Do you really need a Project Manager?

So here I am, the first time in a few years, out on a project. Fun. One of the things I often talk to my team about is the importance of knowledge banking. I ask everyone on the team to review his or her week and highlight their strongest takeaways; a helpful nugget or two to share with the team or, in this case, with the world.

Here goes. This week I happily discovered that A) working as a Project Manager is still challenging and rewarding, and B) our company values and the Improv “way” of working has recently shown its value once again.

Do what you say you are going to do. Be honest. Be clear.

That’s it — that’s our value statement.

It’s not fancy, but it works if you work it. More exact: It works, if you trust it enough to work it.

Some don't like the short-term results of that statement. By nature, people are impatient; long-term is barely tolerable. They don't want to hear we cannot make a random deadline. But in the long-term, being honest — about deliverables and everything else in a project’s scope — is far more valuable to everyone.

If first, you do what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it, and second, you are honest about your ability to accomplish tasks assigned in the time and manner expected, life is way better!

I think a major reason projects fail is people set expectations that are unrealistic.

It’s a simple thing that gets complicated quickly. If you say on Monday you will have something done by Friday then — please — get it done by Friday. If there is any chance at all of a failure to deliver by Friday, communicate that immediately.

Be honest. You were wrong so say it. You've hit an intractable problem. It happens. Ask for help at this point if it’s useful.

Be open, be honest, and be clear, over and over again.

Deal with the backlash and learn from it. Don't wait until Friday to break the news or tell the tales. If you don't communicate, then I don't care how little sleep you get, how many people you have to bring in to help. Just get it done. Quality work. Nothing less.

There are many techniques available to us all to apply to this risk. The ones I'm most current on are from a management perspective.

Hyper-Clarity

First, get rabid about clarity. (Yes, I said rabid as in junkyard dog rabid). As a PM, make sure everyone understands your way of operating and constantly reinforce these values.

Find examples to share with the team to show how it works. Sister to clarity is consistency. Work with everyone on the project in the same way — external vendors, clients, and internal business partners. Unfortunately, the challenge can be that one of those groups doesn't share with the other their happiness or disappointment, nor are they clear about their expectations. It's only shared within their group. This. Is. Bad.

To avoid this, a technique I have that works pretty well is to interview (well don’t call it an interview. It’s a lunch, water cooler chat, happy hour even!) everyone on a regular basis to get a sense of how everyone on the project team feels about the status and deliverables. This includes the vendor, vendor management, and external business partners; again everyone from the director to on the ground consultant — shake ’em down.

Only then can you get a really good lay of the land. Oh, yes: never listen to just one person who seems to know everything. Get a balanced view from ALL perspectives. Once you’ve got a 360-degree read, you can begin to truly understand the battlefield (are you over all the war and football analogies yet? Just say when!) and work hard to make sure everyone is on the same page. Goal: Everyone understands better.

Now Begins with Then

Gaining clarity on a project is gold. This process has led us to understand the NOW. Next, it’s time to dig in and understand the history of a project. History paints a certain hue over the current viewpoints of all the players (whether they realize it or not). And with history, I mean all of it.

Learn about team members no longer there. Learn about past successes and failures. Unearth it all — the good, bad, and buried stuff.

Working in workforce management as a Kronos Project Manager (or Change Manager), I want to understand all the pain and all the joy associated with the long-term view of the organization.

Are their Union Agreements? Study them.

Are there previous related projects? Read the documentation.

Talk with team members who have been at the organization forever (the ones who know where the bodies are hidden) and really dig deep to best understand why the culture is the way it is, and why the history happened the way it did.

This is your chance to unearth any reason at all your project might fail.

Wiki: The Client Story

Take a closer look at what you've learned about your project and add this new color to your evolving view. At this point, it's valuable to write — yes, as in publish — a Wikipedia type article about the project. Fun right?

You’ve collected everything about your project — its current state and its history. That’s value so capture it! Get it all down and then share that with the team for validation. As time-consuming as this sounds, it can be a crazy successful exercise! I call it the Client Story and it should be shared with all current and future teams engaging with this particular client.

Let's face it: the more someone knows about a project and company the better advice that person can provide on how to best move forward. (Here’s the challenge or the dare, if you like: Get the amount of information you’d have if you’d been with the company from the beginning or a few decades. Hey, are we going to do this thing or not?!)

The goal is to bank and share knowledge to help everyone achieve the same clarity.

The key pieces from that knowledge bank can be input into the master project plans, change management plan, etc.

Got cats?

Step. Three. Herd the cats. Consistently guiding everyone toward complete clarity is the most critical role of the PM/EM. Of course, a PM needs to manage the plans and teams, but without the experience to drive a team forward, the process becomes more like herding cats. An inexperienced PM won’t know what his or her team is really thinking, and it will be difficult to gel as a team.

Teams don't work without clarity.

Isn’t it funny how we've come up with so many cool theories and techniques in the past 20-30 years to better manage projects, but most miss this particular fact? Without clarity across the extended project team, your project will fail in some way.

There is a lot more to talk about in this endeavor. Things like achievable deadlines, team management, tracking to the actual and goals. I’m not talking goals ala Elon Musk. This isn't a conversation about stretch goals. We don't want to set business projects up to fail. A lot has to happen before setting stretch goals. Baby steps! Under promise and deliver well — that’s more like it. Then the team learns they can deliver and can be nudged forward toward more aggressive goals. But the key is to have one success, and then another, and continue to build on those.

Ah, long-term over short-term, remember? Baby steps. Celebrate. Take one then move forward to another. Make sure everyone on that path feels that win. Do it again and again. You will build a culture of delivery on time, quality, and confidence of ability. It's good stuff.

So, do you really need a Project Manager? Call it what you will. Without one your project has little chance of not failing. Without a really good one, you’ve got little chance of success.