PM Perspectives - Article Listings

Study links good leaders to successful projects

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

While good leadership must have something to do with successful projects, it's surprising how few studies have examined this correlation.

A new study from the United Kingdom however, finds that there is a statistically significant relationship between the two, and pinpoints the leadership dimensions that most influence a project's success.

Researchers Linda Geoghegan of Electronic Data Systems and Professor Victor Dulewicz of the Henley Business School at the University of Reading hope that organizations can exploit this knowledge to improve project outcomes.

Using a project-success questionnaire and a leadership-dimensions questionnaire, the researchers set out to examine leadership in a large U.K. company. In all, 52 respondents (81 percent of the company's project managers) completed both questionnaires.

The researchers divided their study into two groups. They administered leadership dimensions questionnaire (LDQ) to project managers who had worked on projects with budgets greater than £350,000 and gave a project-success questionnaire (PSQ) to project sponsors for projects of a similar size.

The PSQ comprised two key themes: the project and the client, covering 12 common measures of success, such as whether the project was completed on time and on budget, project performance, client satisfaction and the project's impact on organizational effectiveness.

Leadership traits on the LDQ included seven emotional competencies, five managerial competencies, and three intellectual competencies. Of these 15 possible leadership factors, the researchers found that eight had an impact on project management success:

Critical analysis
Self-awareness
Sensitivity
Influencing
Motivation
Manage resources
Empowering
Developing

The researchers compared the results of both questionnaires, looking for correlations between satisfactory project outcomes and good leadership.

Interestingly, they discovered that project managers scored higher than the norm for leadership traits related to conscientiousness, sensitivity and self-awareness. The researchers suggest that these high scores may result from the project managers' exposure to leadership activities such as influencing difficult stakeholders and their need to obtain commitment from senior management in order to move their projects forward.

The project managers scored relatively lower on vision, strategic perspective and achieving, with the vision score being statistically significantly lower than the norm. The researchers suggest that the project managers scored poorly in this area because they are never involved in setting an organization's vision but instead focus on implementing projects that fulfill a pre-defined vision.

Overall, the research reveals several leadership dimensions that contribute to successful projects. The most significant dimensions were managing resources, empowering, developing and motivating. For example, project managers who rated highly for ‘solving problems' on the PSQ also demonstrated leadership strengths in empowering and developing their colleagues, were able to manage resources efficiently and effectively and were also highly motivated. Surprisingly, these project managers did not score highly on critical analysis, although the overall survey group did score well in this area when compared to the norm.

There was also a significant correlation between the leadership dimensions that measured the ability to manage resources, empower and bring a project in on budget. "This is not surprising considering the relationship between managing resources and managing the budget," says Geoghegan.

She and Dulewicz say their research clearly demonstrates that leadership dimensions that are directly linked to successful projects should be the focus of project manager training.

"It's important that senior management are aware that leadership competencies do have an impact on the personnel with whom they work and ultimately, on the success of their change programs," says Dulewicz. He suggests that project leaders could be selected based on their leadership profile as measured by a proven questionnaire such as the Leadership Dimensions Questionnaire (LDQ).

Because the research study involved relatively few respondents and just one company, the researchers say further and broader studies must be undertaken before transferring any relationships between leadership dimensions and project success to other industries.

Contributing authors: Linda Geoghegan and Victor Dulewicz

PMPerspectives.org is a website which connects project managers and sponsors with project management researchers. Our mission is to understand and improve project management practices. The research team comprises Dr. Blaize Horner Reich and Dr. Andrew Gemino from Simon Fraser niversity, Canada and Dr. Chris Sauer from Oxford University, UK.

© Reich, Gemino, Sauer (2010)

Know Your Knowledge Risks

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

When it comes to managing knowledge during an IT project, most project managers hide their heads in the sand. Knowledge management is a complex topic and most projects are already tough enough.

Yet Dr. Blaize Horner Reich's research reveals that managing knowledge is important if the project has a high level of uncertainty, is particularly large or long, or is a critical part of the organization's strategy.

Reich, of Simon Fraser University, and her colleagues have been investigating knowledge management - or its lack - in IT projects for the past three years. They have identified four kinds of knowledge that are important to IT projects and 10 knowledge risks to manage. They have also developed practical guidelines and practices for these 10 knowledge risks. (see follow-up PMPerspectives article called Managing Knowledge Risks)

"Many project managers say they routinely face knowledge-based risks but lack a formal process for acknowledging or mitigating these risks," says Reich. "Our goal is to help project managers identify and manage them."

