Agile Metrics Proposal

The Chief Product Officer in my company was asking me what metrics can be used to measure value delivery in any Agile project. He approached about measuring time logged by the individuals and the amount of story points, number of user stories, etc. I felt that such a metric driven mindset is an anti-pattern to self-organization and working agreements in a team. Recalling what Einstein said about not measuring everything countable as they won't count, I emphasized that we should measure what matters. 

Agile projects are predominantly characterized by the iterative nature of delivering incremental value to the customer by a self-organized team. So, it is important to measure value delivered through the iterations and releases rather than measuring individual contributions. I proposed four categories so that we can unearth the rationale behind them and not use the metrics to count against the team. 

Efficiency: This category is tactical in nature and aims at measuring how well the team is delivering value to the customer. Some example measure include:

1. Team Velocity - Work done by the team over sprints
2. Cycle Time - Conception to Value
3. Burn Rate - Rate at which releases are consuming backlog

Collaboration: This category is self-organization. With the growing popularity of virtual and remote teams, it is important to measure the collaboration among the team members. Some measure include:

1. Number Retrospective Items in Backlog - How many retrospective items identified are included in backlogs?
2. Processes Improvement Rate - What types of processes are improved as noted by training, documents, and continuous improvements?
3. Backlog Growth Rate - How much and what types of stories (Customer Value, Business Value, Technical Value, Process Value) are being added to the backlog and refined?

Effectiveness: This category is strategic and focuses on business value. Some measures include:

1. Velocity Variance - Planned (Committed) to Actual (Delivered)
2. Value Delivery - Measure Value in terms of Customer Satisfaction and Business Benefit
3. Technical Debt - Quantify Value of work not done in the interest of pushing customer value stories

Quality: This category aims at how good a quality is produced as sprints evolve and should be evaluated at multiple levels for continuous improvement and optimization. Here, we can go into more detail. Some thoughts include:

1. Automated Test Cases: Number of test cases that are automated
2. Defect Detection Rate: Number of incidents detected in a release
3. Test Case Reusability: Number of modular test cases reused within the test steps
4. Test Case Coverage: Number of requirements that are covered by test cases excluding summary use cases

These quality specific metrics can be further broken into additional areas for ongoing optimization and improvement, such as the following

Metrics at the Test Case Level

1. Test cases created for each user story
2. Test cases reworked (based on clarification of requirements)
3. Defects reported against the requirements (called defect density)
4. Defects reported against the test case for modification of test case
5. Test cases executed by passed, failed, blocked, etc.

Metrics at the Defect Level

1. Defects by Severity (Show stoppers that impact the release or client)
2. Escaped Defects (Indication of Internal Failure)
3. Defect Reopen Rate
4. Defects unidentified by internal users and clients
5. Number of Exploratory or unscripted testing in an iteration or release

What are your thoughts? What would you remove or add? 

Reflections on a Group Discussion: 4 Fs of Success

As the Vice President of Proposition Delivery and Operational Excellence, I was part of a major program initiative to revamp product management for emerging healthcare products. Several senior members of the organization along with some technical delivery members were present in multiple discussions over the last three months defining value delivery and success. Some of these definitions seemed generic and appeared applicable for any person, team, or business entity. Deidentifying some of the information and reframing them in simple terms, I am synthesizing my thoughts here as 4 Fs of Success.

1. Firm and Flexible

We live in a VUCA world. As technology becomes more accessible to customers and consumers, we should be willing to unlearn and relearn continuously. Sometimes, our 'bitterness of failures' may close opportunities that may otherwise be available for us. At the same time, our earlier 'sweetness of success' should not embolden us to avoid proactively looking at risk management. While balancing these two ends of the spectrum, one should also evaluate what one should stand for. Not all requests can be handled, and we should also know where our boundaries stop and when we should reevaluate opportunities.

2. Focus and Feedback

"Prioritize and Deliver" on agreed commitments! Often, we play the victim of attributing failure to methodology. Agile, Project Management, Scrum, Product Management, XP, or DSDM, for example, themselves do not fail because they are frameworks. Everyone needs to demonstrate leadership in delivering on their commitments. "Walk the Talk" is not reserved for the leaders at the top. As we have our commitments, it is important for every one of us to be accountable for the experience that we allow our customers to feel. If there is any potential adverse impact, be willing to give feedback. Risks and Quality are everyone's responsibility. So, stop playing the victim role based on framework!

3. Fostering and Feelings

A nurturing team environment is not an after-thought. For teams to own the commitments, they need to be part of creating the team charter where working agreements are made. Instead of forcing team behaviors, mentor and coach people to think customer value. Actively listen to others, practice empathy, and build an environment where people can "fail forward" fearlessly! Confidence and Competence develops only with commitment in a nourishing environment. Apply systems thinking concepts to let everyone see the future. 

4. Follow Up and Follow Through

Be both transactional and transformational as the situation warrants! This is where follow-up and follow-through come along. Follow-up is about seeking ongoing updates. Having a conversation about an issue is a follow-up but does that conversation alone guarantee completion? As the famous saying goes, "A person that won't read is no better than a person that can't read," one needs to see issues to closure. That is the definition of done and not leaving anything partly done or inadequately addressed. Therefore, follow-up is more like communication (one-way street like broadcasting) but follow-through is more like collaboration requiring one to take on initiatives to ensure that the items are complete and marked "DONE". This is why follow-up is transactional management mindset whereas follow-through is transformational leadership mindset. 

What do you think? To what extent do you agree or what would like to add/remove? 

Coaching Essentials: Helpful Guide

I have spoken in a few places and have got good feedback. Being a non-native English speaker and as an immigrant trying to land some comments and jokes incorrectly, I felt I could do better in terms of delivery. So, I worked with a coach in mid-2017 to help me become a better public speaker. He always made me comfortable as part of the initial discussions concluding with asking me permission to engage in the coaching activity. He continued to emphasize that he would only expand on what I discussed seeking clarity as I spoke. Then, the discussions focused on activities both of us should in the engagement and then the specific problem to resolve. As we continued to discuss how to be a better speaker, we both explored alternatives. It was a great engagement!

Recently, I attended a meeting within my company where there was an external speaker who was helping us with brainstorming ideas to bring a more concerted effort to product management within my company. This speaker laid out in one of the slides the following five steps to coaching us as a group. 

1. Get Permission to be a coach
2. Ensure Psychological Safety
3. Agree on a Common Goal
4. Converge on a Specific Problem
5. Evaluate Alternatives

Oh my God! It dawned on me only then that my coach from the year before was doing exactly those five steps except that he didn't specifically mention that. As an Agile Coach, I knew mentorship and coaching differed fundamentally. However, this group coaching engagement made me I realize the power of powerful questions in coaching for deeper appreciative enquiry based on open-ended dialog requiring active listening where the coached controls the charter and the coach guides the coached. I connected coaching as a leadership skill based on transformational leadership (individual consideration and inspirational motivation are critical here) and situational leadership (the four levels based on the extent of team maturity and direction needed). These thoughts connect with the curiosity, compassion, and courage paramount in a coaching engagement. 

I have done my best to capture some of the questions that I remember being asked for the benefit of the larger community. You can see from the questions that coach believes that the coached has answers and focuses on bringing these answers to the forefront making one to think beyond the blind spots. As the coach focuses mainly on the future, they shouldn't be judgmental (avoid all biases) and promote accountability.

Get Permission

1. Are you willing to work with a coaching engagement?
2. Do you give me permission to work with you as a coach?
3. What do you plan to achieve in our time together today?
4. What are you planning to walk away with from our discussion today?

Ensure Psychological Safety

1. How do you want me to work with you so that you can best contribute to our discussion?
2. What is distracting you from discussion and why does it bother you?
3. If there is one thing that we can do differently which you are willing to discuss openly, what would that be?
4. What is the best thing I should do to best support our discussion?

Agree on Goal

1. What would you like to discuss?
2. What is eating your mind (figurative way of saying what's bothering you)?
3. Among the topics you mentioned, what is the one thing we can discuss in more detail today?

