Learning Leader

What's a Badge? Where's the Value?

This certificate was waiting for me this morning. 

It's part of my job, it seems, to be in a perpetual cycle of taking exams and (hopefully) getting sent such things, so forgive me if I sound blasé but this did not stir me to great rejoicing.It has become quite normal. 

But today this one did make me pause. I thought back to the assessment process. Unusually from an APMG qualification, this was not gained by a tick-box exam paper, but rather by means of submitting a 4,000 + word dissertation on an aspect of a programme. In my case I chose stakeholder engagement, and it was the assessment process that added value for me. And I found it really rewarding to reflect on different aspects of this theme in the Managing Successful Programmes Framework and relate that to other aspects of the programme. Reflective writing is one of the ways I learn.

As Dawson Trotman once said: 

"Thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass through your fingertips."

The whole process was more rewarding for me than the certificate, although I'm sure my colleagues in pearcemayfield will beg to differ!

One further point: this blog has been quiet these last few weeks as I've been …. writing. I'll be publishing a book later this year on how project managers can do the 'people thing', stakeholder engagement, much much better. Let me know if you are interested in this.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Project & Programme Managers: Have We Got It Right?

We had a great day yesterday with a few of our major clients at Lotus F1 headquarters.

That's me with the nearest thing you'll to me sitting in a Lotus position...

I'm not a "petrolhead", so it astonishes me how wide and passionate is the appeal of Formula One. Some people got very enthustiastic during the 'Pit Stop Challenge'!

We had canvassed our clients on what were their hot topics and the one that emerged most strongly was, "How do we measure the Effectiveness of Programme and Project Managers?" So at the end of proceedings I had to stand up and give my assessment. Here it is on SlideShare.

 

Measuring the effectiveness of Project and Program Managers: Have we got it right? from Patrick Mayfield

From my perspective we can't separate competence from learning, nor the role from the context in which it happens. So we have a lot to improve in how we measure and develop project and programme managers.

Do let me have your views.

Widening the net, and why we don't do it

So we are given a project and pretty soon we ask, "Who are the people affected, our stakeholders?"

If we are careful, we don't define this as people who are merely affected during the life of the project, but also affected by its outcome, the difference our project can and should make in the world after the project is over.

Even using the word 'affected' can be a little too limiting. This implies we only consider people who are impacted by what we do. How about drawing the net a little wider? How about including people who have an interest in our project and its outcome?

This comes back to the classic definition we use of a 'stakeholder': any individual or group who has an interest in the project or its outcome.

Now some project managers can find this wider net daunting and can resist this. Usually there are three reasons for this:

1. "This is more likely to involve the 'difficult' people. If I do this, I am adding risks to my project."

Yes, that there are risks here.

However, a greater risk is from overlooking some important stakeholder. This omission can be very damaging later, when that stakeholder is aggrieved that you have left them out of the loop. "You can forget important stakeholders, but they won't forget you," is one of our favourite aphorisms.

2. "This will increase my workload. It would overwhelm me. I can't communicate with all these people and groups."       

No, you can't. Nor should you try. Remember, if your project is large enough to have a team, including your project sponsor and, perhaps, a project office, then you need to work with them on this engagement challenge as a team effort. Delegate out to them some of that engagement. It is likely, for example, that your project sponsor is a more suitable candidate for engaging some key people.

Also, by this more inclusive approach you will identify stakeholders that perhaps you later dismiss from engagement, either because they are very marginal or because you need to prioritise. But this is much more robust approach than being in denial about engaging with them from the outset. It may be that you do not need to engage certain stakeholders yet; but the time will come. You have thought this through. You are more prepared.

3. "My job is merely to deliver the project. The outcomes are someone else's problem."

I don't encounter this response as much in these more enlightened times. Even if you are tempted to exempt yourself from engagement by this extremely conservative view of project management, you do well to remind yourself that you ultimately you serve your customer. You are helping them achieve their business case. Yes, much of this work - the operational transition and benefits realisation - might be scoped outside of your project, but the best project managers, the ones that are most highly regarded, are those who make it their business to make sure others are ready to do this.

So make sure when identifying your stakeholders, you identify all of them. Make sure you draw your net widely enough. And don't let some of these common objections put you off.

 

Engaging your Project Stakeholder Workshop

 

 

The fulcrum of Change

Last week I led our Change Management Practitioner course for a client in Kuwait. As expected, taking people through this material helps me reflect more deeply on some aspect other.

One theme that emerged this time was being clear about what will not change, being clear in one's own mind and within one's change team, as well as clear with all the other stakeholders. I'm sure you can see immediately why this is important to people. Depending on the change, it can be pretty disturbing stuff, particularly if everything familiar seems to be under threat.

At an early point in the course we cover the 'levers of change', the various areas to consider in making change happen. Well, I remember from my Physics that for a lever to work - to get leverage - a fulcrum is needed. As I understand it, a fulcrum is something firm that won't move. In the same way i believe we need a fulcrum for the change levers to work. What might such changeless areas be?

