1.2 The Purpose of This Book
This book is intended to support project managers to meet one of the most difficult tasks that they may face: Coping with changing requirements on the practices they implement and the results that they need to create with their teams. The word âpracticeâ is used here for the application of specific approaches, tools, techniques, behaviors, and procedures with the intention to guide action and bring about desired results. Results can include any types of deliverables, such as products, services, knowledge, or any kind of enablement that the project is required to deliver. Most project managers have experienced during their profession that the same practice that has led to success in one situation can cause failure in another. Many articles on project management, as well as books, papers, lectures, and other sources, nevertheless promote so-called âbest practicesâ, a modern term for âcooking recipesâ or âmagic potionsâ, assuming that one practice has been found and tested, and selling it as proven to fit all situations. Organizations also often commonly implement âbest practicesâ as an element of their internal methodologies. Project managers also commonly tell their colleagues that they should use a specific practice XYZ because it was so successful in their project and they feel certain that it will be successful in other situations as well. Even organizations communicate from time to time that they have converted all their projects to a certain method, ignoring that this method may be a great approach for one project but inappropriate for another one.
A basic problem for project managers and for the organizations that are sponsoring these projects is the lack of understanding of how project situations can be different and what practices can be expected to be beneficial or detrimental. This understanding will be the focus of this book.
Most project managers are aware that they have to adapt their practices to their specific projects, and even during the course of the project, they may have to adjust these practices from time to time to changing situations and conditions. Projects are rollercoasters rather than smooth rides, and when project managers believe that they are perfectly sorted out for managing a great undertaking, some surprising events will remind them of the basic uncertainty that comes with any project. The understanding that practices in project management must fit situational demands is not new, but no help has been given to project managers so far to assess situations and base the selection of practices on the results of these assessments. Giving such help consists of two aspects: increasing the understanding of project managers on what types of projects and project situations commonly occur and giving hints for the favorable or detrimental effects that can be expected from the application of certain practices in these situations.
A project is like an exploratory journey, where each step forward creates new knowledge for the travelers, replacing uncertainty with certainty, risks with problems, and forecasts with actuals. While the journey starts with the need to make assumptions and base decisions on them, it ends with the opportunity to make assessments of what the decisions yielded. Figure 1-1 shows the development from uncertainty to certainty.
The book is partially based on a small Situational Project Management (SitPM) research project conducted during 2014 and 2015 with a group of 17 field experts. It is further based on the experience and observations collected during over 12 years practicing project management and over 20 years working as a trainer, most of the time with a focus on preparation seminars for the Project Management Professional (PMPÂŽ) certification in classroom environments. An interesting characteristic of these seminars, which deal with the diverse aspects of project management and the challenges to the organizations and people involved, is the cross-cutting view on the variability of project situations: the project managers who attend the classes come from different industries and business environments and have different personal experiences. A trainer may make a statement that is perfectly valid for one participant, but may not suit the professional setting of another one. When these differences become obvious, and when the trainer and students start digging deeper, the underlying differences become discernible and open for discussion. The statement âone size does not fit allâ may sound banal and stereotyped, but it should nevertheless be a guiding principle for project managers and field experts.
How do experience and learned knowledge relate? Having actively practiced project management is important for any professional in the disciplineâproject management cannot simply be learned at a school and then applied. Practical experience helps one gain familiarity and awareness with the tools and techniques commonly used in project management and to understand their value. This personal contact with the discipline is important, but it can never be complete and will never suffice to understand and master all eventualities found in the complex environment in which project managers perform their jobs. For example, some projects are run as internal projects, which means that they are cost centers for the performing organizations that run them for their own purposes. Other projects are performed for paying customers under contract and constitute profit centers for the performing organization, the contractor. The experiences that project managers collect in either of these two types of projects are significantly different.
Most (not all) project managers in internal projects are in a weak position because their projects do not provide income. The projectsâ deliverables may do this later, but the projects themselves do not, and they are not performed against contractual requirements with paying customers. The requirements are instead put in place by internal requesters, which may be functional departments or major programs to which several projects contribute. Most project managers in customer projects are more powerful inside their own organization and have a better reputation. They champion the survival of the organization by producing a stream of income and must, at the same time, ensure that the organization does not run into a breach of contract situation with the project customer. Project managers often have no personal experience in both types of projects; their professional history is dealing solely with either customer projects or internal ones. Project managers running internal projects mostly consider themselves agents of change in organizational, technical, or other areas. Project managers in customer projects manage an existing business relationship (at least an important element of this relationship) and have to consider the often conflicting business interests of two parties: customer and contractor.
Project managers who wish to develop a full and professional understanding of project management have to add observation, empathy, and insight to their own experiences for project situations that they have not gone through thus far. Project managers may benefit from such a widened understanding beyond the limitations of their own experience. Different situations may turn up in the future, and it can be helpful for project managers to be prepared for them. Another reason to look over the fence between the two types of projects is the common need for cooperation: Customer projects on the contractor side often work for internal projects organized on the customer side, and problems on either side of the fence may impact the project on the other side.
The example of the two types of projects, internal and customer projects, will be discussed in more detail in Chapters 2 and 3, along with other types of projects. This book will recommend a project typology that may help project managers better understand and implement the situational needs on the practices that they apply.
1.3 A Primer on Project Management
Project management is an organizational discipline. Its importance in business, scientific research, arts, and politics has significantly increased over the last couple of decades. It is a discipline that focuses on one-time endeavors of a generally temporary and unique nature, in contrast to the operations discipline, whichâin this understandingâpays attention to ongoing and repetitive activities. Along with the uniqueness of projects as complex endeavors comes uniqueness of the results of each project, which may be products, services, or other kinds of results. As stated previously, this uniqueness differs from operational activities, which are the ongoing daily business of most organizations that produce a recurring stream of identical or similar deliverables by numbers, often vast numbers. This stream allows the organization to develop repetitive routines, automation, and optimization. Operations can exploit scaling effectsâassuming that the more items of a product or service that are produced, the less expensive the individual item or service will be for the manufacturer or service provider. Operations also have different learning curves, following the common experience that things that have been done repeatedly will be done in a more effective and efficient mode compared with things that are done for the first time. Another benefit of operations is that they are much less susceptible to personal issues of the people involved. For example, a lovesick streetcar operator will probably still be able to transport people safely along the tracks because most routine tasks do not require as much reflection, planning, and attention.
Projects, by definition, create results that are to some degree new and unique, and optimization and scaling are rarely an option. Personal issues can damage projects heavily, and conflicts among individuals or teams can make it impossible to be successful. Because of the rapidly changing environment of technology, economy, and society, organizations need to rely on effective project management as much as on efficient operations. Efficient operations help them develop predictability and order, whereas projects help them develop and implement new ideas, technologies, and forms of organizations, transforming their structures in a way necessary to meet future requirements. Project management also helps organizations comply with ever-changing regulatory requirements and exploit new opportunities for income.
While some projects are business-case driven and are performed to meet goals and objectives of the organizations, others are necessary to comply with law and other mandatory requirements. For example, from 2003 to 2005, corporations listed on US stock exchanges had to become compliant with the US Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act. This law was enacted in 2002 after a series of fraud scandals in public corporations. It was designed to protect shareholders of corporations and required substantial investments by organizations listed on US stock exchanges. New systems had to be put in place to ensure that information given to shareholders was accurate, audited, and up to date, and they had to meet tight deadlines. Corporations listed on US stock exchanges had no choice but to run their SOX projects to meet strict legal requirements. Some companies used this occasion...