Converge on Problem 

1. How does this problem bother you? (Understand the impact)
2. What makes this problem rank the highest? 
3. What is the benefit of addressing this for you? 
4. Can you give me an example?
5. Tell me more how this impacts you?
6. What have you tried that is working or not working? 
7. What have you learned from these attempts or problems?
8. What does success look like?
9. What would you like to see happen instead?
10. What do you think is the cost of taking any action or not acting on it?
11. What comes in your way?
12. What are you willing to give up resolving this problem?
13. What impediments, obstacles, blockers, or issues stand in your way?

Explore Alternatives

1. What else can we do?
2. How do you feel about the options we have discussed so far?
3. What options have we not talked about that you think we should?
4. What are you learning towards? Why? 
5. What do you plan to do before we meet again?
6. What would you like me to do before we reconvene?

Hope this helps! Let me know.

 

Managing Talent - 9 Quadrants

Managers and Leaders are always facing the dilemma of attracting, retaining, and managing talent. The cost of recruiting a new candidate and the cost of onboarding the candidate makes a huge impact on the organization's ability to deliver value and the project's ability to maintain flow of benefit. As a result, even project managers and program managers, who may not have the authority to hire talent based on the PMO structure must maintain a diligent focus on managing talent. 

In my capacity managing five direct employees who have a span of up to 5-10 people besides the various stakeholders as part of the projects and products they manage, I have taken on this role of talent management. Bringing my scholar-practitioner outlook of servant leadership that has four ways of categorizing talent (D1 to D4) and similar quadrant approaches in the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for product management, Ansoff Matrix for product diversification, and Blue Ocean Leadership for thinking big, I have created an approach based on one's job performance and their potential for the organization. Accordingly, I have iterated on this approach below and am sharing it.    

This is not a recommendation and may have to be modified as the situation warrants. 

Here are a few thoughts to keep in mind.

1. I consider the green middle quadrant to be the "Meet the expectations" (like a 3 out of 5). These people will be hungry for reward and recognition. The responsibility lies with their manager to evaluate (accountability is with the individual) potential versus performance and move them to be a high-performer or star performer. Recommendation is always to focus on people skills  (high-performer) than strategy skills (star performer)
2. The lower and top quadrant on the low performance scale indicate process problems in not hiring the right talent or not providing the right environment for them to perform. But, if there is a clear people problem (not a team player, performing things that are clearly against the professional code of ethics or demonstrating competence to perform), then, think of eliminating the person but tighten up the processes (never waste a failure). If the candidate has high potential but is not performing for various HR reasons, then put them on PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) or move them to a better role/department where their potential can be advantageous for them and the organization.
3. The lower quadrant on the high-performance low potential means they are efficient in doing things assigned to them but lack motivation or demonstrate a lack of career development (comfort zone). If they have comfort zone issues, they represent a potential flight risk, and the manager must be relentless in backing that individual. If the person is having career promotion interest but a lack of motivation, dig deeper to find out. Assigning mentors and advisors to support them in addressing their blind spots (weaknesses) is good. Focus on leading with their strength as it gives them confidence and is a morale booster.
4. The top quadrant (high performance, high potential) is an efficient leader. Now, this is based on competence and capability; therefore, be careful in premature promotion. One has to spend time coaching this individual. 
5. The yellow quadrants require managerial intervention. The individual may not be at the level to articulate their career ambitions clearly. So, this is where the manager truly shines in bringing them up to the level of competence required. 
6. The orange quadrants require managerial supervision.   According to the situational leadership, these areas may represent directing, supporting, delegating, and coaching depending upon the maturity of the person and the extent of direction needed. Frequently, these areas require the manager to serve as a coach. 

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any comments.

Global Leadership and Project Management

I am currently in Paris, France. As I was strolling through as part of my regular walks, I was particularly struck by the number of construction initiatives and establishments with several technology companies, hotels, fast food chains, fashion accessory companies, etc. I could not help starting to think of all the types of projects and leadership involved in such projects establishing these companies across the globe. I saw the same establishments in Vietnam, India, and the US.

While still upholding global branding, these companies and establishments need to cater to local markets leveraging funding options specifically relevant, yield to local laws and regulations, and show demonstrated leadership in each of these projects. It was at this time that I also saw announcements about tariffs from the US on steel and aluminum. These external influences emphasize the need to understand PESTLEED approaches to analyzing SWOT further.

As project and program managers start working on global initiatives introducing change, it is pivotal to understand that global leadership is beyond just understanding cultural diversity. Global leadership must extend to working in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world where project and program managers need to understand all the ten knowledge areas of project management but also go deeper in understanding the program management domain in strategic alignment and the benefit delivery lifecycle.

This generation of focus on value maximization is the foundation of glolocalization, i.e. global leadership with a localization that much beyond just culture and diversity.  In other words, “think global, act local” philosophy integrating leadership and management needs to be woven into grooming upcoming talent as well as existing talent.  Several strategies have failed when people didn’t think globally factoring cultural conditioning.  Let us learn from these lessons and avoid repeating the same failures. As I always say, “Fail forward!” 

Characteristics of Effective Written Communication

Having facilitated several training courses, particularly in project management training and in graduate level project management classes, I often find that people fail to effectively communicate. When it comes to effective communication in writing, truly understanding the basics of the communication model is critical.

The communication model involves a sender passing information through a channel with the goal that that this is received and interpreted by the receiver. Now, right in that communication model explanation lies the important requirement of communication - It is not about what the sender planned to send but what the receiver interpreted from the message.

Consider, for instance, the difference between two messages that I heard from my math teacher several years back while I was preparing to enter college. Both messages A and B have the same number of words in the same location except for the placement of the comma, which changes the entire meaning of the message. Although my Math teacher was teaching this to construct the right mathematical equation by placing the mathematical symbols correctly, he also communicated the powerful message of the importance of punctuations.

Message A: "Hang him not, leave him"
Message B: "Hang him, not leave him"

So, as we write anything, let us not read from what we wanted to communicate but read our thoughts on how the reader will interpret. When you are not present next to the reader to interpret the message, what areas will you focus on?

1. Use of correct "Grammar and Spelling" will be a simple critical building block. Even if you use a spell checker, proof-read words like "their" and "there" will not be caught by spell-check utility unless you have advanced grammar checks also built in. Proof-reading will also help in ensuring the right use of the subject/verb agreement.

2. Say it concisely - Your message must be concise and yet comprehensive. If I were to use my agile mindset here, if you were to remove all the words from your idea-tank and add only the required words, how many and what words will you add to ensure that you provide enough information concisely and yet provide the required context.

3. The coherent flow of ideas - Have you read your email or report after a day or attempted to read it from the bottom-up? Does the introduction properly give the required backdrop based on the conclusion drawn? Does every paragraph or bullet point really add-up.

4. Clarity in purpose - What's the action you want the reader to take? Is it informational, promotional, directional, or action-oriented? If you are not clear what you want the reader to do, how would you ensure that the reader can understand your written report? Focus on "who does what by when" as a minimum criterion and discuss the "why" for not only doing it but also the impact of not doing it. Depending upon the content of the written communication, you can add details about "How."

5. Control the flow of ideas - Sometimes, additional data or words will be required. If one example has proved the point, then, additional examples are irrelevant as the communication will take the reader's attention. If the example provided is inadequate, then, perhaps that's not the right example. Similar thoughts can expand to using diagrams to better support your ideas and using some legends and footnotes for the charts for better interpretation.

I have always found that these five simple areas are critical to communication! It not only puts the sender responsible for correct and complete delivery of the intended message but also put the onus to ensure correct interpretation of the delivered message. It also puts the recipient equally responsible for ensuring complete delivery of the full message and the acknowledge the correct interpretation of the message. It is great to see Project Management Institute (2017) acknowledge these 5Cs of effective written communication in its latest version of the Project Management Book of Knowledge.

Have you ever considered these 5C's of effective written communication?

References
Project Management Institute (2017). A guide to project management book of knowledge. 6th Edition. New Town Square, PA: Project Management Institute.

