Choosing the right way
My dad, born in 1921 served a seven-year apprenticeship as a metalworker from age 14. He worked in sheet metal, wire work and could produce intricate wrought ironwork like the true artist and craftsman that he was. A level of capability I sadly did not appreciate until my late teens. The shed in our South-east London garden was his domain, with his tools neatly hung (mostly) or in organised boxes according to their purpose. When I was 13 he made a thin sheet metal box to carry my archery equipment and I watched as he crafted it, carefully selecting his tools and how he worked. I used that box for 7 years until a shoulder injury ended my archery, but the box itself became a tool-box and its use lived on. Dad taught my brother and I how to use tools around the house for basic DIY, which frankly none of us enjoyed. I of course wanted to complete our ‘projects’ as rapidly as possible and always sought the simplest ways to finish. At which dad said ‘simple may be best, but the right way IS the best way so lets find which right way that gets us done quickest’. Well, something like that, we are talking about 50 years ago!
There are lots of ways to manage projects, the challenge is to find the right way and then to do it in the right way. The best tool for the job used well. There is no one right way.
Take ants for example.....well maybe not this one.
There are apparently around 12,000 species of ants – WHY? (definitely a rhetorical question). Nature is wondrously diverse and presumably needs more than a single ant species. Remember Morgan Freeman as Azeem in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - Allah Loves Wonderous Variety - Bing video? A little girl asks, “did God paint you?” and Azeem replies “Allah loves wondrous variety”. Its just a film and I am not wishing to get philosophical, political nor religious. For the project profession, indeed in running anything, there can be no single way of doing anything that must be kept to erm…..religiously.
Adaptability and flexibility are at the heart of agility. Which does not mean a free for all, lets leave stuff out, forget governance and assurance, compliance and so on. It simply means - thinking of my dad - finding the best right way in a given situation. Or as Charles Kingsley wrote in Westward Ho! In 1855, with very Victorian sentiments: “There are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream”.
In my book Agile Beyond IT I spend a lot of time talking about adapting techniques and avoiding costly mistakes. Here I am just going to give a little taster of how to choose the right adaptation.
Lots of right ways
When I woke up this morning there were choices ahead, the biggest being what am I going to do today? And lots of small ones, what will I have for breakfast? What will I wear? When will I write this article? The breakfast decision was pleasingly made for me as my partner made breakfast; granola with blueberries and home-made poached rhubarb from our garden, and tea.
Big decisions such as which project management method/framework/approach are not made daily.
The approach then is a ‘given’ and not an option. Third party delivery partners frequently have to work contractually within the project management and governance standards of their client. As a contractor I often had to work within the ‘in house’ standards. More than once I helped an organisation build its ‘in house’ standards, e.g. into a project management framework within with the project professionals worked and adapted. Even such ‘in house’ approaches will often be based on published material such as PMI or APM BoKs and the like.
But WHAT is not the same as HOW. How project professionals implement the chosen approach is where the magic happens…or doesn’t. And it is where a plethora of small decisions are made:
Part of the how includes the cultural and behavioural context and significantly informs the way a project is managed. Agility only thrives in a collaborative culture and where project teams are trusted with a level of delegation enabling them to make most decisions without endlessly referring up the management tree. Jo Lucas of Co.Cr8 would refer to projects being able to operate within the organisational mycelium ((2) Bridging the reality gap: why Major Projects fail to learn | LinkedIn).
Relationships which are more Gordon Gekko (Wall Street and sequel), i.e. win-lose (also known as zero-sum), are toxic to agility as there is no trust. The approach to managing projects in such an environment, alas common still in construction, has to be adapted, e.g. for frequent decision referral, constant checking, being contract dependent, being document heavy, i.e. a large assurance overhead. Teams are always looking over their shoulders and even at each other.
How nice.
Ironically, recognising the project organisational culture context and adapting to it, shows agility, but is about as far as agility gets in the zero-sum world. If as research suggests, agile organisations are more profitable, then the days of zero-sum should be numbered.
Avoiding the wrong way
Setting out to manage a win-lose (zero sum) context as outlined above is not wrong. Trying to operate with agility in a zero-sum game would be the wrong way, pretty much bound to fail. In other words, if you trust Gordon Gekko you will lose your shirt.
There is an entire chapter (chapter 3) in my book on the wrong way to use agility for projects. And I have blogged on its contents many many times. Yet still I see articles, blogs, podcasts ad-nauseum and they mostly come down to thinking of agility as a single thing, a single way so I will be brief.
As has often been said: Scrum is agile but agility isn't just Scrum.
Intriguingly, the latest PMBoK 7 has gone down the principles route. I understand the jury is still out in some quarters, but the emphasis seems to be on saying – here are the principles of project management, now go and adapt them.
Back to my dad, he would never have tried to put a screw into a wall using a hammer, no matter how good the hammer.
The just good enough way
Another characteristic of agility is ‘just good enough’. For example it surfaces as the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). It applies well to project management and here are a couple of examples why.
Firstly, adapting the more than 50 year-old Time, Cost, Quality (scope….) triangle for agility suggests that Time and Cost are fixed and a minimum scope that makes the project viable, is defined. Finance directors love this predictability, if of course it can be achieved. The idea is to deliver at least the MVP and more if the project is able to. I know there are detractors of this notion, but any project business case has to define viable limits for each of these three parameters. What agility forces is a focus on the value to be gained from the outcomes.
Secondly, and quite simply, true project professionals never do more management than they need to. Ever watched Roger Federer play tennis? Does he move more than he needs to? Please don’t be unkind suggesting he is no longer as young as he was. He always was economical in movement.
When pushing the boundaries can be the right way
Even with agility, setting the levels of delegated authority is important as agility does not mean a free-for-all. Ideally, the level of authority should match the decisions people in a team will have to take. But sometimes there is a judgement call to be made. ?
Sometimes you just have to go the extra mile, it just has to be in the right direction!
When the right way is not your way
Project managers have long been control freaks. To mis-quote Frank Sinatra (and Jaques Revaux and Paul Anka) ‘you do it my way!’, or, my way is the right way. It is an example of what occurs under pacesetting or autocratic leadership. Both of which can be appropriate in some circumstances. Other leadership styles are available. And under them it can be good to give team members their head. Under Visionary, Coaching and Democratic styles of leadership, enabling a team to devise and then select a solution delivery approach can lead to great creativity, even time and cost saving. Not forgetting the level of morale and energy the team will build and sustain.
This for me is the best description of finding and choosing the right way to manage a project, or an organisation. Given the increasing levels of projectisation, understanding that people in your organization have great ideas for lots of right ways of doing things will return considerable benefit.
I will finish by repeating that there is, there cannot be, just one way to manage projects. Although I have written Agile Beyond IT to show what project agility looks like. I am also very clear in the book that there are organisation cultures not suited, even toxic to Agility. Organisations need to make the big decisions to create the right project management landscape for them. And project professionals need to be agile enough to adopt and adapt approaches, those fit for the purpose, and to not use the wrong ones no matter how seductive……avoid the sirens call.
Good luck on your voyage!
Adrian Pyne