During her research, Reich interviewed 15 senior project managers in Canada and New Zealand. She also took her findings on the road, presenting them to several academic, practitioner and CIO groups.

One finding was a lack of common understanding about the meaning of knowledge management within a project context. She suggests that knowledge management has three parts: creating and integrating knowledge, minimizing knowledge losses and filling knowledge gaps throughout a project's duration.

Reich's research reveals four types of knowledge that are important to IT project success:

1) Process - knowledge about the project structure, methodology, tasks and time frames. "This knowledge allows a team member to understand his or her part in the overall project, to understand what is expected and when it is to be delivered. It also allows a team or sub-team to self-organize.

2) Domain - knowledge of the industry, firm, current situation, problem/opportunity and potential technical solutions. This knowledge is spread widely within and outside the project team.

3) Institutional - knowledge of the history, power structure and values of the organization _ "what is really going on" - which is transferred by means of stories or anecdotes by organization insiders or observers.

4) Cultural - knowledge of how to manage team members of different cultures or from many disciplinary groups such as web designers, IT architects or organizational development experts.

Finally, Reich's research revealed 10 knowledge risks to watch for:

1) Lessons not learned.

Few projects, says Reich, use the lessons learned from prior projects.

2) Team selection is flawed.

While project managers may know the kinds of skills they want to hire for, they often have difficulties meeting those requirements. "When the team selection process is flawed," says Reich, "the project manager will not know what the team knows collectively or, more importantly, what it doesn't know."

3) Volatility in the governance team

During a project, there is gradual knowledge-building among the key stakeholders. The loss of any of these governance members results in a knowledge loss that may severely impact the project's ability to succeed.

4) Lack of role knowledge among the governance team

Many senior executives do not have the experience or the training needed to function as project sponsors and champions.

5) Inadequate knowledge integration

Integrating knowledge between the technical and business team members is important because together, they can create knowledge that is greater than the sum of the parts: a new idea, a shared understanding or an integrative model. Often, says Reich, one group may not know what the other is doing or what it knows.

6) Incomplete knowledge transfer

Knowledge transfer, often from vendor or consultant to the internal project members, is critical. Reich notes that although project managers may include in the project plan activities to support knowledge transfer, they often have no objective way to measure how effectively these activities were performed.

7) Exit of Team Members

While all project managers know that losing team members results in knowledge gaps, few create a plan to mitigate such losses.

8) Lack of a knowledge map

People on a team need to have a "map" of each other's skills and knowledge, so they can get help and give help when needed.

9) Loss between phases

Team composition often changes from phase to phase. This generates significant risk that knowledge from one phase won't be adequately transferred to the next phase.

10) Failure to learn

Lessons learned during a project are rarely satisfactorily captured, either during or at the end of a project. This topic is covered in another PMPerspectives article, called Applying Lessons Learned to a Project.

"By sharing this information," says Reich, "we aim to empower project managers to better manage these knowledge risks and improve IT project performance and organizational project competence."

© Reich, Gemino, Sauer (2008)

New Roles for the Consultant Project Manager

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

There's a new trend evolving in external project management and it isn't for the faint-of-heart.

Increasingly, companies are relying on consultant project managers to not only deliver their tougher information technology (IT) projects but to help realize value for money.

A recent study focusing on this trend finds that external project managers are moving beyond their traditional responsibilities to fulfill three additional roles: account manager, surrogate sponsor and profession leader.

Researchers Blaize Horner Reich of the Segal Graduate School of Business at Simon Fraser University, Canada and Chris Sauer of the Saïd Business School at Oxford University, England, interviewed 25 senior consultant project managers in the USA, Canada and the UK who had managed transformational IT projects.

The researchers discovered that external project managers are often asked to take on account management responsibilities because the client develops a stronger relationship with them than with the appointed account manager. They also become surrogate sponsors when the business sponsor is unwilling or unable to support a project. And they assume the role of profession leader because it assists in developing the supplier's reputation in project management. "Ability to juggle these roles over time," notes Reich, "enhances the external project manager's long-term career success."