PICTURE your way to understand Program Manager responsibilities

Frequently, people keep asking what the role and responsibility of a project or program manager is. While the project manager focuses on generating the outcomes contributing to the benefits for the organization, the program manager focuses on integrating the benefits towards the strategic value. Therefore, both the project and program manager should understand the strategic focus of their role in tailoring their responsibilities. 

As the program manager is also held accountable for the operations as part of the benefit management, the primary value the program manager offers is their readiness to adopt strategies to optimize the delivery of benefits to the performing or sponsoring organizations.

Have you heard of the saying, “Picture speaks a thousand words?” So, I used PICTURE as an acronym to describe a few key responsibilities of the role. 

P – Program Definition. This covers the key elements of formulating and planning the program.

I – Interdependencies among program components including operation
C – Communication with the right stakeholders at the right level at the right time facilitating governance

T – Tailor the program management activities and processes by evaluating the outcomes against planned benefits and adapt as frequently as necessary.

U – Comfortable around Uncertainty 

R – Resolve challenges and constraints using a proper governance structure

E - Empower team by enabling them to deliver

How do you relate to this acronym to understand the program manager responsibilities?

If Data is King, Data Analytics is the Queen

In concluding one of the project management classes, where I had to assess the understanding of the process stability using control charts with some design of experiments requiring data collection and data analysis, it became quickly apparent to me that amidst the many types of classifying and categorizing data, the fundamental characteristics of data itself is not adequately understood. While people look at objective and subjective data of details collected from the documentation, surveys, interviews, and observations, there is not a strong understanding of the classification of data as continuous or discrete, categorical or numerical, nominal or ordinal, interval or ratio, etc. On top of it, the datatype as mentioned in programming and database systems, such as the integer, float, double, Boolean, string, varchar, identity, and datetime have added enough murkiness for many middle management roles to delegate their responsibility of understanding the data to subordinates, such as the data analyst, business analyst, etc.  

As I pondered over this dilemma, I found out that even professionals were unavailable to differentiate the three critical things in any descriptive data analysis. The measures of central tendency, symmetry, and dispersion were not readily coming up in one of my talks touching on the house of quality. If the business is collecting so much data, how can the lack of understanding of the classification, categorization, and type of data be taken for granted? If the information contained in data is meant to be serving the management to make decisions, then, how can the lack of basic data analytics be an optional criterion in the job descriptions for roles managing products, projects, programs, and accounts? 

According to Standish Report (Hastie & Wojewoda, 2015), the number of failed projects is decreasing, but the number of projects challenged from inception to closure has increased while the number of successful projects has remained flat. The same story is entirely different if we take the size of the project into account where a higher proportion of large size projects embrace failure. With so many tools available for middle management, such as earned value metrics, failure mode effect analysis, and six sigma, why is the attention to detail missing? While such a detailed review is beyond the scope of this blog article, brief research on data and business intelligence (n.d.) from QGate provides a compelling summary of data may be speaking but we may not be understanding.

We don't stop at addressing this complexity with more mandatory education and training on understanding data and using data analytics for business solutions. Instead, we compound it further by introducing big data with its own value, volume, velocity, veracity, and variety. Press (2014) notes twelve different definitions for big data that one can choose from which doesn't address the fundamental requirements of how to systematically identify the right data to look at, analyze it, and make proper decisions using hypothesis testing, regression analysis, etc. 

There is a world outside with data analytics focusing further on multivariate analysis, ANOVA studies, factor analysis, and selecting various distributions to choose from based on how the samples represent the population. While such advanced requirements may be referred to data analyst professionals, can we not mandate a good understand data (classification, categorization, and type) and fundamental data analysis (central tendency, dispersion, and symmetry)?

After all, if we all agree data is King to business, data analysis is the Queen of business operations. Both the King and Queen are critical to making the right decisions, sustaining the proper business operations, and maximizing the right business opportunity. With the explosive growth of data due to the advances in technology, as noted by Ginni Rometty (2016), CEO of IBM in her speech to World Health Congress, digital [data] is becoming the foundation and data analytics so is the basis for subsequent cognitive understanding. 

References

Data and Business Intelligence (BI) (n.d.) QGate. Retrieved February 27, 2018, from https://www.qgate.co.uk/blog/data-speaks-but-do-you-understand/

Press, G. (2014, September 3). 12 Big Data Definition: What's Yours? Retrieved Feb 18, 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2014/09/03/12-big-data-definitions-whats-yours/#7a5f1f813ae8

Hastie, S. & Wojewoda, S. (2015, October 14). Standish Group 2015 Chaos Report - Q&A with Jennifer Lynch. Retreived February 24, 2017, from https://www.infoq.com/articles/standish-chaos-2015

Rometti, G. (2016, April 12). Ginni Rometty Speech Archives. Retrieved January 31, 2018, from https://www.ibm.com/ibm/ginni/04_12_2016.html

Meetings: Tool for Managing Benefit Realization and Stakeholder Engagements

Every organization uses the meeting as a tool to accomplish many things. This concept of a meeting has become so mundane in today's business context. Whether we are leading a project, designing a product, coordinating a program, or supporting the operations, there are meetings galore on everyone's calendar! Meetings exist to collect & share information, review progress and risks to delivery, updates to management or team such as kill gates, management checkpoints, or health check reviews, manage changes to the projects or programs or problem-solve a technical or management challenge among many other reasons to have a meeting.

However, when you ask the question of how effective the meetings are in accomplishing the outcome the meetings are supposed to address, there is a wide spectrum of comments and objections one can hear! How often is the organization or even a project using the meeting as a stakeholder engagement tool? 

There are several books, blog articles, and training guides on conducting effective meetings. Then, why are some organizations advocating against meeting free days (hickey, n.d.) or email free days?  Synthesizing major recommendations of many of these recommendations come down to three things: 1) have an agenda, 2) involve the right people, and 3) have an effective facilitator. Let us look at these principles a little closely.

The first recommendation espoused was the golden principle of having an agenda to begin the meeting. This recommendation emphasized the focus on the purpose of the meeting.  I am sure some of us can relate to not attending any meeting without an agenda. However, despite having a written agenda published several days back, how conclusively we can agree that all these effective meetings had an agenda and so were efficient? The fundamental root cause is that productivity is associated with outcomes. A mere attendance at the meetings or raising a viewpoint doesn't accomplish anything except burn people's time! The goal of every meeting is to have clear outcomes that advance towards the benefits to be realized for the benefit of the project, team or organizational objectives. This means there should be decision points agreed on and actions items articulated with a clear accountable and responsible owner and with a definitive timeline to provide an incremental update on the action items! Meetings are an effective source of productivity loss (Rajagopalan, 2014a) if there is no laser focus on outcome management.

The second recommendation we listed involved the right people! In a world that appreciates "less is more", is involving too many people in a meeting appropriate use of people's time especially if the meeting's purpose is not to disseminate information (multicast)? A successful meeting is the one that has carefully identified the right parties with the decision authority to advance completion of the agenda/objectives towards an outcome or take accountability to follow up with an action item to close (Rajagopalan, 2016). Meetings are also an effective stakeholder engagement tool because unengaged or non-participating members are also contributing to the cost of a meeting (Rajagopalan, 2014b)! These members can be released from the meeting completely or early on so that they can be productive in what they do the best! Not managing this rightful audience and measuring the contribution effectiveness of the delegates in a meeting is a leadership failure on the organizer/facilitator of the meeting.

The third challenge we noted was having a good facilitator! Especially in meetings where participation from meeting attendees is required, this facilitation is critical. While we need to allow innovation, creativity, and problem-solving to continue, we also need to make sure that we allow tangential discussions and gut-feel thoughts that derail the meeting. Depending upon the value of such ideas, the organizer may have to put this parking lot, or delegate or seek the support of a leader with the decision authority to address that right away. Having another person to be a scribe (meeting notes taker) or a scheduler to keep up with the time is also an important element of facilitation, particularly considering today's virtual meetings where the facilitator may be presenting on the screen and can't have the luxury of taking notes! Not having a timebox to ensure that outcomes are identified, or action items are listed is a disservice to the other members who are attending the meeting.

