Changing a poor project management mindset
I just saw an ad from Microsoft that says ‘how can I free up IT so they can focus on the big stuff’. Now I think the problem is not a lack of solutions but a lack of will on the side of big corporations to focus on the big stuff.
In the last few weeks I’ve started to design a project management operating system for the team I work with. It is not reinventing the wheel but rather evolving on the practices we’ve had in place for the last 2 years. But what I can see is that in a business environment is not easy to implement best practices that rely on documentation of processes, lessons learned and a focus on analysis and planning. It is far more easy to encounter such practices on engineering areas within a company where they count on many well established processes to ensure the end product will meet the customer/market’s requirements.
But what about our internal requirements? Isn’t the business a customer of its own? If I have to respond to someone in regards to the results of the projects I have on my plate it is certain the business itself will be among the stakeholders. And so it is very difficult in a lot of situations to make sure once a project is green-lighted that the appropriate steps to understand the end result and to define the tasks that will culminate in a successful execution will be taken.
So, what can we do? Truly tested solutions include:
- Promoting of Project Management practices by the PMs themselves.
- Educate your leadership members to understand the basis of PM-ship.
- Educate your project managers on the bases of PM-ship (yeah, PMs have a lot of guilt too).
- Promote the usage of collaboration tools that enable to sharing of information between projects.
- Enforce (yep, sometimes you have to use some of that authority you were granted) lessons learned documentation.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate – The more team members, sponsors, stakeholders know what is going on the better they will feel the success chances are and the easier it will be for them to adopt future PM best-practices.
Now keep in mind that driving to a correct mindset related to project management is not about implementing 25 new processes and techniques overnight, is about improving on what is already present. The best way for a function, company, organization, or team to get better is by evolving in small steps and taking them one at a time. That way the chances of making it stick to everyone increase and, more importantly, they’ll take it with them wherever they go.