Traditionally, account managers within a supplier firm act as the principal point of contact for the client: to manage the relationship, develop sales and take responsibility for client satisfaction. Today, says Reich, "external project managers are taking on aspects of this role in four ways: they're winning initial business, maintaining the relationship with the client, selling follow-on business and managing profitability."

To fulfill this role, external project managers must acquire sales skills to create situations in which clients want to buy new projects or follow-on work.

The researchers also learned that as projects become critical to executives' fulfilment of their role, external project managers will often take on client responsibilities including standing in for the sponsor at executive management or board meetings to sell the business case and report progress on the sponsor's behalf. Often the project manager coaches the sponsor on his or her role. In extreme cases, the project manager may take over all of the sponsor's responsibilities.

Fulfilling the surrogate sponsor role, says Reich, requires both generic business knowledge and specific knowledge of the client's business. "The external project manager has to rapidly build a network within the client organization that will keep them apprised of internal information and help them access the power structure so that they can stand in when necessary," she says.

The third role expected of external project managers is that of profession leader. As they become more senior, they are expected to be more visible, produce more knowledge and act as a role model. They need a broader perspective, says Reich, in order to demonstrate thought leadership and to demonstrate the supplier's ability to handle more ambitious challenges.

So how can external project managers cope with these new roles and responsibilities? Reich and Sauer acknowledge that IT project managers, who typically come from a technical background, are not always equipped to play executive and entrepreneurial roles. Still, they say, by crafting a long-term self-development plan, junior project managers should be able to take on increasing responsibility and visibility within the firm, the client and the profession.

Here are their recommendations for education:

Take a sales course. Learn how to influence the client as well as identify and seize opportunities.
Take an MBA or other general business program. If you don't understand topics such as marketing, finance, strategy and human resources, you can't take part in discussions about project benefits.
Take a public-speaking course or join associations such as Toastmasters. Become confident at making compelling points in meetings or as a featured speaker.
Take a negotiation course. Learn to negotiate from interests and create win-win solutions.
Take a coaching course. Learn how to understand and inspire great performance in others.

Reich and Sauer also make recommendations for action:

On long-term projects, take every opportunity to learn more about the strategy, financials and competitive position of the client.
Focus your career on an industry vertical and become deeply knowledgeable about this sector through personal research, attending industry meetings and joining professional associations.
Develop a networking plan within the client organization. Get to know the key individuals and the up-and-comers - their goals and constraints, their history and aspirations.
Establish your leadership within the profession. Reflect on your projects and develop lessons from them. Take opportunities to share these ideas by speaking or writing.

© Reich, Gemino, Sauer (2008)

IT Projects: Getting Beyond CHAOS

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Over-achieving IT projects? It sounds too good to be true. But new research by Dr. Andrew Gemino of Simon Fraser University completely contradicts those gloomy Standish Group 2006 CHAOS report statistics indicating that two-thirds of IT projects perform poorly or fail and only one-third succeed.

Gemino has just compiled results from a 2003 research survey in which two-thirds of IT projects succeeded and just one-third failed, with several projects actually over-achieving their targets.

The research comprised two independent studies in the U.S. and U.K., in which the researchers examined survey responses from a total of 741 project managers with 15 years or more experience in the IT industry and eight or more years managing projects.

Gemino then used a data-driven clustering method that identified five types of project groups reported in the surveys: abandoned, budget-challenged, schedule-challenged, good performers and star performers.

"The most interesting group we found was the star performers," says Gemino. "These projects over-performed on budget and scope and were present in both studies. We were the first to report this finding."

A new benchmark for success

This new research, says Gemino, suggests that we need a new benchmark for what is reasonably achievable in IT projects. Based on his research, experienced project managers should be able to come within small margins (plus or minus seven percent) of their budget, schedule and scope targets on at least two out of every three projects.

"IT projects are as likely to over-perform as they are to fail, but we don't seem to hear about over-performing projects" says Gemino. "Failures gather more attention, but our economy's continued investment in IT suggests organizations must be getting good value. The star performers we found provide some justification for this "

Perhaps more importantly, Gemino suggests that some of the attention placed on budget and schedule targets is misplaced. "The Standish Group has focused on hitting scope, schedule and budget targets," explains Gemino. "But how much does this tell us about a project's real performance? We need to place more focus on a project's benefits and business value when we're considering performance. Senior managers need to recognize this and organizations need to focus on creating value through projects.

