Be extraordinary! Ordinary will not change the World! A Reflection from PMI LIM Phoenix.

Last week (23-25 Oct) more than 1000 PMI leaders gathered together in Phoenix (Arizona), USA at the PMI® Leadership Institute Meeting (LIM) 2014 - North America. This was a fourth time I have attended this 3-day learning and sharing experience, but for the first time in North America (before just EMEA).

Leadership Institute Meetings are designed to inspire and support PMI leaders by offering face-to-face opportunities to connect with and learn from fellow volunteer leaders. At the meetings PMI leaders collaborate in productive, curriculum-driven educational sessions. Additionally, they earn professional development units (PDUs) for the formal learning activities related to project management. This time, colleagues at home could watch both live and on demand sessions via the Virtual LIM. The opening sessions and keynote have been streamed live from Phoenix, plus live breakouts have been recorded  and available on-demand for 90 days following LIM at no charge for PMI members. For more please use this link.

For me LIM is more than a conference.  This is a very inspiring and motivating event with focus on networking and exchanging experience. And this time that was even more special and emotional due to the fact that on behalf of PMI Poland Chapter I had a pleasure to accept a community award for “Collaboration and Outreach”. Our chapter was the only chapter from Europe to be awarded.

Let’s start the write up on LIM from a closing keynote speaker this time. Kevin Carroll, who was discovered and hired by Nike simply to act as “Katalyst”—someone who builds a culture of innovation where creative ideas are turned into reality. Energetic and humorous, Carroll deftly combines an anecdotal narrative with strategies for discovering new and creative ways of thinking and problem solving to help build mission-oriented teams.

In his speech “Play@Work: Unleashing Growth Through Creativity and Innovation” Kevin stressed the importance of belonging and connecting, to be inclusive is crucial. I feel so proud to belong to one of the best community in the word. Thank you very much all PMI Poland Chapter volunteers, special thanks to all branches. Guys, you really made my day!

A few more take aways from Kevin:

• You can’t change where you are from, but you can change where you are going.

Kevin shared his story and highlighted that as a part of our job as PMI volunteers, by supporting local communities, every day, we can impact someone’s life. I can share a lot of examples like Sebastian’s growth, one of the Gdansk orphans, thanks to participation in English Camps organized for 11 years by PMI Poland Chapter Gdansk Branch, volunteers, novice to project management when joined the community and now certified, fully fledged pm professionals with career prospects and hundreds more…

• Read! Reading books makes you happy! Some recommendations here.
• Play! More play means more innovation, more critical thinking and problem solving! In 1 hour play you can discover more about a person than in one year od conversation.
• Inspire…………………
• Dream: Dedication, Responsibility, Education, Attitude, Motivation
• Act! Your action might be small but the collected impact will be great!
• Be extraordinary! Ordinary will not change the World!

10 Cardinal Sins of Project Sponsorship

Before we move to the core subject I would like to share some staticstics - source: PMI’s Pulse of the Profession

ON TARGET

81% of projects at high-performing organizations— those that complete 80% of projects on time, on budget and within original goals—have active sponsors. At low-performing organizations, just 45% of projects have active sponsors.

ON STRATEGY

66% of strategic initiatives are successful when they have actively engaged sponsors. Without active sponsors, just 41% of strategic initiatives are successful.

ON ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

81% of organizations that are highly effective with organizational change report frequently using executive sponsors on their strategic initiatives, compared to only 25% of organizations minimally effective.

ON COMPLEXITY

When it comes to complexity in projects, a sponsor who actively supports the project is the second factor with the greatest impact on the success of projects—second only to effective communication.

1.    Lack of leadership

Leaders should lead. And this does not apply to Project Manager but to a skilled executive sponsor! Each project should have such a sponsor who is responsible for inspiring, promoting collaboration, decisions & consensus!

• Ensure that there is clarity about the aims and objectives of major projects, and there are clear criteria against which success of a project can be judged.
• Clearly articulate the business case or rationale for why this change is needed
• Communicate how this project relates to the overall vision, strategy, and mission of the organization
• Communicate strong ownership and personal commitment for this project 

2.    Environment not supporting the project work

• Create an environment within the organization in which project management can succeed: trust, open dialog, collaboration, creativity, sharing ideas, championing issues, taking decisions, keeping promises.
• Run emotions high. Nothing affects project value more than the organisational culture. Understand the level of your company emotional maturity and constantly work to improve it.
• Don’t fail to fail..
• People over process. Create and maintain community – a unified body of individuals with common interests interacting and collaborating! Collaboration creates value.

