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In this edition of Project Pointers, we’ll explore how project managers can focus on delivering value the business, one of the new elements of project delivery in the Project Management Institute’s seventh version of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK7.) Here are a few significant ways to deliver value to your business as you manage projects. 

• Focus on your approach, not just outcomes. The way project managers deliver their projects can be as important as the outcomes they deliver. Many projects are disruptive because they take operational leaders away from their day-to-day duties. Project managers who focus on value consult with the business regarding the scheduling of work. When deadlines are in jeopardy, they strive to understand business circumstances. For example, project team members may be temporarily called away to address an urgent situation that’s a higher priority than the project. Considering this, project managers keep stakeholders apprised of project status and listen when concerns are raised. The business will be more likely to engage in future projects when there is a focus on professional project delivery throughout the project lifecycle, as well as the outcomes projects produce. 
• See value as qualitative and quantitative. PMI defines value as “the worth, importance or usefulness of something.” It’s important to understand that stakeholders’ assessment of the value of “usefulness” involves a lot more than how deliverables satisfy a business case. Value is determined by how deliverables support familiar processes and are integrated with tools and downstream processes, much more than what balance sheets show. The difference between a deliverable and a solution is how stakeholders accept it as part of their daily routine. You contribute value when deliverables are viewed as a solution.
• A valuable project is only the beginning. Project delivery that embraces value leads to – more projects! Value received inspires confidence and generates more ideas for business improvement. These may generate project change requests to add scope, which can add value (as well as introduce risk.) Great project managers discuss how to maximize value, either by incorporating the change request or staging the request for phase 2 of the project. And they learn from those requests how to design downstream projects to deliver further improvements. In that way, delivering value is the start of an improvement journey, not the end.
• Value supports strategy. The way projects are delivered can support or detract from corporate strategy. For example, a new business application could rely on an existing technical platform, or it can take advantage of a new architecture that is part of the corporate strategy. In a different context, a building may be constructed with sustainable principles in mind, utilizing clean energy and eliminating waste. Though it may be more difficult to support strategic initiatives, good project managers work with their teams and senior stakeholders to guide their projects to satisfy the short- and long-term goals of corporate strategies.  

If you have suggestions for focusing on value in projects, share with us in the comments section.

For more about delivering value, check out my Project Management Foundations course.

Coming Up

Recording for Project 2021 and Project Online Desktop Client Essential Training is complete. Look for the course to be published in a few months.

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Being adaptable as you manage your projects can support the success of your projects, a new element of project delivery in the Project Management Institute’s seventh version of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK7.) Here are a few beneficial ways to be adaptable as you manage projects. 

• Don’t fixate on perfection. It would be nice to build a perfect plan with accurate estimates and task dependencies, but it’s not realistic. Instead, work on learning as your project progresses and being adaptable to change estimates and plans as events unfold. Change isn’t admitting you’re wrong! When proposing project plan changes, skilled project managers share what they’ve learned to educate their management teams. It’s far better to proactively change plans, rather than try to meet planned expectations that are now impractical or high-risk. In estimating, the focus should be on being “less wrong” as your project progresses and you can use new insights to construct better estimates and plans.
• Watch and respond to your organization’s direction. Projects are launched to change capabilities for an organization and/or its customers. However, organizations aren’t static while projects progress. Circumstances can affect how the project fits into the organization’s direction. Projects may be postponed, slowed down, team members swapped, or project outcomes may need to be brought forward. Great project managers don’t wait until they’re told to alter a project’s direction. They watch what is happening in the organization and draft what-if changes to project plans for presentation to management. The adaptable project manager responds, versus reacts, to changes in the business. 
• Launch open-ended organizational conversations. Great project managers develop ideas about how to deliver a project. And they are adaptable to the desires and ideas of key stakeholders. They initiate conversations with and between those key stakeholders to discuss approaches for delivering the project and they present their ideas in those conversations. They combine their ideas with ideas from stakeholders that hold merit and support the needs of the business. You might be nervous about conversations without knowing where they might lead, but the long-term outcome of collaborating and adapting to pragmatic stakeholder project delivery desires can outweigh those risks. 
• Defer decisions. Better decisions are made when more information becomes available. Although waiting to set a direction can be stressful, delaying a decision can be the best way to adapt to some project situations. For example, your vendor may be coming out with an updated version of their product, but the release date isn’t finalized yet. Rather than gamble on using the new version or creating solid plans to use the current version, set the software decision point as late as possible in your plans. When your decision point arrives, you can use up-to-date information about the release to decide.  

How has being adaptable contributed to the success of your projects? Share your experiences in the comments section.