So, next time you call for a meeting or organize a meeting, think what outcomes the meeting should accomplish, what attendees with the right decision authority are present, how much are the meeting attendees able to delegate their work, and how you will facilitate the meeting to ensure that action item are identified to advance every meeting incrementally and iteratively towards realizing the benefits for the organization. 

References

Hickey, K.F. (n.d.) How to take back your productivity with no meeting Wednesday. Retrieved January 31, 2018, from https://wavelength.asana.com/workstyle-no-meeting-wednesdays/

Rajagopalan, S. (2014a). Enhancing productivity. Retrieved January 31, 2018, from http://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2014/03/enhacing-productivity.html

Rajagopalan, S. (2014b). Effective virtual meetings. Retrieved January 31, 2018, from http://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2014/05/effective-virtual-meetings.html

Rajagopalan, S. (2016). Agile or Traditional: Productivity management still has basic roots. Retrieved January 31, 2018, from http://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2016/06/agile-or-traditional-productivity.html

Governance: The seeds of Operational Excellence

I am sure many of us have heard phrases like "we are in a constant fire-fighting mode," or "Pick your battles to win", etc. Somehow, these phrases have become so much a cliche that they have become part of our core management DNA principles. Recently, I was in a training session when I heard participants claim, "we are so much agile that we don't have time for iterations." Ignoring to immediately respond by focusing on principles of agile, grooming the backlog, and planning for iterations on this paradoxical phrase, I started questioning further. Not to most people's surprise, my finding revealed the lack of governance structure in strategic execution.

As I played archery game with my younger son on the Wii-U, he was explaining that I need to pay attention to the wind and distance before I can release the arrow. "It is not just a focus and strength game," he reasoned when I kept missing the target. It dawned on me immediately why people were failing to pay attention to strategy in execution, while strategy from the steering committee tells the archer which target to shoot the arrow, the archer still needs to have a specific strategy on how to execute to ensure the benefits align to the expectations of the steering committee. It is, therefore, management's responsibility to ensure that there are metrics and measures in place to inform the archer to take appropriate corrective and preventive actions.

However, when the managers and leaders fail to provide the required tools for people to upskill or reskill their talents, then they inherently suck the oxygen out of operational excellence. So, for an organization to continuously improve, they need to learn from past lessons and face new challenges and problems rather than relearn the same lessons or revisit the same challenges. It is leadership's failure to put the appropriate governance framework to ensure that execution is constantly aligned with the strategy.

The essential factors for operational excellence may vary within industries but they all should be having five important facts that I would like to call with a mnemonic phrase, "Strategy coordinates complex deliverable optimization." Let me expand on these five keywords:

Strategic Benefits - The strategy should deliver more than PowerPoints that make it into high-level objectives in people's scorecard. The leaders are accountable to provide clear measurable benefits that the execution should deliver. One of the important artifacts from program management domain is the benefits register that leaders should produce as an outcome from their strategic planning.

Coordinated Planning - While top management may have the vision, only the middle management knows the challenges of execution. So, top management should identify groomable talents within the organization involving them in the planning exercise with actionable outcomes. One of the best tools that the program and portfolio management domains recommend is a roadmap that orchestrates when the incremental and consolidated benefits will be realized (remember I just didn't say delivered) to help with adequate prioritization of customer and business value-add.

Complex Interdependencies - Whether benefits are delivered incrementally or consolidated, the complex interdependencies among projects and the operations still must be conceived by leadership and management. The middle management should be empowered to reskill their competencies in such a way that they are able to articulate around the political, economic, societal, technical, legal, environmental, ethnic and demographic (PESTLEED) dimensions leading to operational excellence. The best way to hold the top and middle management accountable is to have frequent management checkpoints (besides the health gate reviews) to inculcate the risks to delivery and the costs of non-delivery as part of their program or project design including the considerations for transition and succession planning.

Deliverable Integration - Particularly when benefits are incremental, but also as benefits become consolidated, integration of several benefits is a change management exercise. Understanding how changes impact the organization and evaluating the sensitivity around it as the projects and programs. This may take the form of standard operating procedures and transition and succession planning agreements (note that I didn't say just a plan or meeting but agreement) but most importantly having a controlled approach to releasing both the products to production as well as people to other projects.

Optimized Pace - Having a closed eye to how people will stretch themselves to deliver when benefits are not prioritized with multiple high-level priorities with interdependent resources is waiting for accidents to happen with the hope they don't. The most important assets to replace are the people and not having the above measures in places increases the stress level. Allowing people to decompress by requiring them to work on personal stretch goals aligned to the strategic benefits will help them reskill themselves to deliver on complex initiatives. They can't firefight forever and choose different battles to fight leading to employee attrition in the absence of execution treated with strategic outcomes aligned to the organizational benefits.

These five elements, in my humble opinion, are the governance fabric that lays the foundation for operational excellence. What do you think?

Simple Definition of Leadership

Leadership - Much has been talked about it both in scholarly literature and professional circles. Job roles, such as the Team Leader, also requires one to take leadership of a team. Similarly, various functional roles and strategic business units advance the notion of leadership inherent in them. For instance, a product owner is expected to be a leader in understanding the strategic nature of the product although the role itself doesn't have any leader tag associated. Similarly, account manager to lead the client and project manager to lead the client, team, and performing organizations mandate leadership qualities in them - yet there is no tag "leader" associated.

In several training classes, such as PMP training and Agile training that I have done, classes that I have facilitated in the academic setting for adult learners, as well as in the corporate and professional circles that I associate with, the questions of whether one is a leader or not comes up! So, how can we define leadership in its simple form without attributing terms such as charismatic, transactional, situational, transformational, and servant definitions so that anyone regardless of any professional or personal role can relate to being a leader!

When I was traveling to Vietnam, I stopped by Hong Kong where I had to wait for the connecting flight. It is there that simple definition really clicked to me as I saw a picture of a flying character with the slogans written in Chinese. Now, I don't know what the transcription reads on that board but the definition of leadership as, "a superpower seeing the people beyond what they see themselves and supporting them to raise up to their capabilities!" came up in my mind.

Please see the video linked here to hear my thought! (If the hyperlink does not work, please visit https://youtu.be/YYE76ZQjEV0 ) Would you agree with this definition?  Share your thoughts.

Thanks.
Sriram

Using Time to manage Risks associated with Stakeholders

Often, in my project management experience, I see that people miss engaging with the required stakeholders proactively to deal with risks. When stakeholders have not engaged appropriately, then, risks go uncontrolled making it impossible to mitigate them. Based on my experience, I see three types of stakeholders that need a good project manager must identify to proactively manage.

1. Too much engaged to the extent that they suck up all the oxygen in the team. They knowingly or unknowingly give the indication to the team that their ways are the common-sense way and everything else is almost wrong. 
2. Missing in Action stakeholders are too busy never to be around but when decisions are taken without them, they appear immediately. They are the constant speed breakers, breeding distrust and sometimes fear.
3. Ambiguous stakeholders who are in between these two above extremes can never figure out what they want, changing the priorities repeatedly making it difficult for the team to progress or slowdown. 

All these three types of stakeholders bring several types of risks - business, technical, and people among the many risks. The most important thing is to "Taking Initiative Managing Energy" that I call TIME management. This energy can be translated into how we manage "expectations". This is the reason why the project management discipline uses engagement for "stakeholder engagement" but management for other areas like knowledge areas like "Scope Management", "Schedule Management", etc. When you look at prioritization, it is all about taking initiative managing energy!

Consequently, while principles like start list, wish list and stop list exist that have been further enhanced by MoSCoW principles like (Must, Should, Could, and Won't) to prioritize requests, tasks, features, etc., TIME management considers a few simple things that anyone can do manage the stakeholders. These are asking a few questions like the following to set the expectations with the stakeholders.

