evaluate the areas of the organization that would have the largest impacts or benefits.  It may be necessary to do this exercise within each functional group depending how the project goals impact across the functional lines or the work flows require various collaborations across groups.  Look for the quick wins, functional areas and processes that are struggling the most or could have the highest gains.  Evaluate the ability to define the scope to be able to achieve it within 60 days.

For example,  I had a customer who intended to implement a PPM solution globally.  They had over 500 projects managed throughout various groups.  They started out with this as their scope.  During our Discover and Design sessions, it became clear that the area with the most pain was their marketing group.  They had some critical business needs to improve their management of various marketing projects that would have a direct impact on their customer satisfaction and increase revenue.  It consisted of only 25 key projects.  This became my target for them to define a detailed scope around as our Phase I goals and objectives.  We could accomplish this within the 60 day timeframe and deliver value to the organization with high visibility to show the impact of their new PPM investment.  This became the approach they took to define all their follow on phases, rolling out the solution in a logical priority delivering value on an on-going basis.

The key to success is to work the plan into organized smaller work streams with defined scopes that can be executed within 60 days.  Prioritize them based on highest to smallest impact and value to the business. If the capacity is there, mulitple work streams can be executed in parallel to deliver multiple key objectives in the same 60 day timeframe. This will become the project plan roadmap to delivering the long term commitments.

Learning project management best practice doesn't just happen.

Because there is so much project-based work accomplished by managers who have had no formal project management education, and the trend of organizations turning to projects for increasing productivity and profitability continues to grow, the need for education is important.  Unfortunately, those responsible for managing projects are often "accidental" project managers—and are left to figure out for themselves the best way to manage projects, motivate teams, and get work done.  That being said, some of those "accidental" project managers turn out to be incredibly effective and some of the most intuitive and successful managers.

Without getting into a discussion about certification and formal training there are other ways for budding project managers to learn the ropes.  (Anyone considering the path of the PMP should talk to Josh Nankivel at PMStudent, he offers a number of great resources for preparing for the exam.)  However, I'd like to talk about the less formal ways we share information and learn best practices.

Over the past several weeks, I've written a couple posts regarding how we learn and how that applies to projects and project management: The Challenges of Project Learning and The Value of Social Media.  I'd like to take another step down that path and talk about the value of community in learning best practices and the basics of work management.

I'm amazed at the wealth of knowledge available to anyone willing to spend the time to find it.  Whether in the form of blog posts, webinars, user groups, conferences, tradeshows, or seminars—it's never been easier to learn best practices and how to implement them into your work management methodology.

To understand how this benefits our industry, imagine a rowboat with project managers inside.  Some are experienced, some are not.  As the water level rises, what happens to everyone inside the boat?

They all rise with the level of the boat.

Those with experience and expertise rise, those just getting started rise, and they rise collectively.  We are very fortunate as project professionals that there are so many talented and capable people willing to share their insight into what makes successful projects click and what it takes to be a skilled project leader.  This "community" makes it possible for everyone in our profession to enjoy greater perceived value in the workplace.

I know that I enjoy the time I spend with my peers in person, on the phone, and even online.  I think it helps me be better at what I do and inspires me to share with the rest of the community.  As I talk to our customers about what makes them successful, it's rarely a discussion about on-demand project management software (although the right project management tools contribute to project success).  It's usually about implementing sound methodology and best practices.

An @task Opportunity to Mingle with Your Peers

I rarely promote @task events on the blog, but I think this is worthy of a little plug.  For anyone near New York City, @task's CEO Scott Johnson and one of our customers from the area, will be making a presentation on best practices and software developments to help organizations get more work done.  Hors d'oeuvres (which are on us) and the discussion will take place at the Ritz-Carlton on March 25, 2010 from 4:00 to 6:30 pm.  If you're interested in attending the FREE event, you can register HERE.

Health insurance is a hot topic right now.  While there are many opinions about how insurance should be managed and provided, one fairly common theme is the thought that insurance is important.  Understanding the importance of insurance, can we insure the software products we so often depend on for the success of our business?

 

Software support programs often offer that insurance.  When presented with support options, one should consider the following questions:

 

1.     How important to my business is this software?

2.     Do I have the in-house staff available to fix any problems?

 

One way to evaluate importance is to measure the overall cost to your business if a certain software program were to be unavailable for a period of time, or restricted in its use because of a usability issue.  Does that cost exceed the cost of the support program?