"Simply hitting budget and target schedules does not mean the project adds value."

© Reich, Gemino, Sauer (2008)

Managing Great Expectations

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Did you ever ask for an outrageously expensive brand-name toy for your birthday - and then received a generic version that just didn't have the same cachet?

And then found that you couldn't bring yourself to play much with it because it just didn't live up to your expectations?

Well, end-users of new software systems often feel the same way. In fact, failure to manage user expectations is one of the biggest risks to project success when project managers are implementing new software systems.

Research demonstrates that users who harbour unrealistic expectations are more likely to be dissatisfied with the project outcome and less likely to take best advantage of it.

Fortunately, this is one risk factor that project managers can influence and minimize, according to Professor Stacie Petter at the University of Omaha at Nebraska. The key, she says, is to work with the users and keep them involved, establish leadership and gain user trust.

Petter recently completed a research project that defines practical tactics that project managers can use to align user expectations with project delivery.

She and another researcher interviewed project managers from a global IT and consulting company with more than 75,000 employees across almost 50 countries.

Petter asked each project manager to recall two projects in which they faced challenges in managing user expectations - one that they managed successfully and one that they felt wasn't successfully managed.

She then analyzed their responses, drawing out successful tactics for involving the user, establishing leadership and gaining trust - the three strategies that she discovered are key to managing user expectations. Her findings:

Involve the Users

"Every textbook," says Petter, "advocates involving the users, but it's often done badly. People think that one meeting with the users is enough." The value of this research is that it proposes actionable tactics. Project managers should ask themselves how well they do the following:

Communicate. Get users involved early in the project and keep them involved throughout.
If the user base is large, create small user groups.
Listen to them, ask questions and give credit for good suggestions.
Let users make tough choices about budget, schedule and/or functionality.
Recognize their concerns about change and help them to feel at ease.
Build positive momentum and continue it throughout the development phase.
Offer training, help desks and other support functions to maintain comfort and involvement during implementation

Establish Leadership

"There are two types of leadership that need to be exhibited during a software project to properly manage user expectations," says Petter. "A project champion for the users and a project manager/leader for the team."

The project champion, she says, helps to manage expectations by promoting the project vision, educating users about the software's values and benefits, and by rallying the ‘troops' and explaining how they can assist. One interviewee recommended choosing someone who is influential, well respected and well connected within the client organization.

The project manager, says Petter, must lead both project colleagues and users along the correct path. "To do this, the project manager needs to be knowledgeable about the business problem, the system's technical aspects and also project management."

For a successful outcome, she says, a project manager should also:

Articulate a clear view of the project
Ensure you have a strong project champion to share the vision
Educate users about the value and benefits of the system, while also ensuring they have reasonable expectations
Obtain buy-in from the primary, or most vocal, stakeholders and work outward
Don't oversell the project
Motivate the project team to complete on time

Finally, says Petter, the project manager needs fortitude. "Be strong with users," she says. "If they ask for additional functionality, it's important not to simply agree to every request." Instead, initiate a formal change-request process and educate users about the consequences of any changes.

Establish Trust

Project managers who involve users and develop a relationship with them will be on their way to establishing trust. Petter notes that there are other important tactics for gaining and maintaining trust:

Use clear terminology. For instance, inform users they will see a prototype in one week, not ‘soon'.
Be willing to share both good and bad news throughout the project - don't leave others to disseminate such news.

Overall, says Petter, "the tactics for managing user expectations that we've identified in our research aren't complex. They're really quite simple.

"Yet if software project managers truly understood and followed these tactics, managing user expectations would not be among one of the three highest-ranking risks in software projects."

Contributing authors: Dr. Stacie Petter

© Reich, Gemino, Sauer (2008)

Sponsors Play a Vital Role in Projects

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Project sponsors don't get much applause-in research literature or on the job. Yet there is convincing evidence that a project's success or failure often relies on top management support.

Researcher Lynn Crawford, of the Lille School of Management in France (ESC Lille) and Bond University, Australia, and her international colleagues recently conducted over 108 interviews relating to 36 projects in five different regions: Australia, China, Europe, North America and South Africa.

The researchers were looking for data that would make sense of-and define-the sponsor's true role. They discovered that project sponsors do play a pivotal role, both in influencing a project's success and overseeing its governance requirements.