1. Is this required? Particularly when #1 and #3 types of stakeholders are involved, determining the customer or business value of any proposed technique would take these discussions far along in avoiding tangential discussions and focusing on value-added work. Including timeboxing principles such as a definite amount of time for every actionable outcome from every agenda item can further keep the focus and remove other discussions to the parking lot.
2. Can you help me solve this, please? This approach can be used in all the three types of stakeholders. By setting one-on-one discussions with the stakeholder to mention how their values are important but how their continued presence is eliminating any creativity from the team due to their inclination to agree with the stakeholder's views or long absences taking any timely decision making away from the team can take the stakeholder management very productive. 
3. What's the ROI? Particularly in the stakeholder #3 situation, refocusing on the efforts versus cost/benefits can bring a distinct focus back to the project's objectives. Refocusing on the opportunity costs due to the cost of the meeting in discussing features that may not be a value add unless the stakeholder can unambiguously quantify will require the stakeholder to think of the Pareto principle and focus on "DONE"!

In the end, engaging stakeholders is an art that any project manager must spend time on. Regardless of how well one is, without a kaizen attitude towards continuous improvement, such arts of engaging stakeholders depreciate exponentially with time. So, use TIME to manage risks associated with stakeholder engagement. 

What other thoughts do you have in engaging stakeholders productively? Please share/comment. 

Continuous Improvement: The link between "Strengths" and "Opportunities"

Many of us that have some exposure into management either by academic preparation or by practical experience know a simple technique called the SWOT analysis. It is an acronym that stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This powerful technique is often delegated to management and leadership for major things like new product development, change management implementation, and sales & marketing. Its simplicity in personnel development as part of the individual development plan to rise above the competition is less understood and practiced.

For example, most people get exposure to specific techniques like programming, spoken language skills, design skills, communication skills and many others. One even goes to get certified by prestigious vendor neutral (e.g.: Project Management Institute, CompTIA) and vendor specific organizations (Microsoft, Oracle). Admiral pursuits like these give us the competitive edge in the form of strengths leading to opportunities like new job or promotion either laterally or vertically.

But, too often, not having the written SWOT analysis with SMART objectives for a 3-to-5-year strategy soon moves our own strengths into the weakness quadrant. This is because a lot of new developments happen. For instance, when I was in Vietnam last month, I saw ambitious projects like a tunnel from Vietnam to Japan being considered. Academic institutions had representation from a few countries teaching and training at their universities. Students traveled several hours each way to attend classes to increase their career potential. As globally several colleges prepare their learners to excel and several non-profit organizations provide numerous opportunities for volunteers to sharpen their competencies, the supply of such new skills and competencies is constantly increasing. So, unless someone awakens to the competitive reality, one loses the competitive edge they once thought they had!

So, how do we sharpen the saw? The best way to do this is to open the mind and have time for opportunities outside. Kaizen or Continuous Improvement is the key that is going to unlock the opportunities available by giving us a reality check on whether the skills are still on par with the market demand and allow us to gain competitive skills over time. For instance, project managers often think delivering on OBOSOT (On Budget, On Scope, and On Time) is the important metric. With the strategic talent triangle in place, the need for benefit realization is taking equal prominence in addition to OBOSOT needs. How will we ever know this if we don't attend professional networking events and certification workshops and gain guidance through mentors or coaches? 

I personally saw the six mega trends advanced by Vielemetter and Sell (2014) for leadership, such as globalization 2.0, environmental crisis, individualism and value pluralism, digital era, demographic change, and technological convergence. Don't let your skills get rusty. Refine, supplement, and augment them by sharpening them. Increase your competencies through volunteering and begin serving the ikigai that you are meant to. Opportunities only knock the doors of those that not only knock the doors but also build them of glass for opportunity to readily see and come.

Where is your SWOT and how are you preparing yourself for the future?

Ref.: Vielmetter, G. & Sell, Y. (2014). Leadership 2030. New York, NY: Amacom

Executives need to understand Program & Project Management

As a firm believer in continuous improvement, I have always been monitoring the external environment to find new trends and equip myself with this knowledge. One of these interests was understanding more about Program and Portfolio Management. Although I had executed successfully a few program initiatives and been part of the strategic portfolio management, my interest to pursue Program Management certification became strong with an announcement of Project Management Institute on Program Management Improvement and Accountability Act (President Barack Obama Signs the Program Management Improvement and Accountability Act, 2016). It was then I made a commitment to pursue PgMP certification which I passed successfully this month.

During the pursuit of this journey, I felt the inexorable gap in people in strategic leadership positions not truly understand the value of Project Management - let alone the program management. Many viewed program management that focuses on benefits delivery and benefits sustenance the same as project management that focuses on unique product or result. Mark Langley, the CEO of Project Management Institute, claimed how the lack of understanding project management culture among chief executives such CFO leads to money being wasted on projects failing to meet their strategic objectives or not having the appropriate structure for strong project management culture is a recipe for organizational failure (Langley, 2015).

If the culture of project management that touches on scope, schedule, cost, quality, risk, stakeholder, procurement, human resources, communication, and integration can't address servicing customers, delivering good quality products, and retaining talent, what other professional discipline can be part of the operational excellence that touches on all areas of middle management to address customers, products, and people? It is no wonder Ireland (2006) claimed almost ten years back why executive management needs more project management skills than technical skills or delegation skills to effectively lead the organization. Several years later, Gale (2012) reports on a few organizations as a case study to support the case for increasing role of project management.

As I went through the program management framework that lays the foundation for strategic benefits, coordinated planning, complex interdependencies, deliverable integration and optimized pacing, the role of program management in benefit delivery was conspicuous. The focus of programs not only dealt with incremental benefits delivered through component projects but also on the consolidated benefits through structured governance to resolve quin constraints aligning the program efforts to organizational direction, identifying and responding proactively to risks across the projects and into operations, and leading, coordinating and collaborating multiple work streams. When such a program level leadership role is not identified to go through a program delivery framework, lots of productivity loss becomes transparent to the organizations.

Organizations today are changing dramatically. The need to respond to changes rapidly is an essential fabric to maintaining market share amidst the political, economic, societal, technical, legal, environmental, ethnic, and demographic changes and competitive edge. So, the need for executives to understand the project, program, and portfolio management is not a luxury but a necessity.


References

Gale, S.F. (2012). The case for project management. PMI Executive Guide. Retrieved August 31, 2017, from https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/publications/pmi-executive-guide.pdf

Irelend, L. (2006). Executive Management's role in project management. International Project Management Association. Retrieved August 31, 2017, from http://www.ipma-usa.org/articles/ExecRoles.pdf

Langley, M.A. (2015, August 6). 3 Things CFOs Should Know about Project Management. CFO.com. Retrieved August 31, 2017, from http://ww2.cfo.com/business-planning/2015/08/3-things-cfos-know-project-management/

President Barack Obama Signs the Program Management Improvement and Accountability Act (2016, December). Project Management Institute. Retrieved August 31, 2017, from https://www.pmi.org/about/press-media/press-releases/president-barack-obama-signs-the-program-management-improvement-and-accountability-act 

Customer Service Redefined

I am currently in Vietnam as part of my faculty relationship with Northeastern University to teach a course on Strategic Leadership at the International University in Ho Chi Min City. Being a vegetarian, I asked about the menu options at the hotel I stayed at prior to my departure.  There were a few options presented. Upon arriving at the hotel, I explored all the four vegetarian menu choices in a couple of days! I had about 10 more days to go! Naturally, I was worried and started walking around to find other healthy vegetarian options!

I explained this to the chef at the hotel, Saigon Prince, and this is when I started a new definition of customer service. The chef patiently asked me more about my preferences, clarifying food options are considered acceptable for me. He even asked me to share with me a few menu choices and coming from an India background I provided ideas of Indian menu choices first followed by other cuisine ideas like Italian, Chinese, and Mexican recommendations. The chef was a Vietnamese origin and prepared me a couple of off-the-menu Indian choices. What surprised me was his reading about the Indian menu choices I presented along with the ways of preparation! I was pleasantly shocked to the attention to the detail in preparing the area for making my dish and giving me a clear vegetable broth soup that he found from his research accompanied this sort of dish. I was so happy that I recognized his due diligence and efforts by talking with the senior management appreciating him.