For more about adaptability, check out Dorie Clark’s How to Be an Adaptable Employee During Change and Uncertainty course.

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In this edition of Project Pointers, we’ll look at the project management standard of being a caring steward, one of the new elements of project delivery discussed in the Project Management Institute’s latest version of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK7.) In PMBoK7, Knowledge Areas are replaced with Performance Domains, which recommend additional activities in several areas, including adding project value. Let’s look at ways in which you can be a caring steward while managing your projects. 

Acting with care. A caring steward behaves as if they own the business and all the outcomes the business produces. In a project management context, a caring steward goes beyond managing the schedule and ensuring success criteria are met. It means treating project stakeholders with respect, managing all impacts on the physical environment (such as deploying conservation measures), and ensuring proper disposal of used assets like old computers. A big part of acting with care is engaging in organizational change management to ensure people understand what their role is as project deliverables are released. That way, they are put at ease as the processes they use in their work are enhanced.

Financial control. Financial stewardship is a fundamental responsibility for a project manager. This stewardship goes beyond ensuring project costs are within plan. It includes analyzing how to best use finances to support business goals. For example, it may mean spending more in the short run to save money in the longer term. An example of this is when a vendor announces special pricing for a volume purchase. While purchasing in volume might not have been in the project plan, a good financial steward will examine the advantages and disadvantages of making this volume purchase. Good stewardship also means assessing upcoming planned spending to make sure it’s still reasonable and in the best interest of the business, and constantly reviewing risk mitigation and contingency dollars to determine whether they should be adjusted up or down.

Appropriately exercising authority. Project charters identify the level of authority given to project managers. Caring stewardship involves applying that authority appropriately, such as not using coercion to get things done, not overstating one’s authority, or not exaggerating the project impact to influence others to perform work. The caring steward leads the project with compassion for the business, considers the project’s goals in relation to other initiatives, and acts with compassion while working with stakeholders.

Maintaining compliance. Business rules, project management methodologies and legal considerations should always be front of mind while project managers perform their duties. The caring steward understands the purpose and steps involved to be compliant and adheres to the compliance guidelines when making decisions – when it makes sense. However, caring stewardship doesn’t mean blindly executing processes. It is understanding the intent of those processes and proposing alternative actions when the processes won’t yield the intended results. For example, a standard deliverable in a project management methodology might not make sense for a given project. Rather than waste time producing a stripped-down version of that deliverable, the caring steward will work with management to forgo that deliverable for the project and seek to improve the project methodology to consider alternatives when the deliverable doesn’t make sense.

Have you come across other examples of being a caring steward? If so, join the conversation in the comments section.

For more about project management, check out my Project Management Foundations course.

Coming Up

I’m working industriously on updating the course Microsoft Project 2021 and Project Online Desktop Client Essential Training. With this update, I include additional homework for most movies so you can practice after following along during the video.

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In the Project Management Institute’s latest version of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK7,) the section on tailoring recognizes that project management isn’t one size or style fits all. Tailoring means that you tweak your project management approach, governance, and processes to your organization’s environment and work at hand. In this edition of Project Pointers, we’ll look at organizational factors that should drive project tailoring. 

• Use familiar methodologies (most of the time.) Deploying a new methodology takes time and practice. In most cases, familiar methods for project design and delivery will yield the best results. When possible, stick with what your team and management are used to.

That doesn’t mean you should never try other methodologies. Introduce them on small projects that aren’t critical, where you can afford to stumble for the benefit of education. Most organizations that have succeeded with agile started small and adapted the approach to leverage its benefits while avoiding its pitfalls. Over time, they became comfortable with agile methods, developed foresight to avoid problems, and obtained the speed and responsiveness agile provides.

• Accommodate the business’ risk appetite. Although all projects introduce risk, the degree of risk within any given project should reflect the risk tolerance of your business. Businesses with small profit margins or in highly-regulated industries where new approaches require government interpretation and new rulings might not support a risky project. Conversely, small businesses in a highly innovative market might demand fast technological leaps from their projects, which are inherently high risk. 

Tailor your management approach to take into account the project objectives and risk tolerance of your business. Aggressive timelines and new technology are appropriate when higher business risk is acceptable. If you need to reduce risk, use known approaches, conservative timelines, and sufficient time for planning and market testing. 