"Sponsors are often the critical link between corporate and project governance," says Crawford, "ensuring that governance requirements are met and that projects receive the support they need."

Sponsors act as the bridge between the organization and the project, she says, and must have experience, knowledge, perspective, credibility and authority. They should also be excellent communicators, passionate about their cause and capable of handling ambiguity as well as managing their time and stress levels.

A sponsor's governance role, Crawford and her colleagues say, can be structured around six dimensions:

Governing the project
Taking accountability for business case and benefits
Giving direction and making decisions
Critically reviewing progress
Managing internal and external interfaces
Representing the project to the organization.

The sponsor's support role has four dimensions:

Having credibility and using networking ability
Providing leadership
Maintaining effective relationships
Being available and providing timely support

Some projects, says Crawford, will have a greater emphasis on governance while others will require more support from a sponsor.

Generally, she says, governance will be more important in those projects where there is:

High-risk exposure for the organization if the project fails
Persistent under-performance of the project
Rapidly changing market conditions
Attention drawn to corporate governance(e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley)
Suspected illegal or non-compliant behaviour in the project
Project is mission-critical
Need to realign project to new strategy or organizational context

Projects exhibiting a greater need for support include those where:

The organization fails to provide sufficient resources for the project
Some parts of the parent organization are resisting the project's implementation
Different stakeholders in the parent organization are seeking to impose conflicting requirements on the project
The parent organization is failing to provide the project with decisions necessary to maintain planned progress
The project manager is inexperienced or weak
There are early signs of difficulty within the project, such as a possible shortfall in benefits

The researchers have created a two-by-two model of sponsor roles. This model suggests that:

1) A project with a low need for support or governance can be successful with a guardian sponsor

2) A project with a low need for support and a high need for governance needs a judge

3) A project with a high need for support and a low need for governance needs a mentor

4) A project with high needs for both support and governance needs a Professor Dumbledore - someone wise and powerful.

The bottom line, says Crawford, is that it is a difficult job to be a good project sponsor. As one of her interviewees says:

"You're a bit removed from the detail.... So you have to just spend the time talking to people, trying to understand what they are saying... and that's a real challenge for a sponsor when you've got so many other things to do."

"While the project sponsor role has often been taken for granted, the new emphasis on corporate and project governance is now highlighting the role's importance, as well as its complexity and variability," says Crawford. "We'll continue to examine our data for more information that can synthesize and capture the richness of the sponsor's role and commitment."

Contributing authors: Dr Lynn Crawford, Dr. Terry Cooke-Davies, Dr. Brian Hobbs, Dr. Les Labuschagne, Dr. Kaye Remington, and Dr. Ping Chen

© Reich, Gemino, Sauer (2009)

Building The PM-Centric Organization

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

What can IT service firms and in-house IT organizations learn from the construction industry?

"Continuous improvement of project management skills," says Chris Sauer, a researcher with the Saïd Business School at Oxford University, England. "Construction companies stand or fall by their project performance. And we've discovered that the lessons they've learned can be applied to the IT sector."

Where before IT organizations considered managing day-to-day operations as their core, today there's a dawning realization that project management capabilities should be at the heart of all they do.

"The IT sector has changed," explains Sauer. "IT projects are now recognized as critically important to core business. As well, IT outsourcing has led to the growth of systems integrators, for whom projects are the core business."

And while the disciplined application of tools and techniques has traditionally been the IT sector's approach to project management, this doesn't seem to be the entire answer, since so many projects still fail to satisfy the client.

So it only makes sense that these companies should improve their project management competencies. But how?

For answers, Sauer turned to the construction industry, gathering data and conducting interviews with employees and board directors of four large, successful Australian construction companies with a reputation for consistently high project performance.

"The secret of their success lies in the way they focus the entire organization on project management," says Sauer. "As one manager told us, "In our industry, project managers are kings."

Multiplex Constructions Pty Ltd., for example, has an outstanding track record of success in its home country. It achieves its high project performance because its organizational structures, management processes, roles, skills and culture all focus on achieving project success. And the point of convergence, says Sauer, is the project manager.

Companies like Multiplex, he says, use a combination of individual and organizational-level capabilities, with experience from each project feeding back into those capabilities. "These feedback loops are what make the construction model both sustainable and effective," he says.

