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A SIXTH SENSE

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Contents

Foreword..........................................................xiA Profession in Trouble...........................................3Birth of A Sixth Sense for Project Management.....................13A Call to Action for a More Balanced Approach.....................21Awareness.........................................................33Whole Body Decisions..............................................45Clear Communication...............................................55Adaptability......................................................71Diplomacy.........................................................77Persistence.......................................................93Intuition.........................................................107Your Ticket to Learn..............................................115Acknowledgements..................................................119Notes.............................................................121Index.............................................................127

Chapter One

A Sixth Sense for Project Management® is Roeder Consulting's framework for managing the human side of change. Deploying A Sixth Sense for Project Management®, Roeder Consulting has led client projects to successful outcomes 90 percent of the time. Considering all of the variables in people and projects, we feel good about these results.

Throughout this book, I will reference Roeder Consulting and our work because it will be helpful for you to understand what our company does. In short, we are a ten-person consulting and training firm focused on helping clients change successfully. We measure ourselves by the metric in the first paragraph of this book. Did we lead the client's project to a successful outcome? Did we help the people in our training programs lead their organization's to a successful outcome? After some ten years of working on major change initiatives for a variety of organizations, I have grown to appreciate the absolute criticality of properly managing the human side of change.

I worked on projects for many Fortune 500 clients. I do not discuss the names of the clients in this book for confidentiality reasons. Some Fortune 500 projects I personally worked on have been front-page news in the Wall Street Journal. Others have been highlighted by the chief executive officer in the annual report for positively contributing to the company's performance. I mention these details only to provide perspective on the size and scope of projects I have been involved with. I also led projects for midsize and small corporations and not-for-profit organizations.

In all cases, projects and change are about people. People skills are so important that I began a personal journey to learn how to manage people during times of change. I call the contents of that body of knowledge A Sixth Sense for Project Management®. Later, I will share more details on the story of how I created A Sixth Sense for Project Management®.

Today, Roeder Consulting trains thousands of project managers and other leaders of change on these principles. A number of these people personally tell me that our approach has altered the way they think about managing change. One of the most satisfying times this occurred was earlier this year in Charlotte, North Carolina. I had just completed a training course to a group of almost twenty-five people. One of the gentlemen in the room had spent his career managing projects. He had, perhaps, twenty-five or thirty years of experience and he was on his second training course from Roeder Consulting. He told me our programs had caused him to rethink his approach.

The Sixth Sense tools and techniques we are using can be applied by all project managers. We are not doing anything you can't do. This book will outline the steps you can take to improve your rate of successful implementations too.

Research shows that many projects fail. One commonly quoted research study from the Standish Group reports that, on average, only 32 percent of all information technology projects succeed. Clearly, project management is a profession that must do better. In section one, I will discuss how we ended up in this environment of high project failures. Also, I will share a brief history of A Sixth Sense for Project Management® and how it fits into a balanced approach. Finally, in this section I will ask you to join me in embracing the changes we must make to elevate the profession of project management to the next level.

What Is a "Project Manager?"

This book frequently uses the term "project manager." By this term, I am referring not only to people who are professionally certified as project managers by the Project Management Institute (PMI) or a similar other group, but also to the much larger audience of people who find themselves leading projects. This larger group includes, but is not limited to, organizational consultants, business analysts, many human resources professionals, executives, and people of all kinds of backgrounds in roles at not-for-profit organizations. When you stop to think about it, much of what we do in life is a project. And much of what you do may be referred to as "project management."

PMI created a standard for managing projects called the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). According to the PMBOK® Guide, "a project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result." If you are conducting work that meets this criterion, then you are a project manager. "Project manager" may not formally be in your title, and you may not even be employed, but that's what you are doing. Perhaps you volunteer with a parent-teacher organization and are in charge of the annual picnic. That's a project. Perhaps you are on the swim team and need to arrange transportation for the local swim meet. That's a project. Each of these activities has a defined beginning, a defined end, and a definite result that must be achieved.

Finally, I use the term "project manager" and "project leader" interchangeably. I believe people who manage projects are leaders.

Many Projects Fail—Lack of People Skills Is a Primary Reason

Only 32 percent of information technology projects, as I already stated, are successful. This troubling statistic is the result of the extensive research of the Standish Group. Standish compiled these results from over 70,000 IT projects. Even more troubling, our performance is not improving. The success rate for projects six years earlier was 34 percent.

My experience has shown me that inadequate management of people-related issues is often at the heart of project failure. One such area is lack of business ownership and accountability. Have you ever had a project where the executive sponsor did not support the project? I know from discussions in our public classes and webinars that projects typically do not succeed without business ownership and accountability. If we are going to reduce this cause of project failure, we need something more than what we are currently doing. We need A Sixth Sense for Project Management®.

Another cause of project failure is that the team lacks authority or decision-making ability. In Roeder Consulting's training programs, we have asked the following question for years: "Do all of the stakeholders in your projects report directly to you?" I have...