Source: www.freedigitalphotos.net by Vlado

3.    Not understanding the scale and complexity

• Consider carefully the scale and complexity of projects to assess whether they are achievable.
• Estabkish clear priority among project time, cost, and quality specifications
• Ensure realistic timelines,
• Break down initiatives  into manageable projects, milestones each delivering an auditable business benefit.
• Build enough high-level review points  into the project to ensure that it is not allowed to continue if changing circumstances mean that the business benefit is no longer going to be achieved cost effectively.
• Be aware of the importance of halting a project that has been overtaken by events, rather than continuing to spend money.

4.    Too many active projects

Very often there are too many projects opened as sponsors think that if a project is important needs to be started.

• The best way to finish a project quickly is to staff it optimally. Fewer projects in portfolio means more stuff completed by the end of the year, so prioritize your projects and start when you have resources.

5.    Lack of flexibility/agility 

“Organizations exist in a constantly changing competitive environment, so scope might need to change, particularly if it’s a very long project.” David West

• Make sure there are considerable benefits in introducing systems in phases, phase it
• Anticipate Surprises! Ensure project plans are sufficiently flexible to allow for the insertion of technological advances where relevant

6.    Micromanagement

The shift from micromanagement and looking at the project from a task perspective to team empowerment, self-organisation, self -motivation, trust, authority and ownership are the key to success of today’s complex and risky projects.

Micromanaging is “the cardinal sin of project sponsorship”. When both parties do the work of building trust, outlining roles and responsibilities, and communicating regularly, micromanagement shouldn’t be an issue.

7.    Not proper risk management – both threats and opportunities

• Ensure decisions on projects, both prior to inception and during development, are based on rigorous assessment of costs and benefits, and a realistic assessment of risks.
• Make sure there are a risk management framework for projects, within which people are empowered to make decisions as the costs, benefits and risks change during the project’s life
• Ensure risk assessment is carried out throughout the project, in particular to assess whether the business case continues to be viable in the light of actual incurred and changing business requirements

8.  Lack of high-quality project management skills

The development of high-quality project management skills within the organization is essential. The whole organisation, both sponsors and project managers must speak the same language.

“Just as a doctor might need to translate medical terms for a patient, a project manager can help the sponsor understand things like earned value analysis and critical path.” David West

• Establish project management as a distinct profession
• Ensure that principles of good project management are understood and followed throughout the organization
• Reward project managers for their part in delivering projects successfully
• Project managers must be encouraged to draw risks to the attention of senior management in order to alert them to problems. They must be encouraged to undertake active management of change to project agreements, costs, benefits, risks, timescales, technology and organization, and not simply adhere to organizational project plans or project management methodologies.

9.    Lack of or poor relations between customer and suppliers

Relations between customer and suppliers have a crucial effect on the success of the project.

• Maintain a close relationship with suppliers, but avoid undue reliance on them, and maintain overall ownership of progress to achieving the intended benefits.
• Ensure that all parties have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities, and a share understanding of key terms and deadlines
• Make sure there is an ongoing process of agreement management during the life of the project to allow for the almost inevitable change to requirements.  The aim should be to manage rather than police, project agreements.

10. No lessons learnt gathered

It is essential that organizations learn from past mistakes and consider how they can co-ordinate better their considerable resources to ensure better value for money in the future.

• Seek to review the success of projects as soon as possible so that lessons can be fed back into consideration of later projects.
• Ensure reviews are undertaken in a constructive and open manner with the aim of improving future project performance.
• Make sure reviews should be undertaken from project, portfolio and organisation perspective

10 kardynalnych grzechów Sponsora Projektu

Tym razem po polsku, wersja angielska pojawi się wkrótce. English version soon.