 

An in-house IT staff may be able to help in a lot of situations, but you should evaluate the specific software and decide if it is something you can support in-house.  A lot of today’s software is offered as a SaaS service and access to systems is often limited.  A support program may be vital for these software packages.

 

Some companies are so confident in software support programs that they give the software away for free and only charge for the support program.  In these cases the programs usually include things like product updates.  Others charge for the software and the support, usually offering product updates with the purchase of the software.  For organizations doing project based work, project management software is becoming a mission-critical part of the way every organization does business—making it very important to keep the software up-to-date and operating efficiently.


Although opinions on the best software business model differ, one thing is certain, support and services are important.

Why do today what can be put off until tomorrow?

At one time or another we all do it.  In fact, I sometimes wonder if procrastination is part of human nature.  However, when it comes to project management decision-making, procrastination can be detrimental to the success of the project and expensive.

Of course, overcoming the urge to procrastinate is easier said than done.  "Just Do It" might work for Nike, but project managers in the trenches have to do more than pull on a pair of running shoes and hit the streets.  That being said, planning for procrastination as we do for resources, return, and risk could provide an answer.

By "planning for procrastination" I mean, making as many decisions up front as possible—eliminating the need for spontaneous decision-making when it's crunch time.  That doesn't mean there's no room for making decisions as situations change, but it does eliminate the need to make decisions about things that could easily be made in advance.  Thomas Edison said, "Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets planning."  I think inventing the lightbulb was a pretty successful project.

Another option is to pre-establish the criteria for making decisions in any given circumstance.  Of course you can't anticipate everything, but you can plan ahead for many of the common challenges and situations that might occur.

With that in mind, we will need to remember the words of humorist Will Rogers, "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."

With any project based work the ramifications associated with procrastination are serious.  There are project management tools that will make it easier to plan, communicate with team members, and evaluate success, but ultimately we have to "Just Do It."

Maybe Nike is right after all.

What are you doing to avoid procrastination? 

"How do you hold onto your best change leaders?  Promote them," says Robert W. Gunn at the Harvard Business Review.  "That's a key finding of my consultancy's study of 84 major, multiyear change initiatives completed between 1995 and 2005 at 36 Fortune 500 companies.  The programs—such as restructuring, reducing costs, globalizing supply chains, creating shared services, and implementing Six Sigma—where among those that figure prominently in companies' annual reports."

Gunn awarded high scores to those organizations that embraced change and consciously developed change leaders.  About one-third of the companies studied received the high marks.  "Perhaps not surprisingly," writes Gunn, "all of the change events at these high-scoring companies met or exceeded leadership's expectations, and 62% of the executives who led these initiatives were promoted."  According to Gunn, about 11% of the change leaders left these companies once the projects ended.

This was not the case with the remaining two-thirds.  Although these organizations experienced a 74% project success rate, only 12% of the change leaders were promoted and 25% of them left.  "Thus," argues Gunn, "CEOs of poorly rated firms lost proven change leaders—the executives most comfortable with taking risks, going after big goals, and leading in the face of uncertainty—at about twice the rate as CDOs of the high-scoring firms."

Gunn suggests that organizations that use change initiatives to promote leadership development create what he calls a "virtuous circle."  Change initiatives thrive, and the development of skilled executives provides leaders who are able to drive the next wave of reform.  Gunn also says that, "Valuations suggest that investors notice companies that are adept at managing change and supporting change leadership."

Managing change is a big part of successful work management.  Nurturing managers who are skilled at dealing with the challenges of project based work is important—particularly if you want to keep your best project management leaders.

The Magic 8 Ball is not a good project management decision-making tool.

In a blog post written by John McKee for TechRepublic a while back, I stumbled upon these three decision-making techniques that have been successfully utilized by great leaders:

1. Trust the Marines: The US Marines have a tool they teach their officers called the 70% solution.  If you have 70% of the information you need to have, 70% of the analysis you think is required, and feel 70% confident that you are right—get on with it.  The Marines feel that a well-reasoned decision that is well executed has a fair chance of success, but no action has no chance of success.
2. Take a clue from the coaches: Coaches are always asking questions.  By asking questions you will learn the good, the bad, and the ugly—helping you make the best decisions.
3. Trust your feelings, Luke: Sometimes your "internal barometer" helps you make decisions and take action.  Of course, intuition, gut instinct, or "the Force" might not be a good way to make all your decisions, but it's often a good place to start.