Sauer's study reveals that effective organizational capability is a complex arrangement requiring:

A career structure to give project managers incentives to develop
A project management office as a focus for developing project management knowledge and as a ‘home base' for managers
Support from above - a direct reporting line to powerful directors who can offer political and resource support during tough times
Reduced challenge from other functions - if project management is truly what matters, other functions must be subordinate to the project's needs

Individual capability is a combination of skills and competencies such as planning, controlling, communicating, negotiating, problem-solving and leading, as well as three important personal characteristics: experience, commitment and a drive to achieve.

To foster individual capability, organizations must establish:

A pool of talented project managers with no underperformers.
Development plans for improving project managers' skills and experience
Mentoring
Peer-group learning in a safe environment such as peer workshops or Friday evening drinks
Opportunities to be stretched

Finally, effective project conduct requires:

Matching the project manager's abilities to the project's needs
Giving project managers the resources and authority to be successful
Performance management from above
Active support from above

What makes this organizational system so effective, says Sauer, is the tight alignment between the development of individual and organizational capability and what is needed for project performance.

"These construction companies are repeatedly successful at projects because they have developed both organizational and individual capabilities that they can apply to every project as a part of normal organizational functioning," says Sauer.

"Once IT project managers are treated more like their "regal" cousins in construction," he says, "consistent IT project success will be a more attainable goal."

Measuring for Success in IT Projects

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

There's a familiar French proverb that says, "Nothing succeeds like success."

But it's difficult to get the benefit if success is not defined, measured and built on. This is particularly true of information technology (IT) projects. Most organizations find it troublesome to identify the criteria that represent a successful IT project outcome. Consequently, they are inconsistent in managing to these criteria or evaluating the results.

That's why researchers Graeme Thomas and Walter Fernandez of Australian National University recently undertook a study to examine how organizations in Australia define IT project success. They also wanted to know which methods are most effective, and why.

What they discovered: IT project outcomes do improve when organizations define and measure their success criteria.

The researchers studied 36 Australian companies operating in three industry sectors: finance and insurance; electricity, gas and water supply; and mining.

They found that just one-third of these companies had formally defined success measures. These companies, they found, also had higher levels of overall confidence that their IT projects were producing benefits.

Defining success

Companies in the study categorized success into three broad areas: project management success, technical success and business success. While the study found 14 success criteria in use overall, the average company used only five. These included the standard notions of ‘on time' and ‘on budget' but also included ‘delivery of benefits', ‘met business objectives' and ‘business continuity' (the level of disruption that an IT project has on operations). Other criteria used included ‘sponsor satisfaction', ‘project team satisfaction' and ‘steering group satisfaction.'

One-third of companies used a formal success definition while another third had no formally agreed success construct.

"There was recognition among more thoughtful companies that it's possible to have project management success without business success, and vice versa," notes Fernandez. "Success was more than just meeting the requirements in the business case."

Overall, companies with a high level of confidence in their success also had a formal success definition that was widely understood and accepted; used a balance of about five success criteria, drew a clear distinction between project management success and business success, and had a clear focus on delivering benefits.

Measuring success

While 75 percent of all companies studied did attempt to measure success, only five companies were highly effective at doing so.

In fact, most companies indicated that identifying and measuring the costs and benefits of their IT projects is a major challenge. What's more, just over half of companies said they identify all benefits while 28 per cent said that they adequately measure them.

Only the five companies that clearly defined their success criteria went on to measure for success using a post-implementation review, a benefits realization process or a combination of both. They then tracked benefits for six to 12 months after implementation. The researchers found that using these formal systems, rather than just relying on perceptions, also helped to manage the tension between performance incentives and the desire to over-report success.

"Consistent measurement of success provided the basis for improvement of both project and benefits delivery," notes Thomas.

In other companies, post-implementation reviews only occurred ‘when things went wrong'. Reasons for not conducting post-implementation reviews or benefit realization included lack of management support, unclear ownership of processes, limited accountability, resource constraints, difficulties with measurement and attribution and inadequate use of evaluation results.

Applying success

The researchers discovered that those companies with a high level of confidence in their IT projects not only agreed on a definition of success and then constantly measured it; they also used the results. This included managing the project according to the agreed definition, a willingness to stop projects, accountability for results and a connection to learning.