1. Brak przywództwa

Przywódcy powinni przewodzić. I nie dotyczy to Project Managerów, ale wprawnych sponsorów strategicznych. Każdy projekt powinien mieć sponsora, który jest odpowiedzialny za inspirowanie, promowanie współpracy, decyzje i konsensus. 

• Zapewnij przejrzystość celów projektowych oraz ustal jasne kryteria sukcesu dla każdego projektu 

• Jasno artykułuj przypadek biznesowy, czy  powód, dla którego zmiana jest konieczna

• Komunikuj jak ten projekt realizuje wizję, strategię i misję 

• Komunikuj odpowiedzialność i personalne zaangażowanie w project.

Żródło: www.freedigitalphotos.net, autor: Stuart Miles

2. Brak kultury wspierającej pracę projektową

• Twórz klimat organizacji, w którym projekty mają szanse na sukces: zaufanie, otwarty dialog, współpraca, kreatywność, dzielenie się pomysłami, rozwiązywanie problemów, podejmowanie decyzji, dotrzymywanie obietnic. 

• Utrzymuj emocje na wysokim poziomie. Nic tak nie wpływa na wartość projektów jak kultura organizacyjna. Spróbuj zrozumieć poziom dojrzałości emocjonalnej organizacji i ciągle go doskonal 

• Nie zapomnij popełniać błędów….

• Ludzie ponad procesy. Stwórz i utrzymuj społeczność – jednolite ciało indywidualności,zespół, który dzieli wspólne interesy i współpracuje. 

3. Brak zrozumienia skali i złożoności projektu

Organizacja starannie przeanalizowała skalę i złożoność projektów upewniając się, że ich cele są osiągalne. 

• Upewnij się, że zaproponowane ramy czasowe są realistyczne

• Zadbaj, żeby inicjatywy zostały podzielone na wykonalne projekty, a kolejny projekt był rozważany w świetle rezultatów wcześniej zrealizowanych projektów

• Ustal jasne priorytety dla czasu, kosztu i wymogów jakościowych

• Upewnij się, że została zdefiniowana dostateczna liczba punktów kontrolnych w projekcie, zapewniająca zatrzymanie projektu w przypadku zmian w otoczeniu, które uniemożliwiają osiągniecie opłacalnych korzyści biznesowych 

• Mniej świadomość jak ważne jest zatrzymanie projektu, który nie przyniesie opłacalnych korzyści biznesowych

4. Zbyt wiele rozpoczętych projektów 

Bardzo często za dużo projektów jest rozpoczętych, gdyż sponsorzy myślą, że jak projekt jest ważny to trzeba go uruchomić.

• Najlepszy sposób na szybkie zrealizowanie projektu jest jego dobre obsadzenie w zasoby. Mniej projektów w portfelu oznacza więcej zrealizowanych projektów w ciągu roku. Ustal priorytety i rozpoczynaj projekt tylko wtedy kiedy masz odpowiednie zasoby.

5. Brak elastyczności / adaptacyjności

Przewiduj niespodzianki!

“ Organizacje funkcjonują w ciągłym, zmieniającym się, konkurencyjnym otoczeniu, więc zakres może się zmienić, szczególnie jeśli to jest duży project” David West

• Zapewnij, że plany projektowe są na tyle elastyczne, że pozwalają na zmiany wynikające z pojawienia się nowych rozwiązań technologicznych oraz nowych okoliczności 

• Istnieją znaczące korzyści fazowego wdrażania systemów. Podziel projekt na fazy.

6. Mikrozarządzanie

Mikrozarządzanie to jeden z najbardziej kardynalnych błędów sponsora. Kiedy zbudujemy zaufanie pomiędzy sponsorem i project managerem, podzielimy role i odpowiedzialności, regularnie się komunikujemy, mikrozarządzanie nie powinno być problemem.

• Daj uprawnienia zespołowi, zadbaj o budowanie samo-organizujących się zespołów, wewnętrzną motywację i zaufanie.