The ability to make quick and informed decisions is part of what makes a good leader.  After all, leaders are paid to make decisions.  "Otherwise," writes McKee, "we could just populate entire organizations with lawyers presenting both sides of any case/problem to each other all day long."

Do you have any decision-making tips you'd be willing to share? Do you have project management tools that help you make good decisions?

"Go West, young man," wrote Horace Greeley.

I live in the west.  Smack dab in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.  I don't tote around a six-shooter, but I do drive a Jeep, like to go camping, and enjoy playing in the mountains or the high deserts of Southern Utah. 

After you escape the bigger cities and get off the Interstate, there's a lot of wide-open country—towns are about thirty miles apart.  It's the distance a buggy or a horse and rider could travel in a day (and the distance I can cover in my Jeep in about 30 minutes).  My world is a little smaller than the early settlers in Utah.

However, for organizations doing project based work, the world has become even smaller.  The vast array of technological tools available today are getting better and better at making virtual project teams effective, allowing people to be accessible without being in the same building, the same country, or even the same continent.

Some of the benefits of building virtual teams include:

• Organizations can hire the best people for the job regardless of geographic proximity
• The overhead expenses related to brick-and-mortar office space can be reduced
• Global project teams make it possible for work to be virtually done around-the-clock

The benefits of working with virtual teams can be pretty substantial, but there are some considerations that need to taken into account before jumping in with both feet.  If you're considering working with virtual teams, let me suggest the following regarding people, process, and technology:

People:

• Trust yourself and your employees
• Clearly communicate roles, responsibilities, and expectations
• As a team, understand how productivity will be measured

Process:

• Build a communication plan that takes into account the diverse geographical relationship of the team
• Define an electronic records archiving policy
• Establish an electronic communications standard

Technology:

• Use collaborative workspaces to manage project content
• Deploy and use an online "chat-like" capability
• Use Internet-based meetings with both voice and video

Online project management software has come a long way in the last few years, making it possible for organizations to manage projects and teams from anywhere with an Internet connection.  When looking for a technology solution, it's important to consider a few things like foreign language capability, platform independence, collaboration and communication capabilities, as well as scalability of the network and online access.  The right solution will help address many of the people and process requirements of working with a virtual team.

Do you have experience working virtually with a project team?  Please share what you're doing to promote efficiency and effectiveness with a global team.

Einstein said, "I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn."

Providing the right environment for learning is critical for the implementation and adoption success of any technology—including project management technology.  That being said, creating the right environment requires that we consider how it is that people learn.  In David Wrick's book, The Project Management Imperative: Mastering the Key Survival Skill for the 21st Century, he suggests that effective learning requires both explicit and tacit mechanisms for transferring knowledge.

• Explicit Knowledge is transmitted in formal, systematic language.  It's what we learn in training programs, manuals, and by reading books.
• Tacit Learning is personal, context-specific, and hard to formalize and communicate.  In most cases, it requires face-to-face interaction and is very dependent on the context where the knowledge is to be applied.

Because there are some things you can't learn from reading a book (explicit knowledge), @task has developed an implementation and adoption plan that creates a framework of experience, collaboration, and the time for tacit learning to take place.  This type of knowledge (tacit learning) is best obtained by exposure to working project management professionals.  "Tacit knowledge transfer requires ... contract and a willingness to share information," writes Wrick.

@task's approach takes both explicit and tacit learning into account with three proven keys to help your organization successfully implement @task's project management software in your organization.

1. People: People-focused consulting and training services are a critical component to successful @task implementation and adoption success.
2. Process: @task helps identify and implement business processes and best practices that will enable any company to focus on the projects that best align with corporate strategic and financial goals.
3. Technology: Implementing @task to best meet the needs of an organization is crucial to success.  A one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn't work.  From setup, to evaluation, and validation—a work management expert helps optimize @task's state-of-the-art project management technology to meet customer needs.

By addressing the way people process information and learn, @task's focus on people, process, and technology facilitates a quick and successful implementation so the workforce can focus on those activities that will provide the most value.  Project management expert and author Harvey Levine calls it, "Bringing the organization to a desired future state."

@task Professional Services can help your organization:

• Achieve successful adoption
• Streamline implementation
• Incorporate project management best practices
• Get up and running quickly
• Facilitate a focused workforce

Click HERE to learn more.