There were days the chef couldn't be there and so I still had to use my survival skills to explore the region. Using a combination of technology finding local Indian restaurants, I found about five Indian restaurants. One of these restaurants, Saigon India, particularly caught me off guard with another exemplary customer service. While most restaurants gave what I needed, the manager approached me and wanted to know a little more about it as he had not seen me before. That itself is an example of  good customer service in differentiating frequent visitors from new visitors and trying to offer specialized service. Additionally, knowing more about my food challenges and interests, he specifically custom ordered a dish and made the lunch menu to be one of my favorites. I was so pleasantly surprised with this burning desire to know more about the customers and catering to their needs by customized service.

Both these two businesses realize that I am a passing visitor. Not making any efforts to truly understand my needs, clarifying my requests, and following through on servicing my needs is really within the normal expectations of operating a restaurant or café. So long as the quality of the food, timely delivery of order, and demonstrating respect for me has been addressed, both these businesses have met the standard operational definition of customer service. But both redefined customer service in their attempt to understand the food challenge that I faced, clarify the requirements, research more to meet my demands, and then deliver a dish that met my requirements.

To me, they have redefined customer service. Customer service is not mentioning the customer is the king but truly making him or her feel like one. Whether the existing products meet the customer's demand or not, trying to understand the customer's request and the reasons behind such a request first applies the four stages of active listening (hear, clarify, interpret, and respond) and follow through with the products they had available to meet the customer's needs. That truly made the customer feel like a king and in today's globally shrinking world the customer may be far away but can still be a great marketing aid. As the basic rule of marketing goes, I will always refer them to anyone traveling to Ho Chi Ming City in Vietnam.

Management Presentations are Unscheduled Interviews for Career Growth

Many project managers in a strong project environment must do presentations before management or clients providing management level status updates about their project or program. As the performance review time comes and project managers want promotion accompanied by increased compensation, how much they have used their projects as catalytic vehicles to promote their personal brand is often not understood by many project managers. Little do many realize the type and structure of presentations in the first place in engaging with the stakeholders and use these presentations to their strategic advantage to build their own individual personal brand.

For instance, when the performance review time comes, why should they be considered for a promotion? Granted their ability to deliver projects on budget, on scope, and on time (called often by OBOSOT) is critical. But, despite the best efforts of a project manager to proactively identify risks and have risk response strategies to address these risks, the external environmental factors may adversely impact the project contributing to schedule slips, cost overruns, customer dissatisfaction, or project terminations. The project manager's ability to engage with the stakeholders managing their expectations proactively and communicating these results with the subsequent impacts on the projects positions the stakeholders to represent their interests to their management. The management presentations that project managers deliver are a critical component to this stakeholder engagement that emphasizes one's personal brand.

The presentations in general fall under three categories, namely informative, persuasive, or explanatory. I call them the "Communication PIE."

1. The informative presentations often summarize status updates of a project and review reports and variance analysis to project team members, project sponsor, and some senior members of management depending upon the project visibility. 
2. The explanatory presentations involve workshop or training style presentations where stakeholders or team members across the functions are trained to understand the processes, tools, policies, procedures, etc. The goal is on what they should know, how they should respond, where they should access more details, and who they should escalate when issues arise that are outside of the workshop or training. The goal is building team morale, addressing change management, training on tools and technologies, understanding processes, etc. 
3. The persuasive presentations focus on lobbying for a solution and presenting a strategy providing substantial reasons on the reasons, risks (threats/opportunities), impacts or benefits if fail to act in a reasonable time. The audience in this presentation is often the senior management including the sponsor involved in the decision making.

This persuasive meeting, for instance, is a moment for management to know more about your critical thinking and leadership skills. These presentations, in my humble opinion, are unscheduled interviews for the project managers where the management takes copious notes on how well you presented the solution and how thorough your analysis was. It is these presentations that come vividly to the senior management's mind with their mind voice reinforcing your need for a promotion. 

So, don't take these management meetings less seriously. These unscheduled interviews should be followed through on how you did, where you could improve, and have action plans to ensure that you are addressing these that your management sees. Maximize the opportunities, therefore, using your strengths in these meetings and eliminate the threats of stalled career growth by addressing any of your weaknesses. 

How well do you think you can utilize these management meetings productively next time? Share your thoughts by responding to this thread.

Method to create a Risk adjusted estimate - PERT

While estimation discussions come up among project managers or students pursuing project management, many never consider PERT. The discussions revolve around top down, analogous, bottom-up and parametric estimation. While each of these techniques have a place in estimation, I wonder why PERT is never considered. In fact, in one of the chapter meetings organized by PMI MassBay, one of the founders of PMI, Jim Snyder, considered the "Father of the Project Management Institute, expressed how even PMP certified people cant' explain the basics of estimation techniques like PERT.

I prefer PERT to any estimation technique and only prefer because it builds into a risk adjustment quantitatively. Perhaps, I am biased, but my bias comes from the fact that the analogous has too much uncertainty and the bottom-up estimation drains people's time. So, one of the approaches that I have taken is to get information using historical data and expert judgment and extract details for bottom up without spending too much time on the bottom up.  That is, my approach is to get the data required for PERT without asking people. 

For instance, if project archives tell some work took 100 hours when projected estimate was 70, then, I know 70 was a guess at the time it was given. Similarly, if someone said 70 hours but historical projects have taken up 100 hours for that level of effort, I know the 70 hours was the same guess. Now, put them in the normal or binomial curve. If 100 hours is the regular median, then apply the standard deviation calculations which says rough order of magnitude may go from 25% to 75%. The optimistic is 25% (17.5 less from 70 hours, i.e. 52.5). The pessimistic is 75% more than 70 (i.e., 52.5 more from 70, 122.5). Since 70 itself was a guess, I apply a slack based on complexity, unknown assumptions, level of expertise of the person giving, and add 10 to 15% more to 70. So, using 10%, I have optimistic (52.5), optimal (77) and pessimistic (122.5). So, (52.5 + 4*77 + 122.5)/6 = 80.5 PERT.

If we look at the way the planning poker is played, it is mainly making sure that people agree on a point value by allowing people that have the lowest and highest point engage in a conversation. The entire planning poker game is to promote the central tendency in a team setting. So, the statistical principles do apply. The PERT is another statistical approach that does the same thing to enable the teams to arrive at a value agreeable to all. 

Therefore, use the statistical ranges and historical data combined with expert judgment to realistically even out the uncertainties by creating a risk adjusted estimate using PERT.

How do you think you can apply this approach?

Listening with Eyes

The popularity of communication being the lynchpin for a successful project is very well known. In one of the conferences I attended, I even heard the speaker say that project success is 80% communication, and the other half is communication. People have classified communication by priority, the medium used, accessibility, etc. Communication plans therefore also require to be formal, clear, concise, comprehensive, accessible, and engaging stakeholder commitments. But one of the most critical aspects of any communication is in listening!

Again, the concept of active listening has been around for a long time. The four critical steps of hearing, clarifying, interpreting and responding to active listening have been reasonably understood by the project management community. During all these sessions, people focus on hearing the person putting aside their opinions and bias and understanding what the speaker says. All these sounds great but true active listening goes further beyond what is physically heard by the ears. One should go beyond the words spoken and unearth what is left unsaid. How can you accomplish? This is done by listening with eyes and senses.

When you are listening with eyes, you are not hearing what the person says but watching how the person says. The moments of pause and silence can emphasize the severity of the message while the rolling of eyes and other body gestures may provide indications of ambiguity, resilience, discomfort, etc. Frequent use of checking phones, lack of eye contact, and change of topics are also things to monitor as listening with eyes extend practicing actively non-verbal communication to a different level getting deeper. All these approaches also have to factor along with the geographical cultural components so that your clarifying questions and interpretations are not misleading.