The most effective evaluation practices were found in the companies that held their business managers accountable for results. Accountability was enforced through formal project reporting, performance incentives, individual appraisals and department budgets.

Nor was measuring success solely to the benefit of the one project. These companies used the results to continuously improve project management and estimation and also reinforced the use of post-evaluation practices.

"Our research clearly demonstrates how important it is to capture what success means to an organization in order to achieve success," says Fernandez.

Recommendations for success

Obtain wide agreement on the definition of success as early as possible. Recognize that it may have multiple elements.
Measure consistently against your agreed definition
Apply results to better manage progress and performance, using rigorous accountabilities.

"Quite simply, says Thomas, if you know what you are looking for and if you track your progress and are willing to alter your path, then your chances of success will be better".

Contributing authors: Dr Walter Fernandez and Mr. Graeme Thomas

PMPerspectives.org is a website which connects project managers and sponsors with project management researchers. Our mission is to understand and improve project management practices. The research team comprises Dr. Blaize Horner Reich and Dr. Andrew Gemino from Simon Fraser University, Canada and Dr. Chris Sauer from Oxford University, UK.

The Thought-Leader Mindset

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

IT project management is rapidly evolving. Traditional concerns for cost, time and scope are now only one aspect of the job. Corporate expectations are shifting, with a new emphasis on aligning IT project objectives to strategic business benefits.

Suddenly, IT project managers are facing steeper challenges as they scramble to accommodate these new expectations. They have to re-think practice and transform performance. For this, they need a new mindset - and new management practices.

But what kind of a mindset? And what attributes must a project manager have in order to re-think practice and integrate new ideas into a coherent and innovative management approach?

Researcher Chris Sauer from the Saïd Business School at Oxford University, together with Professor Blaize Horner Reich from Simon Fraser University, interviewed 57 experienced and successful project managers from Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and New Zealand. The goal - to understand the mindsets of experienced, senior project managers and distil that information into key principles and personal qualities for advancing IT management practices.

"We focused on how project managers will have to think if they are to adopt an expanded, more sophisticated and ultimately more successful view of project management," explains Sauer.

The interviews, he says, yielded an interesting picture of the industry changes that are driving project managers to re-think practice. These include:

1. Increased emphasis on the strategic and operational importance of IT projects whose success is now directly connected to the success of the business. The result: a greater pressure to focus on value and to continually adapt to keep value in the project cross-hairs.

2. Intensified competition, requiring businesses to respond faster. This implies compressed project schedules to ensure shorter lead times to delivery. Project managers therefore have to innovate to improve project processes.

3. Clients wanting a return on IT investment that is comparable to other investments. They want a better outcome-to-cost performance, which requires project managers to more consciously weigh potential trade-offs in their decisions.

4. Clients recognizing the complexity of IT projects and being more willing to treat project managers as a key player. Project managers therefore have to step up a level.

In short, says Sauer, "project expectations are more ambitious, the job is tougher and delivery requirements are tighter in terms of business value as well as cost and schedule. Together, these drivers require project managers to explore new ways of thinking."

Out of the research data, Sauer noted four key qualities that seem to be guiding thought-leading project managers' approaches to adapting and excelling in a changing environment.

"They all exhibited a clear-sighted realism, an expanded sense of personal responsibility, a long-term perspective extending beyond the limits of their current project and a willingness to let go and trust the professionalism and ability of their team," he says.

From the research data, Sauer identified nine core principles of thought that are shaping advanced thinking among project managers:

Focus on ultimate value. Keep the project focused on what the organization needs to gain when making design and implementation decisions
Identify at a deep personal level with project goals. There's a new level of personal drive to succeed because the goals are the right ones to pursue
Invest in trust. Make a significant effort to build trust within the team and across the full range of stakeholders
Devolve responsibility to the team. Accept that in complex projects, teams and their members are often better placed to make informed decisions
Adapt continually. Accept that stable project goals and requirements are an unrealistic ideal. Build continual change into project thinking
Develop people involved in the project. Team members are resources not just for the current project but also for those in the future. Developing their skills can secure their loyalty and future value
Orient the project to learning. Recognize that the project team rarely knows everything about the project before it starts. Practice building-in and encouraging learning as a normal part of project activity
Develop creativity and innovation. Increased pressures can make established practices too slow and cumbersome for complex, fast-moving, and adaptive business-critical projects.
Take a pro-active view. Accept no limitations on what must be done to ensure the project progresses.

