Penny's Blog

The Swing Away from Process to People

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:41:00 GMT

I'm just back from two conferences - presenting http://www.conferencecallsmadeeasy.com/ at the APM conference last week and chairing the PMI's International Project Management Day conference yesterday. Both were fun and informative. The fascinating thing was that the same theme came through very strongly from both conferences: it's people that make projects work, not processes or methodology. They must've been reading my newsletters! Not that I'm against methodolgy... but it just doesn't cut it alone.

A few weeks ago at the Programme Management special interest group (ProgM) in London, I heard a senior programme manager talk about the methodology most people use: PRIDE. Have you heard of that? PRojects In Deep Excrement. I thought that this was really rather funny... until I remembered the time when I had a project that was deep in it. It was incredibly stressful and not at all funny. I can remember it vividly - even though it was ten years ago. Today, I heard of someone else who is under that stress right now, made worse by the credit crunch. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Geoff told us how methodologies like PRINCE2 are like lights that shine on a ballet dancer - they help everyone to see the dancing but don't actually show the dancer how to dance. Often, a lot of work goes into showing everyone else that you are doing a good job... perhaps even producing reports that are best used as padding for trousers when things get tough.

Geoff went on to say that we need methods that are flexible, deal with strategy, cope with change and deal with people. Sounds good!

Tomorrow's Leaders - key snippets

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:25:00 GMT

Project Management today is seen as a development route to senior positions. So how do you develop tomorrow's project management leaders?
I spent Wednesday last week at Merrill Lynch at a conference looking at just that.

Here are some of the snippets I heard:

BAE Systems have a postgraduate certificate. This really focuses on understanding oneself and others before the core Project Management content. This is followed by a project at work to apply it all. Senior leaders are developed by coaching rather than courses. There were lots of questions around how to measure intangibles!

Geoff Reiss and Martin Price showed how Project Management has been seen to be all rules and process (eg PRINCE2 and PMBOK). However, great project managers are more than this. It is a bit like David Beckham - who doesn't just know the rules but is also a brilliant team player.
Geoff Reiss had a wonderful explanation of how process doesn't always help the project manager. He likened process to a spotlight on a ballet dancer - it helps everyone else to see her but doesn't help her to dance any better... Process is in fact the lowest common denominator. Martin Price of EngagementWorks then provided the answer... which I'll elaborate in a future e-newsletter.

Is Project Management Creative?

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:14:00 GMT

Is Project Management Creative?

Surely yes?

Here's the PMI's definition of a project:
A project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.

But when I spoke to some people in the video business recently, they were pretty unimpressed. They're creatives and we're... well, their impression of project people is that we're not. Their experience of project management training in particular left a lot to be desired. They almost gave up on finding appropriate project management training, which had been on their objectives for literally years. All they found was inflexible concentration on prescriptive, controlling processes and methodology.

What a pity! That says something about our too-narrow focus on the control of projects. Let's celebrate the exciting, creative aspect of our roles while embracing enough discipline and governance to ensure success. Making Projects Work Ltd. will certainly fight for creativity alongside useful methods and we'll continue to use people's own projects as case studies in our courses. The idea is that you should leave with at least as much project work done as if you'd been at your desk!

Prescriptive versus Flexible

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:54:00 GMT

A couple of weeks ao, I attended a presentation on PRINCE2 at my local APM chapter. Rob Smith of PMProfessional Learning ran through what the current PRINCE2 structure is. [For those who don't know, PRINCE2 stands for 'PRojects IN a Controlled Environment' and focuses on the processes to control projects.] So what are the gems of ideas from PRINCE2 that we might want to borrow?

1. It's very logical. If you ever want a comprehensive and thought through process for change control or a list of all of the possible risk categories for your project, then the PRINCE2 manual is invaluable.
2. The idea of breaking a project into manageable chunks, which are then planned, managed and executed. These are called stages in PRINCE2.
3. Management by exception. Give people working for you tolerances and leave them alone (at least, don't micro-manage them!) as long as the results are within tolerance as they are delivered.
4. The business case must drive the project, so the project should stop if the business case is no longer valid.

All this sounds great, but what are the drawbacks?
1. The method can be seen as prescriptive and is very rarely applied fully - PINO is much more common (PRINCE In Name Only)
2. Focussing on process is no longer seen as the way to make projects work, and, in my experience, never has been.
3. The PRINCE2 manual excludes all aspects of people in projects!

At the end of the talk, Rob outlines some of the ideas for the revamp of PRINCE2 in 2009. This is a major change! Next year, the PRINCE2 manual will change from being prescriptive to providing a framework with principles, key themes and a reduced number of processes. It'll cross-reference other ideas and bodies of knowledge.

