Managing change the right way

April 2008 from CAmagazine and written by Michael Burns – “Many will tell you change management is critical to the success of any project and especially to the implementation of a new system. In fact, you can find consulting firms that specialize just in change management. But in my view, change management sometimes gets blown out of proportion based on false assumptions about employees…”

It's a (Web) Hit

March 27, 2008 from bMighty - The article offers suggestions to use the internet more effectively such as adding content and collaboration. “Web applications such as Basecamp make it easy for you to create online client project areas that can be branded and designed with the look and feel of your Website.”

180 View – We thought that the Basecamp recommendation looked very interesting. Basecamp’s website (http://www.basecamphq.com/) says “Basecamp takes a fresh, novel approach to project collaboration. Projects don't fail from a lack of charts, graphs, stats, or reports, they fail from a lack of clear communication. Basecamp solves this problem by providing tools tailored to improve the communication between people working together on a project.” Anyone out there used it yet?

Project management to the rescue

March 2008 from CAmagazine and written by Michael Burns – “The project manager’s job is to manage scope, timing and costs. Unfortunately, most people learn those skills at the school of hard knocks…”

The Politics of Portfolio Management: Why It’s Harder Than It Looks

January 21, 2008 from gannthead.com and written by Mark Mullaly, PMP – “Portfolio management is one of the concepts that, on the face of it, organizations should naturally want to embrace. Most executives and project managers alike will acknowledge with little prompting that many of their challenges go beyond just the project level. Competition for resources and funding, too much work underway and pressure to address both operational and project responsibilities all speak to the need to make more effective project choices. Once this need is recognized, the concept of portfolio management quickly emerges as a logical direction to explore.

The principles of portfolio management are extremely straightforward. At its core essence, portfolio management addresses three fundamental questions:

• Are we doing the right projects?
• For the projects that we have chosen to undertake, are we confident that the projects are being delivered well and meet their goals?
• For the projects that we have completed, are we consciously changing how the organization operates in order to realize the value we expected?

While these are entirely reasonable questions, and relatively simple ones to ask, the answers are more complex and involved. How do we know we are doing the right projects? What criteria do we apply? What judgments do we make? Right projects as compared to what?"

...Attempting to introduce portfolio management without acknowledging the politics of the organization is foolhardy” And he goes on to say “For the profit centers, however, any attempt to introduce a more objective level of scrutiny is going to be regarded as a significant threat to the status quo. For the profit centers of the world, they already have a positive level of influence in determining what projects proceed. More importantly, they are able to ensure that it is their projects that are the ones that do go ahead.”

180 View – People who belong to a profit centre will resist the imposition of change from head office or the project management office if it diminishes their control or could negatively impact their success. Even if the change is for the good of the company as a whole, the change will be resisted. You will need to change the organizational structure or the motivation/compensation if you want the profit centres to sign up.

What Really Works

August 20, 2007 from Harvard Business Review and included in SAP’s newsletter – “Our findings took us quite by surprise. Most of the management tools and techniques we studied had no direct causal relationship to superior business performance. What does matter, it turns out, is having a strong grasp of the business basics. Without exception, companies that outperformed their industry peers excelled at what we call the four primary management practices—strategy, execution, culture, and structure. And they supplemented their great skill in those areas with a mastery of any two out of four secondary management practices—talent, innovation, leadership, and mergers and partnerships. We learned, for example, that it doesn’t really matter if you implement ERP software or a CRM system; it matters very much, though, that whatever technology you choose to implement you execute it flawlessly.

180 View – Although SAP’s newsletter showed this article under the heading “More Recent Headlines”, it was actually published in July 2003. Nevertheless the article is a good one and is not available from Harvard Business Review without a premium subscription. So check it out if you’re interested in management practices such as:

• Build a strategy around a clear value proposition for the customer.
• Develop strategy from the outside in, based on what your customers, partners, and investors have to say—and how they behave—not on gut feel or instinct.
• Continually fine-tune your strategy based on changes in the marketplace— for example, a new technology, a social trend, a government regulation, or a competitor’s breakaway product.
• Clearly communicate your strategy within the organization and to customers and other external stakeholders.
• Keep focused.
• Grow your core business, and beware the unfamiliar.

When a project has you stumped, just think: 'What would Yogi do?

October 23, 2006 from Computerworld – “If baseball and project management have one thing in common, it’s the direct relationship between teamwork and success. Yogi Berra, a baseball legend with a unique approach to management and life, is a particular favorite of mine, so I recently asked myself, “What if Yogi were a project manager?”

As I thought about it, I realized that Yogi has a lot to say about my line of work. Many of the most famous quotes that have been attributed to him seem to bear directly on the art and science of project management...” The article contains project management perspectives on the following quotes:

• "You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”
• “I didn’t really say everything I said.”
• “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
• “You’d better cut the pizza in four pieces, because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.”
• "Think? How the hell are you gonna think and hit at the same time?”
• “You can observe a lot just by watching.”
• “I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early.”
• “This is like deja vu all over again.”

180 View – You don’t need to be a project manager to appreciate Yogi’s view.