7. Brak lub niedostateczne zarządzanie ryzykiem – zarówno zagrożeniami jak i szansami

• Zadbaj, żeby decyzje dotyczące projektów, zarówno na etapie rozpoczynania jak i realizacji opierały się o rygorystyczne ocenianie kosztów i korzyści oraz realistyczną ocenę ryzyka

• Upewnij się, że istnieje proces zarządzania ryzykiem projektowym wraz ze zdefiniowanymi osobami, które są uprawnione do podejmowania decyzji w zakresie kosztów, korzyści i zmian ryzyka podczas trwania projektu 

• Zadbaj, aby ocena ryzyka odbywała się na każdym etapie projektu, w szczególności ocena zasadności przypadku biznesowego w świetle zmieniającego się otoczenia. 

8. Brak zaawansowanej wiedzy i umiejętności zarządzania projektami w organizacji

Rozwój wiedzy eksperckiej z zarządzania projektami jest kluczowy. Cała organizacja, zarówno sponsor, project manager jak i zespół powinni mówić tym samym językiem.

• Zapewnij, że zarządzanie projektami jest znaczącą profesją 

• Zapewnij, że dobre praktyki zarządzania projektami są zrozumiałe i przestrzegane w całej organizacji

• Nagradzaj kierowników projektów za realizację celów projektowych z sukcesem

• Zachęcaj kierowników projektów do informowania kierownictwa wyższego szczebla o potencjalnym ryzyku. Zachęcaj do proaktywnego działania, a nie tylko realizowania tego co zostało zaplanowane, również w zakresie przyjętej metodyki zarządzania projektami.

9. Brak lub niedostateczne relacje klient - dostawca

Relacje pomiędzy klientem i dostawcą odgrywają kluczową role w sukcesie projektu.

• Zapewnij, że organizacja utrzymuje bliskie relacje z dostawcami, ale unika nadmiernego uzależnienia się od nich, biorąc pełną odpowiedzialność za postęp w celu osiągnięcia zaplanowanych korzyści 

• Upewnij się, że organizacja zapewnia zrozumienie ról i odpowiedzialności oraz takie same zrozumienie przez wszystkich kluczowych określeń i terminów zakończenia

• Zapewnij, że istnieje ciągły proces zarządzania kontraktami podczas trwania projektu, który pozwala na zmiany w wymaganiach. Celem jest zarządzanie kontraktem, a nie nadzorowanie jego przestrzegania.

10. Brak systemowego dzielenia się doświadczeniami z projektów

Bardzo ważne jest, żeby organizacja wyciągała wnioski z popełnionych błędów, planowała jak może lepiej zarządzać zasobami w celu osiągania większych korzyści w przyszłości.

• Zapewnij, że organizacja przegląda projekty tak szybko jak to tylko możliwe, dzięki czemu doświadczenia projektowe mogą zostać wykorzystane w kolejnych projektach 

• Upewnij się, że przeglądy są prowadzone w atmosferze otwartości, a ich celem jest usprawnienie realizacji przyszłych projektów

• Zapewnij, że retrospektywy odbywają się z poziomu projektu, portfela jak i całej organizacji.

Kilka faktów zamiast podsumowania (źródło: PMI’s Pulse of the Profession)

Cel

81 % efektywnych organizacji (80% projektów kończy się na czas, w budżecie i zakresie) ma aktywnych sponsorów. Tylko 45 % nieefektywnych organizacji ma aktywnych sponsorów.

Strategia

66% inicjatyw strategicznych kończy się sukcesem jeśli ma zaangażowanego sponsora. W przypadku braku zaangażowania sponsora tylko 41 % inicjatyw strategicznych odnosi sukces.

Zmiana organizacyjna

81% organizacji o wysokiej skuteczności wdrażania zmian organizacyjnych deklaruje częste angażowanie sponsora strategicznego do inicjatyw strategicznych. W przypadku organizacji o niskiej skuteczności wdrażania zmian tyko 25% korzysta ze sponsora strategicznego.

Złożoność

Aktywny sponsor jest na drugim miejscu po komunikacji na liście krytycznych czynników sukcesu złożonych projektów.

Visual Thinking – why do Project Managers need it?

When I got involved in Doodleledo initiative and started Doodleledo 3City meetings, a kind of networking where we talk, eat, drink and doodle, a few people asked me why I do it?  They could not understand the connection between doodling and the other things I do, which are around project management.  So instead explaining everyone I meet why I’m doodling have decided to write this post.  I was excited  to find out that it’s not only me who understand the importance of visual thinking in our profession, also this month’s theme at ProjectManagment.com is “Visual Project Management”. According to Mark Mullaly, PMP “Project managers have a problem in how we visualize--and visually present--information about our projects. Over time, there has been very little innovation in how we depict and portray information about our projects”. The whole article can be found here. So let’s explore the topic of visualisation in more details.