• Consider the depth of your customer relationships. Considerable project tailoring may be required based on the relationships you have with your customers and how familiar your customers are with your products and services. If you know your customers and their business processes, you might plan fewer activities to confirm requirements and verify solutions. Conversely, with a new market segment, you should plan for more market analysis, requirements validation and product verification. Whether you are adding an enhanced product to a respected product line or entering a new market with a brand-new offering, tailor your standard project planning and delivery approaches to match. If in doubt, plan more verifications with your customers – you and they will appreciate it! 
• Be mindful of the pace of change. The pace of change your business and your customers can handle is a significant factor in how you tailor your project and its deliverables. You may be better off delivering your project in small phases if your stakeholders are already dealing with a lot of change. On the other hand, if you need to leapfrog a competitor, moving fast with a significant change may be required. The nature of your business will also impact the pace at which you introduce change. A public utility company needs to be cautious and deliberate to protect vital infrastructure, whereas a web technology company can introduce change very quickly, assess the results and roll back a change with little to no impact. Adopt to the pace of change your business can handle, as it can be the difference between success and complete failure of a project.

For more about project management methodologies, check out Cyndi Snyder Dionisio’s Hybrid Project Management: Do What Works course.

Coming Up: 

Bonnie Biafore and John Riopel will talk about how to manage dependencies, meetings, and overall communication in hybrid projects on February 17, 2022, at 1PM MT. Traditional and agile/iterative project management approaches have similarities and differences, so you might wonder how to manage hybrid projects that use both. Although the approaches differ, there are points within a hybrid project where deliverables need to align. For example, a traditional deliverable must be completed before part of the agile effort can start – or vice versa. Even in hybrid projects, the project team is a single team that needs good communication and occasional team-wide meetings to make sure the project is successful.

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Integration management ensures project planning elements are connected properly, regardless of the methodologies being deployed. Here are some other benefits of integration management you might not have thought about:

Ensures accurate status reporting. A well-integrated project plan ensures that status changes are properly reflected throughout the project, no matter where those changes originate. For example, if you mitigate the risk of cost overruns by reducing the use of contracted skilled resources, tasks might take longer, impacting the project schedule. Other skill-related risks could become more likely. Also, product quality may decline. Impacts to the project often extend beyond one element. Sound integration management ensures you have a complete picture of the status of your project. 

Reduces stakeholder conflict. Project managers need to ensure stakeholders understand their obligations to the project. As new ideas or questions arise during the project, stakeholder obligations can change. Performing integration management ensures changes in obligations are identified early. That prevents conflicts later in the project when the pressure is on and project impacts are more significant.

Here’s an example. After your initial requirements are drafted, your contracts team notices that a vendor’s costs will increase considerably because of new demands from your project. To address this, your organization decides to perform the work in-house. This impacts project stakeholders through workload, cost, and schedule. Although it may be the best solution, sound integration management ensures that stakeholders understand the new project projections and workload impacts. That way, they can negotiate with project sponsors to seek other solutions or agree and respond to the new workload. 

Helps you manage in a virtual world. One of the greatest virtual team risks is increased errors in communication or process. In one example, Team A uses metric measurements and a geographically separate Team B used imperial measures, generating costly errors. Although integration doesn’t guarantee error-free processes, integration management activities do reduce risk. Integrated plans and integrated processes help your virtual teams work in lock-step.

Helps you produce accurate project plans. Ensuring that all project planning elements are properly integrated is a great way to ensure a sound project plan. Have you added a risk mitigation strategy in your risk plan but forgot to add budget for it? Have you added tasks to fulfill your quality plan but neglected to add them to your project schedule? Focus on integration management and you are unlikely to see omissions in your plans. Project planning deliverables will be complete, which helps deliver a successful project! 

Do you have examples of integration management providing project benefits? Share them in the comments section.

For more about integration management, check out Oliver Yarborough’s Project Management Foundations: Integration course.

Coming up:

Don’t miss Bonnie’s first LinkedIn Office Hours session of 2022, Leadership is Job One for Project Managers, at 1pm MT, January 25, 2022. Bonnie and bestselling project management author Eric Verzuh will talk about how shifting your focus to project leadership has a direct impact on project value. Bring your project management questions to this session.

Bonnie Biafore and John Riopel will talk about how to manage dependencies, meetings, and overall communication in hybrid projects at their LinkedIn Office Hours session, Managing Dependencies in Hybrid Projects, on February 17, 2022, at 1PM MT. Traditional and agile/iterative project management approaches have similarities and differences, so you might wonder how to manage hybrid projects that use both. Although the approaches differ, there are points within a hybrid project where deliverables need to align. For example, a traditional deliverable must be completed before part of the agile effort can start – or vice versa. Also, even in hybrid projects, the project team is a single team that needs good communication and occasional team-wide meetings to make sure the project is successful.