In the military, when any soldier or other military member leaves his or her post without permission, he or she is considered AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave).  A missing soldier leaves a void—which could negatively contribute to the success of the mission.  Everyone involved in a project, including the sponsor, has a role to play in the results obtained by any project based work.

Any work management plan should include sponsor and stakeholder involvement.  Here are some suggestions for keeping sponsors engaged and participating:

1. Schedule regular meetings (generally monthly) with sponsors, team members and other important stakeholders: This may be a good time for a "quick" status update; but more importantly, it is a time for reinforcing the value and significance of the project in terms of business value and the sponsor's commitment to helping the team.
2. Educate the sponsor on their role as part of the team:  The sponsor has a significant role as a project advocate in a steering/stakeholder committee as a way to communicate with stakeholders and provide visibility to executives.
3. Don't neglect impromptu one-on-one time with the project sponsor: Make sure your sponsor is willing to have the occasional informal meetings as needed.  It's not only important to cultivate the relationship with the sponsor—your success impacts their success, and vice versa.

Keeping sponsors engaged often makes the difference between a project that succeeds and one that fails.  Project management tools that facilitate sponsor and stakeholder communication can help make this easier, but regardless of whether or not it's a part of your work management solution, allowing project sponsors to go AWOL isn't a good idea.

How do you keep project sponsors from going AWOL?

I see on Twitter all the time lists of the best project management software, the best business intelligence tools, or the best portfolio management products.  I thought I would toss in my two cents today.

The polish poet, Stanislaw Jerzy Lec said, "The weakest link in the chain is also the strongest.  It can break the chain."

When most organizations consider project and portfolio management tools, they look at visibility and business intelligence tools for validating that execution aligns with corporate strategy.  This is important, even critical, but most project software misses the point.  It ignores the end user, the person who is actually in a position to input the most accurate data.  This oversight forces project managers to spend the lion's share of their time chasing down status instead of leading project teams and facilitating successful projects.

Addressing the needs of individual project team members is the crucial link (weak or strong), that determines whether or not the information business leaders use for making decisions is accurate or a bunch of bunk.  Making it difficult for team members to contribute to the project management process just doesn't make sense—and virtually guarantees that information will be out of date and unreliable.

What's more, organizations that rely on any solution, including project management software that doesn't automatically capture status information simply can't guarantee that decision-makers have accurate and up-to-date information.  They might as well continue to use a spreadsheet and sticky notes.

In my opinion, when looking for project software, I think it's critical to include the following criteria in your evaluation:

1. Does the solution address ease-of-use needs for end users?
2. Does the solution automatically push project status information into reports and dashboards that executives can use to make data-driven decisions?
3. Or does if force project managers to manually input data, duplicating effort, forcing them to ignore their primary responsibilities to keep projects on track and lead project teams?

Admittedly, these are only a few of the questions you'll need to ask as you evaluate the available project management software solutions—but they are critical questions if you want to effectively engage the workforce and enjoy success.

I don't believe the workforce is the weakest link in the chain.  In fact, I think they are the keystone to successful project-based work.  Workforce involvement in the project management process results in accurate information and good decisions.  What are you doing to keep your project teams involved in the process?  Are you using software or something else?

One of the hardest things I faced when I was an accidental project manager (at a 3D digital content creation company) was that I didn't know how to do what the digital artists were doing. To their way of thinking, it was a case of "Those who know, do; those who don't, do project management," and "Why should we listen to you when we're the artists and you just enter stuff into some business project management software program."

I had to find a way to not only build team cohesion, but also find a way to garner their respect to insure they listened to me and worked with me, so the projects we did together were successful. In the case of this sort of project based work, failure was simply not an option—the 3D content was commissioned by a customer for use in a commercial, movie, or simulation, and it had to be ready to use on or before the due date. No excuses.

What to do? This was a completely foreign situation for me (I'm told I'm quite likeable, really). I'm fairly creative and artistic, so I tried to learn how to create digital content using a 'simple' 3D modeling program; sadly, I was really not very good at it. But in the process of trying, I did learn a lot of relevant terms and concepts that were incomprehensible to me prior to my aborted attempt to walk the walk. I could now look at a wireframe model and see an inverted polygon; I could look at a texture-mapped image and find areas of interpenetration, I could speak with them in their own geeky-3D language!

And, just like that, everything was ok. Turns out all they wanted was to know that I felt their pain, respected their work, recognized their genius, and appreciated that what they did was definitely NOT something just anyone could do. Some call it mirroring; some call it mentoring; I call it team-building.