Visual thinking has been described as seeing words as a series of pictures (Wikipedia). For me visual thinking is the ability to work effectively with the complicated ideas. By unlocking the power of visual thinking we can overcome problems, think more creatively and critically, make better decisions and expand our perspective of what's possible (Visual Thinking Magic).

In times of increasing complexity, competition and constraint, we cannot rely on yesterday’s ideas, products and ways of working. Today’s leaders in order to improve performance need to stimulate creative thinking and unleash the creative potential in themselves and in their teams.

“Albert Einstein believed that the words and numbers — as they are written or spoken — did not play a significant role in his thinking process. Geniuses are constantly making novel combinations. They are always looking for ways to combine and recombine things and ideas in new ways. What’s surprising is that the things they are combining are not new or revolutionary at all — they simply haven’t been combined this way before. When thinking visually, you are constantly combining and recombining things in unique ways. You are looking at the same world as everyone else, but seeing something very different by using pictures to fuse together surprising combinations of thoughts, things and ideas” – Visual Thinking Magic.

The result of doodling during PAM Summit 2014

Although visual thinking is not limited to drawing, drawing plays a crucial role in developing the visual thinking expertise. And what’s the most important, everyone can draw through practicing.

The whole framework can be found on the quoted several times here Visual Thinking Magic website, which I find very interesting and encourage you to explore in more details. For me personally, apart from competencies, mindset and so on,  the environment is very important. How to inspire ourselves and the people around us to be more enthusiastic, creative and passionate? How to create the space to excel?

Let’s start building a culture promoting high creativity ( Source: The Handbook of High-Performance Virtual Teams, page 46; adapted from Nemiro  2004).

Characteristics of a culture promoting high creativity:

1.  Ideas valued

2. Trust, high level of honesty

3. Constructive tension

4.  High level of challenge

5. Collaboration

6.  Freedom

7. Supportive management

8. Sufficient resources

9. Understand work style

As opposed to a culture of low creativity:

1.  Ideas dismisse

2.  Mistrust

3. Unconstructive tension

3. Lack of challenge

4. Competition

5. Lack of Freedom

6. Status quo

7. Insufficient resources and time

More on creativity can be found in one of my previous posts.

5 reasons why we need visual thinking (after “Unfolding the Napkin” by Dan Roam):

1. Pictures help thinking – make our brain more active. The left brain is verbal and processes information in an analytical and sequential way. Visual processes uses the whole potential of the brain and therefore thinking using pictures engage more number of  cerebral points and activate more nerve fibres.
2. Pictures make our brain happy. Simple drawings motivate our brain to work, at the same time making it happy.
3. Thanks to visual thinking we take decisions faster
4. Visual thinking helps communicating our decisions and visions
5.  Our teams will implement these decisions more effectively.

As Mike Griffiths,  project management consultant and trainer and also visual thinker, have noticed,  there are some dangers of visual project management because what cannot easily be visualized can often get trivialized or forgotten.“…disagreements and disputes on whether they are internal to a project or external generally don’t transfer well to diagrams and graphs. Categorizing disagreements may be viewed as trivializing them by those they involve, and thus act only to alienate people. Many project variables can be effectively illustrated to help communicate a better shared understanding. Other topics are more delicate and need personal handling and discretion”.

Mike advises to “abstract difficult-to-visualize project activities like decision making and consensus building up one level to something that can be made visible like cycle time. Slow decision making and poor consensus-building steps will stifle an otherwise productive project. Stakeholder arguments and political standoffs have resulted in many a failed project. Graphing decision-cycle time or change-request cycle time shows the average time taken for a change request or decision to flow from inception and capture through discussion and to decision and distribution”. More in the article.

If you want to meet Mike Griffiths in person please join 9^th International PMI Poland Chapter Congress, Warsaw, 24-26 Nov 2014.

