In the everyday hustle and bustle of user communications and the desire to serve by managing the low hanging fruits as fast as possible, project management teams are most likely to miss out on a critical aspect of a project - is it really needed by the corporation?
Most of the projects I have seen are more responses to the short term pains of a few groups of people rather than an answer to an over-arching need of the company. Most of these pains are mere symptoms of the root problem rather than the problem itself and thus there are several project teams that deliver what we call "band-aid" solutions rather than long-term pain relief.
There are some questions that help determine where the project request is truly rooted on and what need does it truly answer and some of them appear below. In several cases, just asking the project sponsor a few of these questions can get people collaborating more across peers or having them re-think their original requests.
1. Priority -> How does this project tie-up to the corporate priorities(sometimes call the CEO agenda, the company mission,etc)?
2. Cost/Benefit - > What will the company gain if we do this project? Don't forget to ask as well what will the company lose if we don't do the project? The more specific the answer - the better. It is, for example, better if the sponsor can tie it to profit growth or profit loss or if the user can tie-it to a specific business process problem that the project will address.
3. Project interactions -> Does this project tie-up with any existing or planned projects that the company is already undertaking?
4. Resources -> To what extent will the company support the resource requirements of the project?
It would be an eye-opener if our executives realize how many projects failed (and costed the company money) because the questions above were not asked(or answered) early on.
Showing posts with label organization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label organization. Show all posts
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Situational Leadership and the One Minute Manager
In the book by Ken Blanchard, One Minute Manager, he talks about Situational Leadership. I could say that so far, this is the best theory I heard about management and leadership.
It does not come to us naturally as managers since we always think and say that to be effective, we have to have a management style that define us. This book would tell us that to be truly effective managers and leaderships, we should be able to flex to multiple styles to fit the development needs of our direct reports.
Does the direct report require direction or support or a mixture of both? This book tells us that our direct reports go through different development needs(D1 to D4) and that as managers, we are responsible for ensuring that our direct reports can be as productive as possible by providing them appropriate leadership styles (S1 to S4).
The book also tells us that the development needs varies by task and we should not label a person a D1 or a D4 without attaching the label to specific tasks.
At the end of the day - the book tells us that there is the golden rule (do unto others what you want done unto you) but there is the platinum rule - do unto others what they want done to them and the latter is the true measure of a true leader.
It does not come to us naturally as managers since we always think and say that to be effective, we have to have a management style that define us. This book would tell us that to be truly effective managers and leaderships, we should be able to flex to multiple styles to fit the development needs of our direct reports.
Does the direct report require direction or support or a mixture of both? This book tells us that our direct reports go through different development needs(D1 to D4) and that as managers, we are responsible for ensuring that our direct reports can be as productive as possible by providing them appropriate leadership styles (S1 to S4).
The book also tells us that the development needs varies by task and we should not label a person a D1 or a D4 without attaching the label to specific tasks.
At the end of the day - the book tells us that there is the golden rule (do unto others what you want done unto you) but there is the platinum rule - do unto others what they want done to them and the latter is the true measure of a true leader.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Red Pill or Blue Pill? (Living in the Matrix)
Most of us, unfortunately, were not given the choice that Neo was given in the movie The Matrix and we typically either land in a matrix environment or not.
I lived in both worlds and I can attest to the fact that whichever organization structure you are in - they all have their pros and cons. I can say, though, that it is the matrix environment that required me, as a project manager, to develop some specific skills that allowed me to navigate it.
Why is it tricky to navigate? For one, aside from your immediate project team, most of the people you need to be successful do not directly report to you. That means that, chances are, their priorities are different from yours and they can derail your project with less of a concern in terms of performance reviews - as long as their real boss agrees with them. There is also this need to have more communication channels which open your team up to a lot of possible miscommunications.
So what skills did I need to succeed in this environment?
1. Influence - John Maxwell, in his book, Developing The Leader Within You actually said that "Leadership is Influence" and never is it more apparent than in a matrix environment. Unlike a direct report, you need to influence more a person or team that does not report to you to buy into your plan and work with you to succeed
2. Communication - Communication takes on a deeper meaning in a matrix environment since it is the glue that keeps everyone pasted onto your objective as you try to move everyone to the goal and as I mentioned, I realized that in a matrix environment, there is a need to have more communication channels laterally since one characteristic of a matrix environment is that the org chart is a lot flatter but broader.
3. "Ball Handling" - The matrix was created for several good reasons and one of them is to allow expertise to develop in a group while allowing these experts to work in your projects - sounds good but this requires that, as a project manager, you should know when to pass the ball and to whom. This message got imprinted on me in a workshop when excepts of the movie Goal! - The Dream Begins was shown to us.
4. The ability to see the bigger picture - There were times that I needed to admit that truly my project was less of a priority than a project my matrix team was working on and I had to give way and replan my project because at the end of the day - the question is "which project stands to give the company the best possible benefit vs cost". Some days - that project is not yours.
So why does the matrix still exist amidst the complexities it has? It is only the matrix environment that allows a company to have the expertise and flexibility to execute projects through different resources. For it to be as productive as possible though - the matrix must move as one as a project manager - you are one of those people that steer it.
I lived in both worlds and I can attest to the fact that whichever organization structure you are in - they all have their pros and cons. I can say, though, that it is the matrix environment that required me, as a project manager, to develop some specific skills that allowed me to navigate it.
Why is it tricky to navigate? For one, aside from your immediate project team, most of the people you need to be successful do not directly report to you. That means that, chances are, their priorities are different from yours and they can derail your project with less of a concern in terms of performance reviews - as long as their real boss agrees with them. There is also this need to have more communication channels which open your team up to a lot of possible miscommunications.
So what skills did I need to succeed in this environment?
1. Influence - John Maxwell, in his book, Developing The Leader Within You actually said that "Leadership is Influence" and never is it more apparent than in a matrix environment. Unlike a direct report, you need to influence more a person or team that does not report to you to buy into your plan and work with you to succeed
2. Communication - Communication takes on a deeper meaning in a matrix environment since it is the glue that keeps everyone pasted onto your objective as you try to move everyone to the goal and as I mentioned, I realized that in a matrix environment, there is a need to have more communication channels laterally since one characteristic of a matrix environment is that the org chart is a lot flatter but broader.
3. "Ball Handling" - The matrix was created for several good reasons and one of them is to allow expertise to develop in a group while allowing these experts to work in your projects - sounds good but this requires that, as a project manager, you should know when to pass the ball and to whom. This message got imprinted on me in a workshop when excepts of the movie Goal! - The Dream Begins was shown to us.
4. The ability to see the bigger picture - There were times that I needed to admit that truly my project was less of a priority than a project my matrix team was working on and I had to give way and replan my project because at the end of the day - the question is "which project stands to give the company the best possible benefit vs cost". Some days - that project is not yours.
So why does the matrix still exist amidst the complexities it has? It is only the matrix environment that allows a company to have the expertise and flexibility to execute projects through different resources. For it to be as productive as possible though - the matrix must move as one as a project manager - you are one of those people that steer it.
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