In their management classic, Built to Last, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras showed from research that all organizations that prevailed over the longer term where ones that

• Had a clear understanding of their values, and
• Were constantly reinventing their practices whilst never messing with their values.

In order to be able to be constantly changing, they had to have something firm and changeless. Values were their fulcrum. In the chaos of change, people in these organizations always knew what the organization stood for.

What are the values in your organization that you can hold up and say, "We stand for these things, and they will not change."?

The 'bubble' and why you should worry about it

Gary Barlow, song-writer and member of Take That! was asked recently how he, generally considered all-round Mr Nice Guy, could be so cruel and cutting wth some of the contestants he was judging on the UK TV's "X Factor". The excuse he gave was that when he found himself up on stage behind the judges' table he experienced being in "a bubble" that made him suspend his normal considerations for people.

Also interviewed recently on BBC's Radio 4 was a former  journalist for the British tabloid newspaper "The Daily Star". He was being asked about Lord Leveson's inquiry into alleged excessive and intrusive practices of tabloid journalism. He described the Star's newsroom as a sort of "bubble", where the personal pain inflicted on subjects written about and on their families was rarely, if ever, considered; merely whether a story would "stand up" (boost circulation).

This dissociation of what we say about people with the consequences on them isn't confined to reality TV judges or tabloid journalists, of course. We learn that bankers, politicians, wheel-clampers, burglers and bureaucrats also have their own bubbles that they live within.

The world right now seems replete with bubbles but rather short on empathy, the ability to put oneself in another's shoes.

This week, I've been leading our leading Change Management Practitioner course and some delegates have commented on the theme of empathy that has emerged from a number of authorities in this field: Daniel Goleman, Stephen Covey and Carl Rogers, to name but three. There is an overwhelming argument from such authorities that empathy is a key skill in influencing the people around us.

I think this world would be a better place if we were little more self-aware and burst a few of these bubbles. What do you think?

Agile Stakeholder Engagement

The whole process of stakeholder engagement must not be thought of as purely linear. Management guides on this such as MSP(Managing Successful Programmes) have this sort of sequence: 

 

 

In reality it looks more like this:

 

 

 

I came across this account yesterday by a programme manager leading a huge physical move of his organisation to new HQ premises:

“I found from talking to staff that many knew little about the programme and were anxious to know more. Consequently I developed the ... Strategy.”

He goes on to describe the new communications channels he set up and how he planned key messages that flowed through them.

Once again we find that the best management ‘map’ may be useful, but it is not quite the ‘territory’ we find ourselves travelling through.

Who do you write your business case for?

When you write a business case for your project or programme, who exactly are you writing it for?

My colleague, John Edmonds, and I were talking about this yesterday as we reviewed our Business Case Workshop material.

We identified three audiences:

1. Your investors. These people are the obvious target of your business case. You are writing it to 'sell' your project to them so you gain their approval and funding. PRINCE2 calls these investors the Project Board; more specifically it is the Project Executive or sponsor. In MSP it is the Programme Director and the Sponsoring Group. These people will make the investment decision.
   
   Questions they will ask are: "How likely is it that I will get a return on my investment?" "How does this support our strategy and critical is it to that strategy?" "How can I compare investment in this initiative against another?" and "What risks are there to the achievement of this business case?"
   
   
2. The second audience is, perhaps, a surprise: You. The very act of writing a business case will help you clarify your thinking. "Thoughts untangle themselves as they pass through the fingertips," is one of my favourite quotes.
   
   Most project managers I know are reluctant to begin writing a business case, let alone to  review it occasionally. However, if you do, you will find you begin to shape your project or programme design based on where the strengths and weaknesses are of the business case that emerges. For example, a case where benefits are predicated on early or time-constrained 'quick wins' is bound to influence you towards a shorter solution, or perhaps a phased delivery.
   
   
3. Other stakeholders. A stakeholder is usually defined as "any individual or group with an interest in the project/programme or its outcome".  Other stakeholders will be influenced by the reason why we need the project, its meaning and purpose, perhaps much more than the appeal of what you will deliver. In your business case will be reasons and benefits that are relevant to each one of these stakeholders.
   
   So you might be writing for quite a wide audience. Although these other stakeholders may never see the Business Case as a document - because it is usually fairly commercially sensitive - it needs to be mined for meaning, as the source of answers for all stakeholders' 'why' questions. Thus our business case becomes a key input into crafting our influencing and engagement with stakeholders.

So next time you have to write a business case, think of the audience, in that order. You may find it motivates you to write a better one.

The art of changing effectively: It's all in the timing

We had a wonderfully stimulating series of workshops on Friday at the Best Practice Showcase.

We focused on the question of how we get better and smoother take-up of project deliverables by client operations, an area where there is so much waste, of project products not being properly or fully used, the cause of so many unrealised benefits.