When starting a project, it's important to first develop a rapport with your team. Everyone has a different approach to this ... some use pizza and donuts, others do team-building exercises and games, and far too many just don't bother to do anything more than fix deadlines and yell at people. Can't see this last one ever being very useful.

How do you turn your new teams into cohesive units? 

As long as organizations are flush with cash and resource rich, achieving work management success is relatively easy.  However, when budgets are tight and resources are stretched thin, the secret to successful project based work is a little more challenging.  That being said, as project teams are forced to work with smaller budgets and minimal resources, focusing on these three things will enable success:

1. The Right Projects
2. The Right Team
3. The Right Approach

The Right Projects:

Depending on the organization, there are a number of criteria for choosing the right projects, however, when resources are scarce you might want to ask the following questions:

• What will it cost to get the project done (low capital cost is most desirable)?
• Can we achieve the objective with our current resources?
• Is it possible to finish in a short time period (less than six months)?
• Is there a lot of need?
• Is it a low-risk initiative?
• Will it provide a high payback?

The above questions will help you determine if the project under consideration is the right project.

The Right Team:

Merely because someone is available doesn't mean they are the right person for the team.  Make sure you have the right skills and the right people on the team.

The Right Approach:

Depending on the project, there are many approaches; however successful projects have a few things in common regardless of the project management tools you use: an engaged project sponsor, a clear list of objectives, and a reasonable timeline.

It's not impossible to be successful with smaller budgets, all you need is the right projects, the right team, and the right approach.

The philosopher George Santayana said, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

This is sometimes referred to as Santayana's Law of Repetitive Consequences; and is nowhere more evident than in project based work.  It's been said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.  The increasing pace of change in the workplace often makes it difficult to learn from experience as processes and personnel are constantly changing.

In my opinion, to successfully learn from experience requires a regular and consistent approach that can be incorporated into any work management methodology.  Here are a few suggestions to help any project team learn from experience:

• Establish a venue for sharing lessons-learned: It doesn't matter whether you call it a post-mortem, a project review, or a project retrospective, most organizations don't do them—but they should. 
• Share what has been learned: Although most organizatios don't bother with a project retrospective, those that do don't always create an environment that encorages real learning—and even fewer share what was learned.
• Don't make learning the next corporate initiative: It's natural for organizations to try to formalize the learning process into the next corporate project.  Although the natural learning process should be encouraged, "corporate" is all to often the same as "bureaucratic," which employees will be more likely to avoid.
• Don't make learning a one-time activity: Project learning should be ongoing and interactive—don't let it become an isolated activity that happens rarely.

Every organization has different needs.  Some rely on their project software to help facilitate the learning process.  I think that's good, but even organizations that don't use any specific project management tools need to create an environment where project learning can regularly take place.  Because this is a challenge for a number of organizations, please share some of your suggestions and successes.

I think it's universally accepted that collaboration and cooperation are critical to the success of project based work.  That being said, how should organizations define cooperation success and how do they achieve it?  In an article written by Sue Dyer for Projects@Work, she suggests three levels of cooperation:

1. Cooperation
2. Collaboration
   
3. Co-Creation

"These three levels of cooperation are available to all teams," writes Dyer.  Let's talk about her five suggestions for pushing cooperation to the next level.

Tip #1: Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities

Successful cooperation depends on clearly defining what you are trying to accomplish.  It's easy to make assignments and hold each other accountable for whether or not specific tasks are completed, but cooperation can only happen if everyone understands the vision of what they are doing "together." 

Tip #2: Commit to Being Fair

The foundation of trust in any kind of strategic partnership or cooperative effort is a commitment to being fair.  Successful project management cooperation requires that team members have confidence that they will be treated fairly.  When that atmosphere exists, cooperation and synergy really begins.

Tip #3: Get Off Your Butts

Objectives might not always be easy.  If all you ever hear is, "yes, but," you're team is defeated before you've even begun.  This can make the team adversarial—the opposite of cooperative.  Take time to find out why there is push-back and work together to find a solution.  Cooperation implies working together to overcome obstacles.  Saying, "Just make it happen," doesn't just make it happen.

