TIME FOR A NEW PROJECT MINDSET

CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS

Due to the ever-changing marketplace and increasing global competition, public companies are going bankrupt and being delisted from trading exchanges at an alarming rate. Attribute it to the internet, globalization, software advances, robotics, wireless technology or whatever else you want, one thing is certain, we are living in a new world economy where companies, and even countries, are leap-frogging one another at a frantic pace. In approximately 30 years, the U.S. economy will drop to third in the world, while Japan and Germany will lose their coveted spots in the top five, if all goes as projected by numerous researchers. Figure 1.1 illustrates these changing times.

This new world economy is gobbling up businesses left and right that haven't adapted to this highly competitive, rapidly changing marketplace. Those still relying on traditional, outdated methods are setting themselves up for a rough road ahead, and the competition isn't slowing down for anyone.

Let's jump right in. What do these well-known companies and iconic brands have in common?

• Kodak

• TWA

• Trump Taj Mahal

• A&P

• Bennigan's

• WorldCom

• Lehman Brothers

• Radio Shack

• Blockbuster

• Toys "R" Us

• Nortel

• Washington Mutual

Yup, they are all bankrupt or are currently in bankruptcy proceedings. Kodak invented digital photography — bankrupt. Radio Shack was the only game in town at one point — bankrupt. The lines at Acme and Shop-Rite are a mile long, but A&P — bankrupt. Applebee's and Ruby Tuesdays are always crowded, but Bennigan's — bankrupt. This list doesn't even include those that were touted as too big to fail or others that were bailed out by government funds. Even well-established companies with renowned brands are not impervious to fluctuating worldwide market conditions. The companies that can adapt to this volatility — not necessarily the strongest or smartest — are the ones that will survive and flourish in this new world economy.

There's a reason why Jeff Bezos of Amazon became the richest person in the world at one point and remains in a constant battle with other billionaires for that coveted position. Even though Amazon didn't turn a profit for many years after its inception, Bezos maintained his vision, expanded the business with a laser focus on the customer, and explored innovative ways of differentiating his company. Amazon went from being an online bookstore to the largest Internet-based retailer in the world. Amazon has recently purchased Whole Foods in an attempt to transform the grocery business and is even researching and investing in drone technology for package delivery. All of this is happening while Toys "R" Us and other leading retailers are shutting their doors.

Organizations that remain competitive are the ones making smart business decisions regarding how they invest their money in strategic initiatives (i.e., projects) and how they manage those investments until the desired returns are realized. When you invest your money, what do you expect? Positive returns, of course. Well it's no different in the business world. Projects are the strategic investments that our companies make to achieve specific business returns to remain competitive in the global marketplace.

Effective project management is paramount to ensuring that our strategic investments are generating their intended results. So, how do you think we are doing? It sounds straightforward enough: you invest money in a project, and you expect to receive a positive business outcome — it's as simple as that. Well, here's the news — and it's not so good: far too many projects fail and create monetary losses for their companies, not nearly enough projects align with the overall corporate strategy, and very few companies report high benefits realization maturity.

We're not going to dwell on these gloomy trends, but we will use them to serve as a wake-up call to get our business and project affairs in order. Just as companies need to be highly adaptable to this ever-changing global economy, we as project practitioners need to embrace a similar approach. Let's investigate how.

IF IT AIN'T BROKE ...

... Don't fix it, right? WRONG! The mentality of if it ain't broke, don't fix it got us into this mess in the first place. Our projects are volatile endeavors filled with numerous uncertainties, dependencies, contingencies, and risks — not to mention the personalities and competing interests. They require a lot of attention! Let's look at what if it ain't broke, don't fix it does for our projects:

• Always reporting green status until all of those ignored, underlying issues come to the forefront — resulting in the project turning bright red

• Simply extending the due dates when they are missed — resulting in senior stakeholders demanding to know why we are a year into a six-month project

• Exceeding the project budget — resulting in executives scrambling to find more money to keep the project alive

• Closing out a project after a ton of hard work, time, and money — and then wondering if it was all worth it

It's time to shift out of cruise control and start driving our projects toward their intended business objectives; and this requires constantly adjusting the speed, the direction, and sometimes even the driver! Projects that just limp along without the required adjustments and improvements are sucking the lifeblood out of too many companies. In this ludicrously competitive new world economy, our project management mantra needs to shift from: If it ain't broke, don't fix it to:

If it ain't broke, fix it anyway!