The sessions seems to build on each other and amplify as the day went on. Richard and I, with our freshly-honed graphical skills, developed a series of flip charts that we agreed to send copies of on to all participants along with our analysis of the emergent themes.
(If you would like a set please contact our office.)

One theme that emerged fairly strongly was around certain ideas that were apparently contradictory. For example, the need for quick wins was raised several times, but also the need to pause at the initiation of a project - to wait - until the key stakeholders were all properly engaged. This contradiction illustrated for me quite vividly that with change management we are dealing as much with an art as a science.

Delegates hinted at experience through the day of charging ahead to a strategic timetable without a clear consensus by key stakeholders at a senior level. Powerful people were not on board when the train left the station; so they never did get on board, with disappointing consequences.

But this picture of holding our nerve at initiation until all the key stakeholders are engaged, despite pressures to scamper on and deliver, reminded me of that classic movie, "Henry V" with Laurence Olivier as the King, where the archers have all drawn their bows as the French cavalry advance on the field of Agincourt, and they wait, and wait, and wait... The king has his gauntlet raised, but he waits.... The tension becomes almost unbearable, but he waits for the moment when the initial volley from the archers will have maximum effect.

In recent years I've been won over to the concept of Agile, of 'failing fast', of getting delivery out quickly. However, I do accept that when it comes to issues of engagement, I could quote another Shakespeare play, Julius Caesar: "There is a tide in the affairs of men, when taken at the ebb leads on to fortune."

Ultimately it's all in the timing.

Transparent Change Leadership uses the Rumour Mill

One the delegates on our recent Change Management Practitioner course shared with us a remarkable initiative within her organisation, Cambridgeshire Constabulary, the regional police force for that part of England. 

What follows is with the kind permission of the Constabulary. 

Rumour Mill is, in essence, very simple. It is an intranet discussion board, where anyone can post any question or comment about current happenings within the force ... anonymously.

Let the radical transparency of this sink in for a moment ... anyone ... anonymously ... on anything! 

Could your organisation cope with that? Would your leaders be courageous enough to provide and promote such a forum?

So, if someone, anyone, posts a comment such as, "This initiative will mean the loss of twenty jobs at HQ", within a couple of hours at most a response is posted by the change team, correcting any wrong assumptions or clarifying any confusion where appropriate.

People following the thread can see the openness of leadership here and the abiding trust grows that everyone is being heard.

I must say, that after reading the emphasis on radical transparency in Stephen Denning's latest book, I can see how courageous and powerful this is. Well done, Cambridgeshire!

Hurry Sickness

I first came across this term among writers on Christian spirituality. One author advised that a key way to grow as a Christian is to "ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life."

For most of us, our first reaction to this is that it is wholly unrealistic.This has more to do with the lifestyle of a monk than someone in business. Hurry is a chronic undertone of our stress-filled lives, something we are often unaware of until we take a vacation, perhaps, or worse, when we have a break-down. Hurry is, sadly, normal.

Yet, I'm not so sure this advice is irrelevant. In fact, I'm beginning to think that it is even more important as an exercise of self management for those of us 'in the thick of it.' 

I wrote a while back about the illustration in The Lord of the Rings of what I call the Strategic Moment. Last week I was giving my presentation on project communications to the 4th Congress of the Best Practice User Group in Bratislava, and when I moved on to talk about 'Hurry Sickness' the engagement in the room was palpable. I had touched a nerve.

I showed this visual:

One Slovak delegate said to me afterwards, "Cemeteries are full of irreplaceable people." How true.

It is clear from research that the amount of hurry people feel they are in displaces the time they would give in extending themselves in relationships. It shifts us to be less people-oriented and much more task focused. This is extremely dangerous and encourages short-term thinking. Eroded relationships with others can come back and bite us after a while. It is hurrying through fog at speed focus on the next few years; we are an accident waiting to happen.

Busyness is a great enemy of relationships. We become preoccupied with making a living, doing our work, paying bills, and accomplishing goals as if these tasks are the point of life. They are not. The point of life is learning to love – God and people. Life minus love equals zero.
--Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life

It is also clear to me that several of my client organisations have chronic hurriedness; so much so that it has become part of the culture. What I observe is way beyond professional briskness and efficiency and shifted into  long-term destructive work patterns. These behaviours are excused as 'just the way we do things around here'. For example, it becomes a peer group pressure to work late into the evenings. As a consequence, marriages suffer and break up; children become estranged. But the hurried ones are in so much of a hurry they either don't notice or promise, 'One day I'll spend "quality time" with my partner and kids.'

'One day' is now, my friend. Grasp it before it is too late.

The problem is not just about personal health and well being; ironically it affects the performance of projects in these businesses as well. As I demonstrated to the Congress, higher performers attend to relationships significantly more and as a consequence remove impediments and get results.

In the urgency of the moment this is all deeply counter-intuitive, but we must challenge work patterns that not only unproductive, but are ruining our lives as well.