Projects: What Do You Mean, SUCCESS?

     I had this informal document that tracked a software project from first requirements, resource allotments and schedule to final conclusion, triumphantly scored at the end as a success. The lead author and project manager provided it, assuring me of its authenticity. I think she wanted to make a point.

     The document was an amazing string of email messages, periodic exchanges among the remotely-located team members over an eight-month period.

     With an apparent straight face and an utter lack of adherence to reality, the compiled emails reported “progress” as a two-month plan incrementally expanded to seven months, the team handled 130+ out-of-scope tasks and the invested person-hours went who-knows-where.

Project Management -- Trust but Verify

One of the most startling things about Project Management is that it demands complete honesty and sensitive diplomacy – both at the same time, and from the same person: The Project Manager.

This refers, of course, to Project Management properly executed, not the inexact and ineffective performance we often see around us in the name of our distinctive art/science.

First, the complete honesty part. What is the most common flaw of damaged projects? Failure of clear understanding, agreement and follow-through on the responsibilities of the various stakeholders. This cripples projects. If they are to succeed, everyone involved must be clear on what is expected, and on commitments as well as on intended payoffs.

How to Argue

You never know whether your opinion is right until you get into an argument about it. And, if you don’t argue properly, you may never know.

People talk a lot of foolishness about arguing. Some say it’s a bad thing and should be avoided. They believe it accomplishes nothing except to hurt people, damage relationships and harden attitudes. Others say it’s a lost art because of “political correctness.” They are convinced that people tiptoe around each other, letting good ideas as well as error and misinformation slide by because they don’t want conflict.

So here’s a question for you: How much progress is possible without disagreement?

Competition is disagreement. Coke vs. Pepsi. The two flavors have competed for about a century, and their respective proponents have been known to disagree – sometimes vociferously – about their relative merits.

Life Is a Project: How Are You Managing?

Think of a typical day at work. Have you ever tracked your hour-by-hour activities (forget minute-by-minute – that’s too fragmented)?

Did any random occurrence that day advance your progress toward where you want to be in life? Did some person do that for you?

How about your own conscious actions? Did you do work, or conduct conversations, or make decisions, that put you further ahead in life?

How about your days away from the job? Where do they go?

Don't Just Meet

Meetings often are the tragedies of organizations. Many meetings suffocate initiative, disrupt productivity and poison attitudes.

This is tragic because good meetings are the jewels of organizations. Done right, meetings multiply the value of the knowledge, talent and skill collected in that place at that time. They produce remarkable payoffs for the organization, and heighten the participants’ productivity and enthusiasm. The immediate benefit contributes to continuous improvement.

If only the group would occasionally have a meeting about meetings, its native good sense could very well dissolve this epidemic of bad meetings, because the antidotes are relatively simple and sensible.

Motivation: The Mule's Tale

There is this mule, see. Stubborn, lazy, selfish. Totally complacent and absorbed with comfort. Devoid of ambition.

One thing, though. When the muleskinner cracks the whip, the mule hops to, gets moving, gets on the ball. It’s magical.

The muleskinner has never actually skinned the mule – or even whacked it much – but you’d never know that. The mule can be the very model of productive effort, but only when the muleskinner gets serious with him/her. The muleskinner issues very clear and specific commands . .  . and never, ever backs off or compromises.

The Biggest, Sneakiest Project Risk

The accomplished engineer made no bones about it. “When I ask someone to do something,” he told a roomful of us, “I always do it myself as well, to make sure it gets done right.”

Got that? After delegating an assignment to someone, he would secretly duplicate the entire task himself because he trusted no one else to handle it properly. This was the triumph of personal perfectionism over everything we’ve all been saying about teamwork, delegation, personal productivity, staff development, supervisory responsibility. This was the ultimate failure of trust.

It’s an exaggerated example, but don’t kid yourself: It represents the major weakness of most projects. There is an implicit, general limit on expectations arising from our experience with our colleagues and managers. People often just don’t actually do what they say they’re going to do, and we adjust our estimates accordingly.