So, let’s start our path to become a visual thinker and start doodling! To join our next Doodleledo meeting please follow us on Facebook or contact me here.

PAM Summit 2014 - 7 habits of successful Agile PM and more...

End of June I spent a few days in the most beautiful (after Gdansk of course) city of Poland Cracow. I was invited by a local PMI branch to attend a project and analysis management event – PAM Summit.

I must admit that I like this kind of events where not only Project Managers, but also other professions meet together. This is an excellent opportunity to boost collaboration between PMs and Business Analysts as in reality we cooperate a lot.

The conference kicked off by Ryszard Kolodziej, PMI Cracow Branch Director and Agnieszka Gasperini, past PMI Poland Chapter President, started at 9:00 a.m. on the 23^rd of June and gathered 300 participants in Stara Zajezdnia Kraków by DeSilva - an old tram switching station, renovated and adapted to a huge conferencing complex. 12 speakers, including Pierre E. Neis, Mark Smalley, Agnieszka Gasperini, Paul Turner, Pawel Felinski, Adrian Reed, Ewa Malia, Darryl Booker, Bartosz Grucza, Leigh Moyle and Paul Wilkinson presented on the first day and during the second day a few workshops were delivered, one of them by  Arie van Bennekum. In this post  I’m not planning to cover all of them, just to highlight a few ones.

Sander Hoogendoorn, Principal Technology Officer & Global Agile Thoughtleader at Capgemini (Netherlands) in his keynote opening session: Breaking Bad. Seven successful habits of successful Agile Project Managers explained why project managers are seen as overhead by development teams and what can be done to change this perception.  

These 7 habits of successful Agile PM are:

1. Process will not save you.
2. We are not manufacturing. We are using the wrong metaphors! For example: How long do you need to build this feature? Software development is a creative process and it is very much non-linear!
3.  Facilitate not dictate! Self-organisation is hard.
4. Allow the team to learn. “Well, of course software is different, and more complex than anything people have ever before attempted to engineer. But that’s why we have to loosen our structures, not tighten them. That’s why we must learn from any place we can, any way we can”. Gerald Weinberg, 1982.
5. You are a part of your team. Ask your team how you can contribute.
6. Trust the metrics. Those who do the work, do the estimate. Track the items, not the ETC’s. With creative work estimates are rarely linear. The world isn’t linear, so we need to learn to live with ambiguity!
7. Manage the environment. Keep the politics out of the team, but don’t hide the politics from the team!

Adrian Reed, Principal Consultant at Blackmetric / President at IIBA UK (UK), in second key note speech “Avoiding the dark, dead-ended rabbit holes: The importance of BA and PM collaboration before a project is initiated” stressed that successful projects need a clear direction and a definitive destination. This starts with a solid understanding of the business problem or opportunity that exists.

Some tips:

Project concept summary: WHY? WHAT? HOW?

WHY? Define problem statement.

WHAT? Define roles and goals. Define scope. CSF/KPIs

HOW? Prepare solution options.

Leigh Moyle, CEO at PMgurus, Entrepreneur, in presentation tilted “Getting the monsters out from under the bed - a new look at Risk Management” started from an age old story we are taught from childhood, suspecting there is a bad thing about to happen a wolf, dwarves, giants or some ugly stepsisters causing a drama of one kind or other. And then presented strategies and some of the psychology behind identifying, analysing and effectively dealing with potential negative events in a way that will help you minimise fear and maximise effectiveness in dealing with risks in your projects and in your life.

Tips: Understand how big is your monster and the choose the strategy. In the end of the day it might appear much smaller as you thought. More on risk attitude, the chosen response to risk and the psychology behind in one of my previous posts.

Thank you very much Agnieszka Kulczynska, PM of the event, and the whole great PMI Cracow Branch Team for making this happen and inviting me. I really enjoyed it and waiting for next year.

New Trends in Project Management 2014 - Part III: Shaking off the Legacy Mindset!

Although New Trends in Project Management 2014 conference is over I still have a lot of to share. Previous posts covered Jorgen Hesselberg's keynote speach on Agile enterprise transformation and Mike Rawlins' interactive presentation on coaching cultures. In this post Agile comes back with Alan Gladman's advice on how to shake off the old mindset and become more Agile. Alan is an Agile Coach at Intel,  recognized as an expert in the usage of agile methods in project management. 