Listening with eyes can also be practiced in written communication where the use of color in fonts, emphasis using bold, use of upper case letters, balanced use of emoticons to soften the message, use of proper white space to give breathing room for the reader, etc. There is a reason why there is a saying "read between the lines" exists.  Practice these communication approaches even when people are not talking to you such as in osmotic communication.

So, don't just focus on creating status reports and publishing emails. Factor as part of your management style "listening with eyes" actively. A good communicator is not always the good writer but the good listener.

Please respond with your thoughts.

RACI Errors: Impact on Project Integration Management

In developing a good project integration management, it is critical to understand the role of responsibility assignment matrix. The goal of project management primarily is to deliver results through other people. This involves a clear role and responsibility for every work package or function that will play a critical role in project delivery. One such responsibility assignment matrix is the RACI.

I have often seen RACI filled incorrectly and have blogged (Rajagopalan, 2014). However, I would like to discuss the following two issues further as they have a relationship on other aspects of project management knowledge areas.

1.  Mixed roles with "A" and "R": When a person or function is marked with both these roles, then this may introduce the risk of project schedule slip. If the individual responsible for doing the function fails to perform, then typically the accountable person will monitor the slip and ensure that the work is getting done. Alternatively, if the work is not completed satisfactorily, the accountable person shares the onus to check on the quality and the cost of poor delivery. However, if the "R" person also is the "A" person, then the latter will not put any pressure on the former because they are both the same. This impacts risk, time, cost, and quality. Similar challenges can be seen with "R" and "C" or "I" overlap.

2. Too may "A"s: If two people are accountable, then there are two types of problems. The first is the blindness game each "A" role plays thinking that the other role will keep an eye in ensuring the task is completed. When this task fails to be done, the blindness game becomes the blame game reasoning with the "I thought you would have done it." This introduces project delays that may impact time and introduces challenges with procurement. The second issue is the team gets conflicting directions from each "A" person leaving the team to get caught between power plays. The resulting team dynamics may lead to HR and stakeholder challenges.  Furthermore, these issues may impact other areas of project management.

There are several symptoms that a proper RACI may resolve for the project manager to proactively address. But unless a project manager has a good understanding of RACI, the symptoms deteriorate leading to major problems requiring surgical intervention from executive management.  The project manager can avoid these strategically by planning to succeed with end in mind. 

References

Rajagopalan, S. (2014). RACI: Errors and Implications in building the right one. https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2014/07/raci-errors-and-implications-in.html

Professional Networking Inevitable for Developing Personal Brand

In one of the workshops, I facilitated this month on agile project management, there were questions around gaining real experience that limited students to get gainful employment. In a talk that I gave subsequently later this month on PARAG framework for transforming middle management (Rajagopalan, 2015) highlighting how we should strive to learn from failures of projects within the industry of our specialization, the question revolved around how to go about learning from other project failures in similar sectors or industries.

As I ponder over these questions from both students looking for entry level positions as well as professionals in the work environment trying to improve themselves, there is a good striking similarity of the lack of understanding of professional networking. Perhaps confounded by the proliferation of the number of social media websites, the size of the friends’ circle within social media network and the practice of liking and sharing posts of people daily life, people think these social media practices are equivalent to professional networking. You can see some of these practices even in professional networks like LinkedIn where people seem to follow such practices. I believe people seem to have lost the connection to professional networking and its true benefits.

When colleges seek high school students, they are looking for a lot more than being the first in the school because there will be a lot of such 'first in school' students applying for the college. What distinguishes one student from another is becoming critical as the entry criteria for admission. This fundamental need to differentiate is why the students attempt to do many things, such as volunteering for a social cause, practicing a unique art or music, or excelling in a specific sport. Particularly, these volunteering opportunities open the doors to the understanding of customer service, accountability, and responsibility among many other indispensable values that many need to become well-rounded individuals.  How did this core need to volunteer get lost after graduation and employment?

While contributing to society by volunteering time is more rewarding, it provides an opportunity for one to augment their skills and gain experience in many areas, such as event planning, technical skills, customer service, etc. Besides, the same experience introduces other people that know you by face and work ethics, which carries a long way in expanding professional opportunities as one gains experience and seeks introductions. One is not only helping a cause but also building their reputation and visibility as they meet new people, make connections, learn new skills, gain competencies through experience, and get introductions. This experience is not the same as liking or sharing posts in social media or broadcasting forwarded posts through communication vehicles.

Now, the professional networking can also be expanded with a Kaizen (continuous improvement) attitude to professional improvement. By attending professional networking events like the monthly chapter events organized by the local chapters of the Project Management Institute, for instance, one can expand professional associations on topics that they may be unfamiliar with, problems encountered by other professional in the same industry or sector, or creative solutions to problems like us. Further, one can even seek input on how to solve a problem that they face in group activities at larger professional events like professional development days or executive committee meetings. Any information thus gained becomes invaluable as one adapts them to their needs creating new knowledge that can be shared to others through blogs, presentations at local round tables or chapter meetings, through the open space, global cafes, unconference, or lean coffee meetings

One common question that always comes up is the time commitment needed and the cost of the events. It is true that events cost money because they must be arranged too. Now, if professional improvement is at the core of your growth, then, one can find time because in my humble opinion, TIME is all about taking initiative managing energy. Many organizations support these professional improvement opportunities. One can always find ways to volunteer in part or full to cover themselves to attend these professional networking events. For instance, PMI is a volunteer-supported organization that has numerous opportunities and Agile Alliance has the purple volunteers always available to support large events. And I am proud to have volunteered with both these organizations.

In addition, the best way one can deepen the knowledge and wisdom gained is to share it with others. Just like how the people in the rally race get a head start running along with the person passing the baton, it is our responsibility to share the wealth of our knowledge and wisdom to the next generation during the time life can allow us to work together. There are many mentorships needs, such as those organized by PMI and NAAAP for professionals to volunteer supporting other students and professionals giving an opportunity for us to question our own fundamental assumptions from a different limelight and offer value to mentees.

In the end, whether one chooses volunteering, mentorship, or just professional improvement, it is imperative that one really understands that the value of one's brand lies much more in how many people know you for what you are! This knowledge of your true worth should be much more than just your organization but for the professional society that made you who you are. The best way to positively develop this individual brand is to be a servant leader in unlearning what you know, learning what you thought you know, and relearning to master what you learned. Then, your reputation precedes you.

References
Rajagopalan, S. (2015). Product Personification: PARAG model to successful software product development. International Journal of Managing Value and Supply Chains, 6(1), 1-12.

Do we fully understand Scope Management?

The record of how information technology projects fail has been studied and documented in numerous reports, such as the CHAOS, McKinsey, etc. The staggering statistics of the percentage of projects failing to meet their schedules, experiencing budget overruns, and failing to deliver the promised business value doesn’t always lead to technology as a failing component. The origins of failure often are not associated with technology but the people unable to relate to the scope in the big picture and the inadequate controls in the processes. In this blog article, let us focus on requirements on some of the less known aspects of scope – the boundary of what controls what the project should deliver!

Scope Grope: One of the less familiar aspects of scope management that plague the software industry is the team’s inability to articulate the requirements. These requirements manifest themselves as the rough draft of “wish lists.” This may also include some of those “gold-plated” features that are thought to be adding value. However, since these requirements are not solidly grounded in the technical, operational, and economic feasibility, these requirements do not strategically relate to winning more business, streamlining multiple channels of engagement, increasing employee performance, etc. These kinds of requirements become the "scope drifters" and are often a "productivity spoiler" and "promises stealer" because the business team fails to articulate the requirements clearly for subsequent analysis and design.

Occasionally, this challenge may further be passed from the business team to the technology team where the requirements further need to be assessed for technical plausibility within the constraints of human capital knowledge, budget limitations, security and compliance considerations being some of them. This scope grope may further be experienced by delay tactics by execution team members and the agile approaches to time-boxed delivery may easily be used to consider spikes as a limited experiment.

Among the many techniques available to use, a good technique to consider by both product managers, project managers, and business analysts is the SIPOC model. Using this model can help understand the relevance and importance of the entire value chain and the business impact of delivering or not delivering these wish-list features! Additional techniques include the benefits register, use case diagram, SWOT, PESTLE analysis, etc.

