Book Notes: “Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager” (Takeaway #13)

Project Managers do not and cannot know everything, at every moment, about a project, but we can make it easier on ourselves. Here are 3 big things I have learned:

1. Subject Matter Experts are your friend.
2. Process Improvements are your friend.
3. Organizational Leaders are your friend.

Listen respectfully to others, even when you think you know something already or that they should know something you have been over before. The more you listen to one another the more smoothly the work in the future goes so it is worth it to hash things out, even if it is redundant. Do it in the friendliest manner possible!

Okay, so maybe your co-workers are not the same as a close friend, but you know what I mean…

Here is my takeaway #13 from one of the most useful practical books in my field, “Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager”:

13)?“(As a Project Manager) you might operate under the false assumption that you have to know everything. After all, you’re in charge. You’re expected to have all the answers. You’ve got to know at every moment if every last piece of the project is on budget, on time, or going as expected, right?”...“This pressure to know it all may tempt you to talk more than listen.”

The book continues, "If you are smart, you'll resist the temptation to talk more than listen. You'll realize that no one person can possibly have all the answers all of the time. The entire team, not just you, is responsible for the project's success. While your job is to manage the process, more importantly it is also to inspire the people. And inspiring starts when you listen first, then talk later."

Note: This comes from Chapter 2 “PEOPLE + PROCESS = SUCCESS” (page 25-26)

* Listen First

Projects can go better than expected when the people involved understand one another. Everyone brings information and knowledge to the equation that–when connected with the other pieces of understanding your teammates have–can be a real game changer. We all come at it from different perspectives that create nuances and can create a beautiful tapestry. Projects and working relationships can also go far worse than expected over a simple misunderstanding.

You definitely do not need to know everything about a project at any given moment. Projects are dynamic and things change. Even static information can be forgotten. It helps if you have a status board and other ways to organize notes of meetings, emails, and side conversations that contribute to ongoing discussions as the work evolves. Even when you think you know something it’s good to talk with others to make sure you’ve got it right.

It’s also more important to treat people as people, rather than worry about solving any work problem. We all have emotions and stuff going on at any given moment. Understand who you are working with, the context of the current conversation, and the realities of work and life pressures everyone is going through. Accept that neither of you has more answers alone than you can figure out together.

It’s okay if you have to repeat yourself. If you have patience with others and listen to them, they will have patience with you and listen to you. Then they will want to work with you and for your good.

Story time: One time working with a Subject Matter Expert, who I consider a good friend, I grew tired of listening to him. He claimed that no one had told him about a change in our process I was now holding him accountable to. I didn’t mention that he had actually been one of the best at doing it this new way for a couple months but had suddenly stopped.

Our team had started a process where the evaluator of a proposed change would include the evaluation in the notes of the initial change request. One thing he mentioned was that recording evaluation notes would give him double work, since in many instances he was still required to record his evaluation on test requests for our applications testing team. That gave me something I could work with.

We really needed to get the players involved together and consolidate the process into the database where everyone should be working from. The spreadsheets we had been using from another team were great for their time, but the process was outdated and counterproductive to our new streamlined solution. Besides, connecting all these disparate communications was giving me double, triple, and quadruple the work.

He asked if the team or our manager had agreed to the new process. I confirmed to him that there were higher authorities than me who formulated, approved, and mandated the new practice. In this moment, I didn’t do a good job of selling the change to him though. I was just so surprised that he didn’t remember anything about this new process. He hadn’t previously given me any pushback over it, when we had discussed the expectations a couple of different times before.

I proceeded to collaborate with another person on the team and we came up with a temporary solution where I could link the two sources of information until we figured out a more team-oriented solution. When he rejoined the conversation, he asked me what exactly we had come up with for going forward. Before I could answer he talked right past me, expressing for a 3rd time how no one had spelled out any new process to him.

It was then, that I started talking over him to answer his question about what I was proposing could be done. That was not a good choice on my part. I should have heard him out (maybe asked more feedback from him when we were formulating a solution), and at least let him expand his message to anyone else who might listen. He was right that we rarely, if ever, standardized processes in writing in that organization: where everyone could see them, refer to them, and remember them as they were originally drawn up.

He blew up at me, saying something about how I never listen, stormed back to his desk, and told me to come talk to him when I am ready to listen. After things calmed down, we talked, or I should say I mostly listened, and he acquiesced that if I would simply write down steps in the new process in a handful of bullet points, he would follow it.

I agreed that that was a reasonable resolution. You may have noticed how we actually came up with a few possible solutions while navigating through that conflict. Disagreements are not all bad. But it didn’t amount to fixing the real problem. I continued to feel pressure to know it all, when we had not fully established a set way to do something, rather than feeling camaraderie of knowing we could and would figure it out together.

Those who just keep quiet and let things be make it easier on themselves in the short-term. Maybe I should have just listened. The reality at this point was that I didn’t want a hear it, because I knew it would give me more work formalizing a process with whatever informal authority I could muster. Maybe it’s just not in my nature to back down from a challenge. I contest for not shrinking from any opportunity to improve team performance.

But no solitary effort can advance a team. People must value the change enough to buy-in and adopt it for themselves. Change management, not just project management, is its own beast, however, and I could have been a lot more sensitive to that fact. Sometimes informal authority is the only way to get things done in many of these work environments we find ourselves in.

Don’t give up for as long as you are working on these organizational problems no matter what level you are at in the organization. You are just trying to progress business! If nothing else, it will progress your experience!

But remember, you can only project manage business and culture into a better state of being in as far as the team, departments, and organization want it, are ready for it, and allow it. Until your organization sets up more formal organizational change and business transformation processes informal authority is the best you’ve got. Those situations call for smaller changes over a much greater amount of time.

Be very patient in trying to informally help project manage business forward!

Note: This article was originally published as a blog post on the Storyboard PM website.