"Agile is not a methodology. It is not something you do. It is something you become. That state comes after a mind shift. It requires that you let go of some of your current mindset."

Definition of mindset (wikipedia): 

"a mindset is a set of assumptions, methods, or notations held by one or more people or groups of people that is so established that it creates a powerful incentive within these people or groups to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviors, choices, or tools. This phenomenon is also sometimes described as mental inertia, "groupthink", or a "paradigm", and it is often difficult to counteract its effects upon analysis and decision making processes."

Let's start from the summary, a few take aways from Alan's speach and then enjoy the drawings!

1. Let go of your baggage
2. Learn & embrace the principles
3. Think “up until now”
4. Don’t “DO” Agile, BE agile.
5. Use sprint timeboxes to experiment
6. Build trust
7. Recognise/reward the Agile mindset

The same old thinking means the same old results, so shake off the old,  legacy mindset and start the new way!

New Trends in Project Management 2014 - Part II: Creating a coaching culture in projects

We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. – Aristotle

Let me introduce another  NTPM 2014 conference speaker - Mike Rawlins, who shared his thoughts on: “Creating a coaching culture in projects – enabling behaviours that make success inevitable”. Mike is an accredited Executive Coach and Programme Manager specialising in business coaching and in leadership development for project sponsors, managers and team members. He was previously a senior IS manager with National Grid undertaking of roles in portfolio, programme and service management in support of the Gas Distribution and Electricity Transmission businesses in the UK.

Projects are delivered by people, for people and to people. Delivering to time, cost, scope/quality (gold triangle) does not ensure the project success any more. We need more: “achieving the outcomes that were intended – something has changed for the better and in a way that was desired”.

What’s the definition of coaching? Through effective questioning, coaching aims to raise awareness, have the coachee take responsibility for their actions, and ultimately to improve their personal performance (taken from one of the coaching workshops).

According to Mike: “coaching is both a skill and an approach to personal development:

• A person who is coached can develop not only new skills and behaviours but also a capability for self-coaching that will continue
• Organisations that develop a coaching approach to personal development create a culture where the seeking and achievement of excellence becomes a habit and where support for self and others becomes just what we do around here”. These are the organisations we would like to work for, wouldn’t we?

So, a coaching culture is “the collection of expected behaviours, shared beliefs and accepted norms that define what it is to be part of the wider group.”

Coaching culture leads to:

•           people are willing and able to help others;
•           people interaction is as much important as delivering the tasks
•           sustained behavioural changes that deliver long term value.

The signs of coaching culture:

•           speedier and more precise decisions;
•          earlier recognition of and improved resolution of issues and conflicts
•          creative problem solving;
•          effective governance and control;

One of the questions asked during the session was: “Are you a coach or a Project Manager” and the Mike’s answer was both. Yes, I agree! Project Managers nowadays are more coaches and mentors than managers. I’ve discovered 2 years ago (during one of the NTPM 2012 conference sessions on coaching) that comparing to 20^th century, where  80% of PM’s job was controlling and only 20% coaching and mentoring, in 21^st century is the other way around: 80% is coaching and mentoring and only 20% controlling. Although Mike did not confirm that, I believe it’s true. During my training sessions I always stress that we Project Managers do not control people but only project activities and our job is to inspire, motivate and engage the team so they deliver what is expected. Collaboration defined as interaction of team members in such way to develop positive synergy where the team’s performance is greater than the sum of individual’s performances, is the key to a project success.

Quoting Mike: “A Project Manager can draw upon coaching principles to …

• Develop awareness of self and through that awareness seek to improve personal behaviours to achieve excellence;
• Engage, motivate and empower others
•  in their team and project governance to improve behaviours
• and to make better choices that will lead to sustained project success. 

How to create the coaching culture? Mike advices as follow:

•           Lead by example – never underestimate the impact of shadow of the leader;
•           Pay attention – listen, really listen, to what others are saying;
•           Become curious – always seek to further your understanding;
•           Understand the positive intent – the reasons why others behave as they do;
•           Adapt your style – to the needs of the team and the situation.

Let’s start the change!