Tip #4: Create Accountability

Dyer recommends some kind of a scorecard for offering anonymous feedback, so team members can see where they stand with each other and on the objectives.  I prefer making expectations clear in the beginning (see Tip #1), and regularly evaluating progress against the objectives.  Of course, sometimes situations change which will require objectives to be adjusted.  Regular and productive communication and collaboration will make this a seamless process.

Tip #5: Plan For Disagreements

Regardless of your particular work management plan, nothing ever seems to go exactly as planned—and people don't always get along.  Creating a conflict resolution plan before conflicts exist makes dealing with issues among team members easier to resolve.

Creating an atmosphere of cooperation, collaboration, and co-creation doesn't just happen.  It takes some elbow grease.  I'd love to hear about successes you've experienced in this regard.

What makes someone a stakeholder, anyway? Let's see ... project sponsor; customer; investor, CEO, champion .. actually I think it really means anyone who has any stake in the project or the outcome, but for now let's focus on the sponsor/champion persona.

I was reading a discussion string on LinkedIn the other day about what factors lead to project failure, and the poster and most of the commenters agreed that the #1 factor leading to a failed project is stakeholders. This surprised me, but I guess I've been lucky in that I've never managed a project where I've had to deal with this personally. But I do see it and hear about it, so I wanted to consider it more closely.

Stakeholders seem to all start out as an avid champion of the project, regardless of their title or vantage point, but over time they tend to fall into one of three categories: friend, foe, or neutral. The friend is the easiest to work with - they have a vested interest in a successful outcome, and really want to see you and the project succeed. The neutral parties were most likely excited and invested at the beginning of the project, but have lost interest or been distracted by other things over time. 

A foe is not someone who is against your project, but it might be someone who competes with you for resources or tries to allocate them to other projects. Anyone in project management or who performs project based work will have to deal with this conflict eventually. The trick is to do your best to anticipate the situation and communicate your resources needs ... a preemptive strike, if you want to look at it as conflict resolution.

So, it all appears to come down to Stakeholder Management, which we'll leave to another post (except for this cartoon, which just amused me).

I will say that a flexible online project management tool with good reporting capabilities can go a long way to keeping stakeholders informed and so at bay. But I think the real trick is to avoid the pitfall of coming to see ALL your stakeholders as "The Enemy." It's so easy to get into an us-against-them mindset, but this is completely counter-productive.

How do you see your stakeholders? What advice do you have to offer to other project managers to keep their stakeholders all planted solidly in the 'Friends' category so they can get on with the job of project management?

You may have a stakeholder meeting scheduled for half and hour, but in reality you've only got about 60 seconds.  After that, you've got to earn their attention, or they'll start checking their email and watching the clock. 

Everyone involved in project based work has to deal with sponsors and stakeholders.  I stumbled across these 10 tips to keep stakeholders interested and engaged a couple of years ago, I think they still apply:

1. Pique their interest—An agenda is always a good idea, but a brief summary of what will be discussed gives them a take-away and allows them to come prepared with questions.
2. Don't assume they know their job as stakeholder—They might understand the high-level view, but you might need to help with the details.
3. Keep it simple—Give them the situation in straightforward terms.  Don't overwhelm them with information.  Cut to the chase.
4. Use numbers and pictures—PowerPoint is a great tool for presenting graphics and numbers to stakeholders.  It's how they present information to each other.  You should use it too.
5. Sometimes you'll have to use logic—Accept the fact that there might not always be data to support a particular situation.  Not having numbers to back up your position will make your argument problematic, so you may have to turn to "if...then..." logic to shed light on a situation.  However, don't expect the same results or response from stakeholders—numbers rule with them.
6. Waiting is never a good option—Don't wait until a problem is obvious—it's often more difficult to solve the issue at that point.
7. Always offer a solution—If you are going to bring up a problem without offering a potential solution, you might as well tell all the stakeholders, "Fire me now."  That's why you're the project manager.
8. Specify the actions required of them—If stakeholders need to take any action, don't assume it will be obvious to them.  Restate—in list form—what actions need to be taken and by whom.
9. Always say "yes," but make sure they understand the cost of "yes"—Sponsors and stakeholders don't like to be told "no," so don't do it.  Just make sure that they all understand what "yes" will cost.  That way they can judge for themselves whether or not "yes" is worth it.
10. One last tip—Don't stop reporting status just because stakeholders stop requiring it.

Regardless of your work management methodology, there are a lot of project management tools out there to help manage tasks and timelines—just make sure you also have access to the data stakeholders want to see to make decisons.

Did I miss anything?