Wow! I look forward to finding out more... If you know any more and/or you can add to the lists above, please comment!

Cris Urry 1937 -2008

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:04:00 GMT

I suppose that really it's no surprise to me that people-based project management comes into its own when there is a funeral to arrange.

One of the aspects that's been really important for my mother's funeral has been communicating with so many people from around the world. These include those living on boats all around the Atlantic, friends and relations from South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and beyond, as well as all those around Europe. This is where the web has come into its own, despite not everyone in Mum's generation being completely comfortable with it! Allowing people to add their own comments to make the communication two way has been a very important aspect of this.

Here's the page that I set up

Thank you for your support over the past week

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:47:00 GMT

Well, it has been quite a week.

Last Monday, I was looking forward to running my first teleseminar on 'Conference Calls Made Easy'. Then I heard that my mother had died, suddenly, with absolutely no warning. After all, she'd sailed the Atlantic not once, not twice but three times over the last few years.

This means that the teleseminar is now going to run on Monday 14th April at 2pm. Register at www.conferencecallsmadeeasy.com if you'd like to attend or receive the recording afterwards.

Conference Calls Made Easy?

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:53:00 GMT

With teams distributed across the country and all around the world, it's no longer feasible to meet 'face to face' all the time. Conference calls offer the promise of quick and easy meetings, freeing up people from the time and expense of travel, but that's often not the case.

In reality, far from being the solution to the problem, conference calls have become a drain on time and resources.

Some of the problems I hear from project people include:

'No-one answers when I ask a question.'
The calls start late and go on far too long.
'Often we can hear people typing their e-mails, sometimes even snoring!'
Preparation just doesn't get done.
'I don't know who else is on the call or even what they look like!'
Actions just don't get done, even when written up.

A Guardian journalist summed it up in a funny, but sadly rather realistic, article last year.

Joking aside, conference calls by telephone are a key tool for project people. At Making Projects Work, we have been slaving away for all hours recently to offer you a way to make them more effective. The result is a Master Class series - register now at www.conferencecallsmadeeasy.com to receive a bonus one to try it out. This is running on 11th March at 2pm and will be followed by the full series in April.

Making Project Meetings Work - all over the place!

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:55:00 GMT

Making Project Meetings Work - recently I've been touring the country speaking about how to do just this!

First stop was Derby on 21st January, with an interactive crowd of PMI delegates from companies across the Midlands. Apparently, two of them liked the session so much that they recommended me independently...

So on 29th January, last Tuesday, I presented a keynote at Manchester University! Thank you very much to both of the individuals (one from EDS and one from Rolls-Royce ) who enthused about my session to the Programme Director. The MSc course in Manchester is for practising project and programme managers. They take between three and six years to complete it part time, sponsored by their employee. Talking to one or two people over lunch, it struck me that they were making a huge investment of time and receiving in exchange a unique opportunity to reflect on and improve their practice.

'What really works for your project meetings?' is a question I ask during my talks. You can see the results from Derby, Manchester (and London from last September) on the Resources page of our website.

Sharing the Graphics Tools that We Love to Use...

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:12:00 GMT

On Monday, I met up with Vanessa Randle of Thinking Visually Ltd. She's a graphic recorder who does amazing visuals of conferences and meetings. We met a year ago and share a passion for the use of graphics with groups to help people (literally) see what they mean. Hand-drawn visuals on big paper is key to the way I work. It's so effective with groups - it's energising in a very visual age. It is my answer to 'Death by PowerPoint'.

We're working together to make sure that people out there who work with groups have access to these tools, whether they are trainers, facilitators, project managers or presenters. We're planning to give away an image library for free, image by image, fortnight by fortnight. Each image will come with a guide to drawing it and tips for using it. This will help people to build up their skills slowly but surely by practising easy but powerful graphic icons. Of course, we'll also run courses for those that want to pick up both the skills and the kit in just one day. Would you like an image library to use?

Visiting Pearce Mayfield near Oxford

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:46:00 GMT

Just over a week ago, I helped out the Pearce Mayfield training team in a village near Wantage. It was great to meet up again with Andrew Rock, Patrick Mayfield and others I've worked with in the past. This group of PRINCE2 and MSP trainers work very hard to ensure that their training appeals to all our communication styles: visual, auditory and kinesthetic, much as I do with meetings. I facilitated a key part of their meeting, using tools such as a table-top group-drawn map and some very large pinboards. According to one of them: "I thought you did an excellent job with us last Friday." Good stuff.

It is rather fun applying trainers' own methods to themselves!