These nine principles, says Sauer, indicate that IT project management is beginning to evolve.

"It's not easy to apply these principles without running up against established practices," he says. "Project managers have to chart a route that resolves the tensions that exist, for example, between embracing and resisting change; between controlling decisions and empowering the team; and between achieving short-term results and building a solid infrastructure for the future."

Sauer says that businesses need to recruit and develop individuals with both the appropriate mindset and the skills and qualities to fulfill the role even as they re-shape it.

"This new breed will have to find ways of organizing, devolving and discarding work in order to focus where their mindset says they should - on the client, on the big picture and on value," he says.

He recommends using the nine principles for recruiting and selecting forward-thinking IT project managers, as well as for designing training and development programs that can school project managers in the kinds of thinking that will enable them to advance both their own practice and the profession.

The New Project Leader

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

There's a new mindset among IT business customers these days. Increasingly, they're banking on IT projects to yield investment returns. They're no longer satisfied with an IT project that comes in on time and on budget. They want added business value as the project moves along - and they're looking to the project manager to deliver this bonus.

So how are project managers dealing with these new expectations? What changes do they need to make in their role, their management style and their leadership?

Researchers from the Saïd School of Business at Oxford University in England and from the Segal Graduate School of Business at Simon Fraser University in B.C., Canada, recently conducted two studies that address these questions. One study interviewed project managers in both the U.S. and U.K. to explore the ways in which IT project management has been changing in the last five to 10 years and why. The other study, conducted in the U.K., used an established project-management research instrument to identify the range of leadership styles now employed.

The studies' results indicate that project managers are, indeed, redefining their roles to address these new expectations.

"Project managers are accepting a new responsibility for achieving value-added outcomes," says Chris Sauer, of the Said School of Business. "This drives a preparedness to innovate and to engage with individuals and activities that they would previously have considered out-of-scope."

Today's project managers are finding they cannot define their role as building systems to someone else's plans. "No longer can they hide behind the mantra of ‘tell us your requirements and freeze them while we build what you asked for,'" explains Sauer. "Now that they may be held to account for achieving outcomes that a client needs for success, their role must shift from being fixed-goal oriented to being business-outcome driven."

As a result, many project managers indicated in the study interviews that their activities now start earlier in the project life cycle and extend later. "Sometimes they take responsibility for the business case and, in doing so, take responsibility that the project is defined to be deliverable," says Sauer. Other shifts include a trend towards attentively managing stakeholders and a shift in style away from director of the task to orchestrator, and from resource-exploiter to cultivator-nurturer.

"Project managers also told us that they now take increasing responsibility for post-implementation delivery of organizational change and benefit," says Sauer. "They may not always have the organizational authority to deliver the change and harvest the benefits, but they see it as their responsibility to ensure that those who have the power and authority do so."

Project managers also reported adopting new approaches to team leadership as projects become more complex and they find themselves spending more time on business issues external to the project. While many project managers are accustomed to a traditional authoritarian approach, they are now giving team members more involvement in decision-making. In fact, 84 percent of project managers said they like working as part of a team and 74 percent agreed that teams give a deeper analysis of problems.

That's why, says Sauer, project managers now say they are selecting team members not just for their expertise but also their ability to work within a team. "The team is now a renewable asset to be cultivated," says Sauer. "As one manager put it, "killing people is no longer an option."

Overall, Sauer summarizes the shifts that today's project managers are experiencing:

From responsibility for specification delivery to business value achievement
From passive recipient of someone else's brief to pro-active contributor of project definition
From internal to external focus
From a reliance on technical expertise to a reliance on business knowledge
From fixation on scope control to expectation of continuing scope adaptation
From an authoritative to a collaborative decision-making style
From a specialist project manager role to a general manager role
From technical management to people leadership

In short, says Sauer, "today's project manager needs to become a more pro-active leader. The balance of the role has swung away from administration and management towards leadership."

PMPerspectives.org is a website which connects project managers and sponsors with project management researchers. Our mission is to understand and improve project management practices. The research team comprises Dr. Blaize Horner Reich and Dr. Andrew Gemino from Simon Fraser University, Canada and Dr. Chris Sauer from Oxford University, UK.