Is your project suitable for agile practices?

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Photo by Lala Azizli on Unsplash

Not every project is suited to agile techniques. Sound criteria can help you identify whether your projects are good agile candidates. Here are questions you can use to develop your agile qualification criteria:   

  • Can you get the right staff? Appropriate technical and business team members must be dedicated to the project. That means that you must manage the challenging tradeoffs between project work and operational considerations.

Agile projects produce results quickly, so they are time-intensive for participants. Plus, agile approaches require critical business and technical team members who are vital to your business operations. It’s important to prioritize their time on the project so they can contribute effectively. 

  • Do resources have appropriate breadth of knowledge? In-depth knowledge of the business and technical areas related to the project is crucial. The agile approach relies on business experts working closely with expert technical team members. What makes agile methodologies agile is responsiveness to evolving needs. Knowledgeable technical and businesspeople need to consistently reassess the project’s product, the business’s needs at a macro and micro-level, and the priority of the functions needed by the end customer.
  • Does the sponsor have an agile mindset? The sponsor must be willing to participate in frequent reviews of the evolving product, which are fundamental to the agile approach. Agile responsiveness to changing business conditions and its learning environment are very different from traditional project methods. If a sponsor wants a linear, methodical set of objectives delivered to a pre-conceived schedule, they will struggle with agile project deliverables. Sponsors who are uncomfortable with the evolutionary nature of agile create difficulties that can sink a project.
  • Can the team be co-located (physically or virtually)? Agile involves deep, interactive, and sometimes challenging dialog. Getting the most from that dialog requires the richest environment you can create. Co-locate your project team members if possible. If you can’t, simulate co-location with the best video and audio tools you can obtain. Trying to facilitate agile dialog with sub-par communication tools is like trying to tow a camper trailer with a lawn tractor. 
  • Is there synergy between business and technical team members?  An agile team has to get along well to be successful. Agile methodologies require dedication from business and technical experts who are open to supporting new ideas and each other as individuals. You need an agile coach who understands and can manage human dynamics, and who can foster an environment where team members readily share their ideas and concerns. 
  • Can the product be built iteratively? Agile’s best qualities come from delivering solutions in pieces while learning from each iteration. In addition to software products, other products can be produced this way as well. With a bit of creativity, facility moves, new process implementations, and even some construction projects can utilize agile methods.

Do you use other criteria to determine whether a project is a candidate for an agile approach? If so, share with us in the comments section.

For more about agile methodologies, check out the courses in the Become an Agile Project Manager learning path.

Coming Up

Next LinkedIn Office Hours will be on Wednesday, June, 1 2022-

Project Management Entrepreneurship Part 2: Skills and Tools

Have you thought about going out on your own as a project manager, instead of being an employee? Seyi Kukoyi, PMP, and Bonnie Biafore, PMP, provide guidance for that journey in the course Become a Project Management Entrepreneur (http://linkedin-learning.pxf.io/PMentrepreneur-li). In this follow-on LinkedIn Office Hours event, Seyi, Bonnie, John Riopel and Oliver Yarbrough discuss the skills and tools you need to be a PM entrepreneur.

PMBoK7 Perspectives: Navigate Complexity

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Photo by Timo Volz on Unsplash

The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK7) talks about navigating complexity to successfully complete the project lifecycle. Although complexity can surface anywhere, there are four main sources of complexity to manage. Here’s an overview of those sources and tips for reducing the impact of complexity on projects. 

  • Human behavior. The most significant project complexity comes from people. Personal agendas, personality conflicts, fear-triggered behaviors, and unrealistic expectations present significant challenges. In a virtual world, misinterpreted communications, cultural norms and leadership styles create issues. To address this complexity, listen carefully and seek to understand what people are saying. In addition, be sure to focus on using emotional intelligence and compassion with everyone on the project.
  • System behavior. The way technology systems interact can introduce complexity. This is amplified with interaction between old and new technology where synchronizing data can be complex. As system complexity increases, finding and training support personnel becomes more difficult and time consuming. Dealing with this takes time, so business and project managers must be patient! Systems must be “decoupled” – that is, analyzed and broken down into simple functions. Then, the team must examine each of those functions and ensure that relevant stakeholders understand how those functions work in concert with their business processes.
  • Uncertain and ambiguous requirements. Requirements, even those that appear straightforward, can introduce complexity. Uncertain definitions or misinterpreted directions from stakeholders can create significant delays. People misinterpret ambiguous requirements, which can drive projects into costly detours. Correcting this requires time to analyze and examine requirements and resolve any uncertainty and ambiguity. Patience and time with business stakeholders is critical to clarifying requirements. 
  • Technological Innovation. Innovation is disruptive and can create substantial complexity. To address this, project teams need to embrace the value that organizational change management contributes to business outcomes. Take time to help people adjust to the change journey. Conduct process training and provide people with the opportunity to get comfortable with new technological solutions. That way, stakeholders become confident with the new solution and their ability to perform their jobs in a new way. 

What other types of complexity have you encountered and how have you handled it? Share your experiences with us in the comments section.

For more about project complexity, check out Sam Yankelevitch’s Project Complexity Tips and Tricks course.