Chances are, it's going to be broken soon enough. There are immeasurable amounts of moving parts with any project, so if you allow the possibility, it most certainly will become broken. Plus, there's always room for improvement with any project. Mull this over — the second you're done putting together a detailed project plan — it's wrong! The second you're done crafting a business case document — it's wrong! Gantt chart — yup, wrong! When developing these crucial project artifacts, you're actually predicting the future, and who in their right mind thinks they can predict the future with absolute certainty? They need adjustments and fine tuning along the way. It's all about continuous improvement.

Let's drive this point further. Did your well-crafted plan account for your lead technical resource getting the flu during implementation? What about that snowstorm that crippled the entire northeast that prevented the vendor, trainer, and other key project personnel from making it to your site? And what about those additional business requirements and changes that keep trickling in? All projects, or parts of projects, are broken at one point or another and need effective repairing to stay or get back on track. It's far better to repair it now than to do a complete overhaul down the road. Figure 1.2 shows a graphical depiction of typical organizational performance.

As can be seen, all organizations eventually experience declining performance. This is just the nature of business. The great companies are the ones that take prompt action to get back on track. This prompt action is usually in the form of strategic initiatives (i.e., projects) to achieve business goals along the following parameters:

• Revenue generation

• Cost savings

• Productivity improvements

• Quality enhancements

• Time savings

If companies aren't nimble enough and wait too long, it becomes harder to get back on track, and they will be forced to take corrective actions and even perform organizational restructuring. If they fail to take those drastic measures, they will eventually have no choices left and end up being yet another gloomy statistic.

Projects are microcosms of organizations and experience the same struggles to maintain successful performance. All projects eventually experience declining performance. This is just the nature of projects, as it is of business. We must constantly take prompt action and apply continuous improvement fixes along the way to keep them on track or from becoming derailed. When we don't take prompt action to address project issues, the proverbial snowball starts rolling downhill and those issues become crises, resulting in change control procedures, escalations, and even project restructuring. If we're not effective in handling these crisis situations, our projects wind up being another statistic in the long line of failed projects.

It's impossible to plan for everything, so we must be on constant vigilance to apply appropriate fixes to our projects along all points of the life cycle. Since projects are like snowflakes (no two are alike), the degrees to the fixes vary greatly. Some projects may require a complete surgical procedure, while others may need a Band-Aid to stop the bleeding, while yet others may just need the right tool applied to certain pain points. Your project may be rolling along fine, but it may begin to show some symptoms of future complications. You need to pounce on those symptoms early! Regardless of the degree of pain your project is experiencing, you, as the project professional, must be ready to make the proper diagnosis, identify the right tool, and initiate the appropriate corrective remedy. If it ain't broke, fix it anyway!

Dr. W. Edwards Deming was a pioneer in the field of quality and business management. He was instrumental in Japan's post-war industrial revival by teaching his continuous improvement and quality management approaches. He taught that business processes and operational procedures should be constantly measured and evaluated to identify sources of variation that cause deviations from customer requirements. To ensure continuous improvement, he recommended that business processes be placed in a continuous feedback loop to allow business leaders to identify and modify the parts of the process that need improvements. Figure 1.3 shows an illustration of this continuous feedback loop.

The cycle is continuously repeated in search of perfection. This quest for perfection keeps the continuous improvement journey alive and is never ending. Deming's 5th point of his legendary 14 points for management states:

Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

As project practitioners, we are in the field of management. We manage people, project production, services, quality, productivity, and costs — all key attributes of Deming's 5th point. Project improvement is an activity that must always be part of the project life cycle, and it's up to the project leaders to see to it that it happens. Constantly and forever means that improvement starts at project inception and ends when the business objectives have been achieved. Improvement is always possible and should always be pursued. If it ain't broke, fix it anyway.

Another renowned continuous improvement approach is Kaizen, which means change for good in Japanese. Kaizen is a tool originally used by Toyota to foster continuous improvement within its production system. It is now used around the world by many companies who have adapted it to suit their individual needs and customs. The Kaizen process includes small, gradual, and incremental changes that are applied over a long period that add up to a major impact on business results. The purpose of Kaizen is to increase value-added activities by eliminating waste from business processes that result in improving overall quality, cost, and delivery to achieve customer satisfaction. Kaizen focuses on improving the business process to get results aligned with organizational objectives involving everyone, including top management, managers, and workers. Much like the Deming cycle, Kaizen has its own continuous improvement cycle, as depicted in Figure 1.4.

