Sunday, 20 December 2009 00:00

Project Managers Don't Run Projects

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If you must choose between managing a project or building a team, start with the latter.

Teams run projects, not project managers. Projects fail without teams, plain and simple. Project managers need to start by building a team. Red, or failing, projects have an even bigger problem, the teams are beat up, demoralized, depressed and frustrated. The recovery manager must focus on rebuilding the team. Balancing this with finding the project's issues may seem daunting. Fortunately, many aspects of these tasks overlap and good leadership qualities make it even easier.

Lessons Learned

Over the years, I have developed four rules I live by on any project—red or green. These were developed in the early years when authority was a dream and the only way to achieve action was through having respect. These rules are a failsafe, I live by them to this day.

1 - The Team Knows Everything You Need To Know

The answers are in the team. The team is fully aware of where the problems are in the project. They also have most of the solutions for those problems. Although disbursed among various team members, interviews with the team will uncover all the information needed. The project manager compiles it and develops comprehensive solutions to present to the stakeholders.

Lessons Learned

The answers are in the team
A strong team is invaluable
Remain a peer with the team
Objective data is your friend

Care must be taken to give credit where credit is due. However, do not make this an indictment of the executive management. When presenting the recommendations ensure the message does not get relayed as, "Well, I got all this from the project team. Weren't you listening to them?" So, it might be best to give the team credit in a more subtle manner, explaining the sensitivity and not giving anyone credit.

2 - A Strong Team Can Do Anything

A strong team can surmount almost anything. Poor management (in and above the project) is a common root cause for project failure. A strong project team, on the other hand, working closely together provides the drive and direction regardless of the level of management incompetence. What happens in this team is that one or two strong individuals rise to the top and become the leaders.

As stated in the introduction, projects fail without teams. Have you ever seen successful project where the people on the project were not a team? I have never seen it. It is paramount to build, or rebuild, the team to get the project moving again.

3 - Stay Involved

Recovery and project managers must stay involved with the team. This means the project manager should stay a peer with the team. Project managers who remain in an office or cubicle, or act imperious, failing to associate with the team on a daily basis, will lose touch with the project. Hearing trials and tribulations and feeling the team's pain is critical in being a good leader. Being removed from the project, the manager will lose track of the project.

This is a very common issue on projects. One form I call "checklist mentality." Checklist mentality is when a manager (project or PMO) sits in his or her office checking off the list of project documents and processes that must be put into place, never venturing out to the team to see if the processes or documents is being used or even applicable. In fact, this trait is so prevalent in upper management it is the primary reason that projects go off track and management only figures it out after the project is nearly unrecoverable. They may think it happened over night, but, as Frederick Brooks said, it happens "one day at a time." Management is simply not involved.

4 - Know The Data And Share It

Objective data is your friend. By staying involved with the team, Project managers will know what is going right and what is going wrong. They will be familiar with the difficulties in the project and what is needed for success. When asked about a problem on the project, the data-armed Project Manager will be able to deliver quick answers with a foundation based in objective data.

Once asked, in jest (I hope) if I could give a simple Yes or No answer, I replied, "No... Oops, I can! Damn, I guess I can't." Answering a question, with the data to back it up, brings creditability.

Trust The Team

As was the case in the Blame the Customer case study, the team pointed to the problem and were the voice contrary to management's. The team is involved in the day-to-day work and can see and hear the customer's frustration. They, as a collective, know more than executive management.

In red projects, the recovery process starts naturally on day one by interviewing the team (a process that should remain in the project as you go forward). The Project Manager's job is to collect the data, remove opinion, find the problems and collate it into a complete package to build the plan and run—or recover—the project.

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