Effective Project Management: Great Time Management Can’t Happen Without Strategic Alignment

Updated, but first published in the Fall 2017 issue of PM Magazine, Morgan State University.

Recently, we were asked to think and write about time management for project managers. It is obvious that part of being an effective project manager is in understanding that much often needs to be done in a short period of time. Most Project Managers are good at this naturally, being operationally focused individuals, but Project managers also have unique challenges when it comes to time management and being effective.

Consider that time management for a PM involves both personal time management and team time management. But, is that all there is to being a great time manager?

Personal time management is not unique to an organization, as it drives individual performance and effectiveness everywhere. Without great time management, we all would be largely ineffective, not just as project managers.  Every day, we work from “punch lists” and day planners, prioritizing our work to get things done. Many professionals read as much as they can from time management authors – there are more than a few – to learn tricks for personal time management.

Project Managers also have their own unique set of activities that must be completed to be effective. They push through drafting documents and reports, updating project plans, meeting with team members and sponsors to gauge risk, progress, obstacles, personality challenges, over-commitments and under-deliveries. They start new projects and help sponsors scope, budget, and plan them. To some degree, they co-manage cross functional technical and performance teams. There is always more than enough to do.

PMs also coach their teams and influence the time management of their team members. Can you count the number of times that you’ve questioned a technical team on the sequencing of their tasks or deliveries, or clarified their understanding of what needs to be delivered now versus what must come later? That’s all time management. Work faster, smarter, and produce what needs to be produced in time for the next person to advance the progress forward.

Yet, time management for both the PM and the team, regardless of how much actually gets done, is sometimes ineffective in making projects successful. Why?

LW Partners: an example of an organization with a time management problem. Or is it?

LW Partners (LWP) is a publishing company here in Baltimore. They have a PMO with 7 full-time project managers, each operating at the level of an advanced project coordinator (as opposed to higher level Tactical Project Manager or even higher Strategic Project Manager). Very few of the PMs have developed the skills needed to operate at the Tactical PM level – they’re just too early in their careers, but they are learning quickly, and this place provides great experience.

The PMO leader at LWP has a traditional view of the role of the PMO (See PMI, Crawford Model[i]) and has the experience of a Tactical PM, but not a Strategic PM or an executive. The Executive Vice President, who oversees the PMO and IT, wants much done, demands a high level of service[ii], and drives the teams with deadlines. The technical team uses modified Agile.

This PMO uses a beautiful, custom developed, robust Sharepoint Portfolio Management tool that was designed by their IT. It lists 153 active projects in some state of scoping, planning, or active project control and tracks progress for any interested party to see. Projects run a few weeks to almost a year in duration with most being several months long.  

Performance of the PMO is always judged as needing improvement by the EVP. Shaking up the PMO is an annual ritual.

The PM team works frantically, every day, and never seems to catch up. Personal time management for the PM and the Agile teams is good considering the environment. They are forced to manage their time wisely or there are immediate consequences. Any improvement in time management or processes yield only slight results. Too small, in fact, to improve the overall effectiveness of the PMO.

Do you see the problems? They are common among organizations struggling to create mature PMOs. The problems have everything to do with time management and yet getting better at time management does not fix the problem. 

Are these really all projects? Probably not.

At LWP, there’s a dynamic confluence of factors, happening all at once, that makes project management largely ineffective. All of the Tony Robins’ coaching of their PMs cannot overcome a ratio of 22 average projects per project manager, in various stages of the project life cycle, in a given year.

If the average project is 4-6 months in duration, then there are 7 or so on-going projects at any given time per PM. A full-time project manager at LWP can afford to spend about 6 hours per week on any project in her active portfolio, barring non-project time that must be covered. Could there be too many projects for PMs to handle effectively? Of course there are, but that’s the easy answer.

From the perspective of the project manager, it seems that time management is always from the perspective of being “in the forest,” where all that is seen is trees.  Visibility is limited and almost all trees start to look alike in the frantic pace of daily PM Life. There is no aerial perspective of the forest where the PM can see where they are relative to the rest of the forest. There’s no time for that.

Any PM with an instinct for self-preservation knows that the most important projects need the most time and the least can be ignored at least for the time being. The cause, of course, for this is failed prioritization at a higher level. And, truly fixing this problem a solution that is difficult to achieve.

LWP decided to address the problem head on. This started with a very simple question: Are all of the projects on the Sharepoint Portfolio Management tool really projects? That was a good first step.