There is always room for improvement. Always! We must never become complacent just because we feel our projects are rolling along smoothly. We can always get better. If it ain't broke, fix it anyway!

PROJECT MANAGEMENT IS #%&@#% HARD!

If you're anything like me, I'm sure there have been times when you were up to your eyeballs in overdue action items, unread e-mails, double- or even triple-booked calendar entries, a long line of folks wanting to vent to you about one thing or another, and you just wanted to throw in the towel. We've all been there. During these stressful times, I find myself saying (somewhat jokingly, but deep down probably not really), "I should have been a rock & roll star."

Just for some perspective on matters, I like to keep in mind an excerpt from Bruce Springsteen's recent autobiography, Born to Run, where he described the excitement and amazing experience of renting and playing a guitar for the first time. He described the joy of taking it home, the magical feeling of opening the guitar case and smelling the sweet wood for the first time.

"... (I) felt its magic, sensed its hidden power. I held it in my arms, ran my fingers over its strings, held the real tortoiseshell guitar pick in between my teeth, tasted it, took a few weeks of music lessons ... and quit. It was TOO #%&@#% HARD!"

The grass is not always greener! If it was that hard for the Boss, I probably wouldn't stand a chance. I'll stick to project management, even though that too is REALLY #%&@#% HARD!

As project practitioners, sometimes it feels like we have the weight of the world on our shoulders. We have to manage scope, schedules, costs, personalities (that's a full-time job in itself), executives, team members, vendors ... (let's stop there, but we know this is just a snippet of all that is involved). It's a tough job, no question about it, but it's not impossible. Just look at all that Springsteen accomplished by picking that guitar back up, refocusing, and constantly enhancing and fine-tuning his craft. Just like mastering a guitar or any other profession, we must vigilantly refocus and fine-tune our own skill sets and projects. It's all about continuous improvement — for ourselves and especially for our projects.

We know it's going to be a battle keeping our projects on track, preventing them from being blown off the rails, or getting them back on track altogether. There may be some casualties along the way, but with proactive, business-focused project management and timely intervention, these casualties can be minimized. There will be times when we'll have to reduce the scope, extend the time frames, and even spend more money; but that's far better than following an original path blindly where the best project management in the world couldn't achieve unrealistic objectives.

It's About the Business, Not the Methodology

We hear a lot of talk about certain methodologies, approaches, and certifications these days. Some folks are even militant in their defense of the methodologies they've embraced. That's fine, but what it all comes down to is the business outcomes from our project investments — not the methodology. I don't care if you use Agile, Waterfall, Scrum, Lean, Kaizen, PRINCE2, a homegrown approach, etc., as long as they mesh well with your corporate culture and deliver the desired business results to your organization. There are merits to all of the methodologies out there; the key is finding the ones (or even just certain tools and components of the ones) that work best for your organization, project, and business situation.

The best leadership and project management approach is an amalgamation of all of the methodologies at our disposal. I'm sure the ancient Egyptians used bits and pieces of Agile, Lean, Waterfall, and various other methodologies and tools when building the pyramids, as did the Chinese when building the Great Wall and the Romans in constructing their ancient cities — and these structures are still standing! Their focus was on the end result; and whatever approach was required to best achieve that end result, they embraced it.

Let's not pigeonhole ourselves into using a certain project approach or methodology, but deploy the most optimal methods to address our business situation and challenges. Just as we should be technology-agnostic (not tied to any specific technology) and choose the technologies that best meet our business requirements, we should be project methodology-agnostic and leverage and deploy those tools and approaches that best satisfy our most stringent business goals and objectives.

All companies are different. All organizational cultures are different; in fact, very different! The Agile methodology may work great for some companies, but for a well-established insurance company of 100+ years that is sitting on trillions in managed assets, maybe not so well. The Waterfall approach may work just fine for some companies, but may stifle a budding, entrepreneurial start-up. Six Sigma may just end up confusing some companies, while a scaled-down Lean approach works superbly. Scrum may produce the desired results for one department, but for another department in the same company, the Deming approach is preferred and embraced. Adapt to the situation and business climate because chances are they won't adapt to you or your approach.