Scope Creep: This is a popular terminology even among agile practitioners that despises anything plan-driven. Although many relate to these concepts, there is a misconception that scope creep only involves the addition of new features not originally in the scope. Scope creep may also result from removal from scope any requirement and based on the time of the request, there may be rework required to revert some or all the changes done.

Perhaps mistakenly inherited from some of the account managers viewing scope creep as change orders executed with their client to reconcile financial changes in scope, the need to understand the process used in managing the product, program, or project cannot be emphasized more. Any organizational change control policy or governance framework must document changes not in the form of scope initiated by the client or product managers due to the market forces in the form of new or modified requirements but also the changes to the environmental context that also impacts the project’s schedule, cost, risk and quality.

Since the scope may have to reworked to bring the project to the same stability before additional work can be executed or released to the customer, the project manager’s astute awareness of the commercial and non-commercial aspects of the project’s boundary conditions may very well require additional stakeholders to be identified.

Scope Kill: It is an attempt to disengage with new ideas because the project’s operating framework doesn’t allow it, or the organizational culture doesn’t have an appetite for innovative ideas. There are many reasons for these "scope kill" contributors and some may include the scrum master not parking new ideas to be discussed at a later point and using time-boxing as an excuse to immediately mute the flow of ideas.

Several tools exist to control scope but one of the most critical tools is to have a RACI through which the Stakeholder map can be formed better to build alliances and form bridges to ensure that benefits are aligned, risks are mitigated, and quality is not compromised. The other tools include risk register, communication plan, stakeholder register, risk-adjusted backlog, a documented change control process and blue ocean thinking.

Scope Leap: Another uncommon terminology related to scope management is the scope leap, which is a result of a dramatic shift in the strategic focus or tactical direction of the organization altering the backdrop under which the project, product, or program is operating. In such cases, the measurable organizational value (MOV) no longer holds true completely. As a result, the focus of the minimum viable product may also have its significance for the product and project managers.

The biggest challenge comes when the same techniques for handling the Scope creep are used. Often, scope leap is happening when the project is in-flight, and it is understandable why one would resort to these techniques. However, since the project’s assumptions and subsequently the charter have been changed, getting back to the scope grope tools is better to revalidate ourselves before moving forward.

In the end, before any technology can be associated with a project’s failure, think of the role played by people, process, and organizations on a product and project’s scope and the resulting outcomes. It is possible for an IT project to fail because of technology but not all the technology project's failure come from technology failure! 

Product Management versus Project Management

As I was concluding a capstone class on project management, there was a question from a few students on whether there is any scope of career growth for project management as a profession with the increased focus on agile principles. Questioning further, the root cause of this concern was the fact that agile approaches, such as Scrum, do not call for a project manager role and the focus is only on product management. In a brief attempt to address these ongoing confusions thinking product and project management are mutually exclusive disciplines with product management slaying the project management field, I explain here the ongoing need for the symbiotic relationship between these two disciplines.

The experts in the field agree that a project is a temporary endeavor to create a unique product, service, or result. Inherent in this definition lies an inexorable relationship between these two disciplines. The project management is a set of processes, tools, and techniques that is indispensable to bring a product into the market. Therefore, a product cannot be delivered without the strategic focus on execution that only the discipline of the project management can provide through the phases of initiation, planning, execution, control and closure.

Does that mean product management is a subset of project management? Definitely not! I say this with so much certainty because project management is temporary in nature unlike product management that has a longer time horizon. Consider bringing to market a new hybrid car that runs purely on water! The product management may focus on generating the ideas, evaluating the alternatives, assessing the feasibility, and creating a business case at the beginning. Hence, the product management will have to think of a strategic road map of scouting the external and internal environments by applying the Porter's 5-force model. This 5-force model involves the availability of substitute products, bargaining power of the buyers (price consciousness of buyers), bargaining power of suppliers, those that supply goods), rivalry among the established firms, and the threat of new entrants.

Finally, after all the commercial, technical, and operational considerations have been addressed, the business case from product management becomes the starting point for project management to intervene initiating the project charter putting together the scope statement followed by the work breakdown structure and the sequence of activities that need to happen for bringing the hybrid car to the market. Now, if project managers only become tactical, then, they lose the ability to question the inherent assumptions to avoid a strategic failure. This fundamental need is why the businesses label the areas they need to work on as "capital project selection." The "capital" adjective here is a strategic decision making to ensure that the investment of funds, time, and resources are used to maximize the organizational value.

It is therefore evident that the product management defines what and where we should be doing while the project management tells us when and how we could be getting there. But the project management is like the Phoenix bird that ceases to exist as soon as that need of product management through the project management has been served. However, as the product management continues its journey through its lifecycle of development, growth, maturity, and retirement, there will be additional needs that will come up and the Phoenix bird revives itself again. Therefore, the good product managers will know that they need strategic project managers as brainstorming partners and similarly the good project managers will have more strategic thinking beyond the organizational context to support the product managers. Each profession, as a result, has a symbiotic relationship.

What do you think? Please respond with your comments.

Lessons learned: What the Silver Screen Cinemas can tell us?

I have been an ardent advocator of teaching the basics of project management, leadership, and emotional intelligence throughout my training and teaching career. In one of the recent classes that I was fortunate to facilitate, I used the example of Apollo 13 motion picture (Grazer & Howard, 1995) to illustrate to the class about the practical realities of how risks and quality can severely turn the happy path scenarios around. It was a revelation for the class as the various teams related to the emphasis of the "unknown unknown" risks on the management reserves, the criticality of risk identification and management strategies on contingency planning, influence of leadership on the conflict resolution and negotiation, etc. Synthesized in this blog are the major lessons that evolved from the class. When used effectively, the use of movies can become an effective tool at both academic and practitioner settings.

One of the first lessons was the importance of the timely response to strategic changes in direction as management and leadership reestablished the priority. Not only did the NASA management disregard the original mission to land on the moon but quickly established the revised project goal as they reset the impossible expectations on the on-ground team to bring the astronauts back to earth! Even at a tactical level, when one of the engineers pointed out how much power they need to conserve to return to earth, the decision-making was quick. One may question the time taken here because all these discussions were captured in a movie. However, when relating to the Apollo 13 timeline (n.d.) that were documented by where the entire episode of the discovery of the problem to the egress of the astronauts from the command module was approximately only 2.5 days, the importance of decision making cannot be overlooked.

The recurring theme among the teams was the relationship of proactive risk management. A space shuttle launch initiative is a major undertaking and risk management is a sine qua non of such larger programs. Yet, when the calamity dawned on the team, it became apparent in the class discussions how many of the risk response strategies had to be reworked identifying the secondary risks of the release of unsafe chemical gases and attempts to squeeze more power from modules for which no clearly documented procedures existed.

Another theme resonated nicely from the discussions was the importance of stakeholder and communication management. As heard in the movie, “Failure was not an option,” for NASA but there were several stakeholders in the power-influence grid that needed to be managed. The team’s efforts in managing these numerous stakeholders’ expectations during this major recovery exercise were commendable particularly when the only available communication channels available at that time were the radio, the television, and the newspapers. Managing expectations of public relations was still achieved in the absence of today’s Internet-connected social media world.

An interesting point was the class focus rested predominantly on the on-ground team efforts until discussions were brought on the astronauts that needed to execute these sequences under entirely different situations of limited heat, extreme stress, limited resources, and intense focus. These facilitated discussions further highlighted the analogy to the gaps experienced with the distributed, virtual, and remote teams were brought to light.

In summarizing, this exercise brought a good closure in bringing home the vital elements of management and leadership while constantly managing the emotions expeditiously and relating to the basic principles of project management.

What other movies do you think can bring home similar experiences in a teaching or training setting?

References

Apollo 13 Timeline (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2016, from http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_13h_Timeline.htm

Grazer, B. (Producer), & Howard, R. (Director). (1995). Apollo 13 [Motion picture]. United States: Universal Pictures.