With much effort and review, and under the leadership of the LWP EVP, the number of “projects” was cut by over half. The kinds of projects that were removed were:

That review, and subsequent work, left about 75 active or imminently active projects remaining. And by all accounts, cutting the number of projects by half began to allow for more effective project management, where time management became more of a factor in improving performance. 

But the reprioritization did not and could not stop there.

Missing Strategic Alignment

Asking that first fundamental question lead to another: “Of the 75 projects remaining, how many are truly important to our company achieving its current and future goals?” That is the one truly important question - are the projects strategically aligned with the business purpose now and in the future? 

Achieving strategic alignment of projects is some of the most difficult work that the PMO leadership can take on. Gartner says that “Executing strategy is hard because the organization needs to begin thinking, investing and ultimately, performing in the manner required by a new business model, while keeping its current business model operating to ensure short-term revenue.”[iii] This is the reason strategic alignment is so difficult. And, it can’t be left to chance; it must be a competency of the executive team.

Clearly, doing what is important well, is better than doing everything possible poorly. Strategic alignment is like the ether in which the PM time management floats and operates. This is the aerial view of the forest and allows PM time management to be effective. We can finally see the forest through the trees.

Strategic alignment requires executive participation and leadership, discrimination and discernment to know what is strategic and what is not. Achieving this level of performance makes small improvements highly impactful in the effectiveness of project management because it allows project managers to use their natural time management talents to apply time, focus properly, and in a way the is aligned with the mission of the company.

There is a reason that companies that get good at achieving strategic alignment succeed. Gartner further reported that “… by 2021, enterprises that commit dedicated organizational resources to ensuring that strategy is successfully executed will be 80 percent more likely to be industry leaders.” That is a great incentive!

Mechanics of how this was done aside, LW Partners cut their projects further to include only those that aligned to some element of the businesses purpose and mission. It took intention and effort to make a clear case about how each project fit into the strategic vision and needs of each sponsors’ operating area.

In the end, only 53 remained and they were very important projects, requiring considerable PM focus. With less projects and more visibility into the relationship between the project and the purpose of the business, the added focus of the project manager was more welcomed and appreciated. 

The PMO team and EVP also added strategic vetting to the scoping and approval for all new projects. Project sponsors would need to argue for and justify the rationale for their projects within the context of the larger business purpose, every single time.   

The time management impact for the PMO team was substantial. Here are some of the noticeable improvements that followed this shift to strategically aligning all projects:

The ability of a project manager to apply good time management techniques to every project is as much reliant on their own skills, training, ability, and operational focus, as it is reliant on the executive team making good project choices. A PMO overburdened with a high number of projects with no strategic alignment and at various states of progress, is bound to end up largely ineffective. However, forcing justification of projects by aligning them strategically, allows the project manager to determine the level of service necessary for the project to be successful.

At the end of the day, LWP produced a significant performance impact, leveraged through its project management team. And, once unshackled, effective time management was enabled and allowed to work properly.

Our early thinking on Project Management was first published in Bare Knuckled Project Management; how to succeed at every project (Gruebl, Welch & Dobson, Gameplan Press, 2013), available on Smashwords or Amazon. This case study was first published in the Fall 2017 issue of PM Magazine, Morgan State University. Understanding the impact of corporate culture and strategic alignment on project success is the topic of our new book, to be published later in 2018. Call us at think at 443.313.3348 to learn more. 

Notes:

[i] Crawford, J. Kent, The Strategic Planning Office: A Guide to Improving Organizational Performance, Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, 2002.

[ii] “Level of Service” is a node in Think’s PMO maturity matrix that defines cultural expectations of project management. High levels of service require more meetings, broader PM span of control, and higher degrees of fidelity in project management artifacts.

[iii] “Don’t Leave the PPM Strategy to Chance; Take a more activist approach to executing strategy by adopting new approaches to PPM,” by Christy Pettey, Contributor, Gartner, Inc., March 9, 2017. (https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/dont-leave-the-ppm-strategy-to-chance)

[iv] “PMI’s Pulse of the Profession: The High Cost of Low Performance – February 2014,” Project Management Instsitute, 2014, page 3. (https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/learning/thought-leadership/pulse/pulse-of-the-profession-2014.pdf)

[v] Bonnie, Emily. "Complete Collection of Project Management Statistics 2015," wrike.com, 7 July 2015. Web. 15 September 2017.