Coming Up:

Next LinkedIn Office Hours will be on Wednesday, June, 1 2022-

Project Management Entrepreneurship Part 2: Skills and Tools

Have you thought about going out on your own as a project manager, instead of being an employee? Seyi Kukoyi, PMP, and Bonnie Biafore, PMP, provide guidance for that journey in the course Become a Project Management Entrepreneur (http://linkedin-learning.pxf.io/PMentrepreneur-li). In this follow-on LinkedIn Office Hours event, Seyi, Bonnie, John Riopel and Oliver Yarbrough discuss the skills and tools you need to be a PM entrepreneur.

My latest course, Microsoft Project 2021 and Project Online Desktop Essential Training, is now available in the LinkedIn Learning library. In this edition, you can not only follow the movie steps in exercise files. I included additional homework you can do on the file after the movie ends. Click the link to watch the course for free (for up to 24 hours after you click.)

PMBoK7 Perspectives: Exploiting Opportunities

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PMBoK7 places more emphasis on managing positive risks, called opportunities (situations that improve project outcomes.) In the past, this project approach was underutilized, because the tendency is to focus on negative risks (called threats.) Here are PMI’s five approaches to making the most of project opportunities. 

  • Exploit. To exploit opportunity, you can take definitive action to ensure that an opportunity occurs. For example, you could purchase a more capable technical component that increases the business value delivered by the project. Or I could respond to a clear-cut customer demand by adding a remote-control feature to a ceiling fan. This would generate customer satisfaction and greater sales by fulfilling a specific need. 
  • Enhance. Enhancing an opportunity means taking an action to increase the probability of the opportunity occurring and/or increasing the positive impact it has on your project if it does occur. This is the equivalent of mitigating a negative risk. For example, to increase the reliability of a product, you decide to install a redundant part within the product, so if one fails the other automatically takes over. The outcome is a better product that you can charge more for, increasing the probability that your profit will improve due to the increased sales and higher customer satisfaction.
  • Escalate. A project team might discover ways to improve project outcomes that are outside the project team’s sphere of influence, for example, dealing with transactions involving foreign currencies. Changing the payment schedule or requesting a payment could mean big differences in currency exchange rates. Senior managers or the finance organization would make the decision on this financial schedule change. In this case, the project manager escalates the opportunity to the people who have the authority for the decision. 
  • Share. This strategy means you allocate full or partial ownership of an opportunity to a third party who is best able to capture the benefit of that opportunity. For example, a customer offers a bonus payment for early project completion. To increase the chances of finishing early, you hire an expert firm to perform parts of your project and share the bonus payment with them if you finish early.
  • Accept. Finally, just like with threats, you can accept the existence of an opportunity as-is.  You do nothing, and hope the opportunity comes to fruition. This is suitable for low probability or low impact opportunities.

If you have techniques you have used to take advantage of opportunities, share with us in the comments section.

For more about risk management, check out Bob McGannon’s Project Management Foundations: Risk course.

PMBoK7 Perspectives: Build Quality into Processes and Deliverables

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PMBoK7 talks about maintaining focus on deliverable quality and the processes used to create those deliverables. Here’s an overview of what the Project Management Institute (PMI) refers to as the “dimensions of quality” that PMs must manage. 

Performance/Conformity. The products we produce need to perform in a way that meets specifications. They also need to conform to accepted norms and the expectations of stakeholders who capitalize on the delivered products. This means the project outcomes are achieved in a way that stakeholders expect and can handle without excessive education or unnecessary changes to existing business processes.

Reliability/Resilience. Project deliverables need to produce consistent outcomes. If it’s a product or hardware component, it needs to deliver consistent results and be resilient enough to recover from unexpected situations like power outages. If your deliverable is process-based, it should deliver the intended results in a wide array of circumstances where it might be applied — without requiring workarounds or instance-by-instance judgment from stakeholders. In short, you get the outcome you intended, first time and every time.

Satisfaction/Uniformity. Your products should get positive feedback from stakeholders who use it or are affected by it. This means you need to understand the needs and expectations of every stakeholder group impacted by the project’s product. Satisfaction also needs to meet your stakeholders usual standards. For example, if you produce an IT system that has a drastically different interface than other products, the system will fail the uniformity test even if it works. The stakeholders won’t want to learn a whole new interface to use your product, even if it meets their specifications.

Efficiency/Sustainability. This means producing high-quality products that create desired outcomes efficiently, without requiring work for the stakeholders who use the product. The project outcomes should consistently reduce the work required to generate business value. The way the project’s products are built and used should also be kind to the environment, and not use excessive amounts of power, create undue waste, or rely on people to perform dangerous tasks such as exposing themselves to chemicals or radiation that could be harmful over time.

Have any tips for focusing on deliverable and process quality? Share with us in the comments section.

For more about quality management, check out Daniel Stanton’s Project Management Foundations: Quality course.

Coming Up

Watch for my latest course, Project 2021 and Project Online Desktop Client Essential Training.  Publication day is coming up!

PMBoK7 Perspectives: More Systems Thinking

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The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK7) talks about recognizing, evaluating, and responding to system interactions, which means project managers must engage in systems thinking to drive positive project performance. Adding to last week’s list, here are more ways that systems thinking can boost project performance. 

Turn up the empathy. The best project managers empathize with business stakeholders. In fact, their empathy is so well-tuned, they think like their business stakeholders. They can anticipate the concerns stakeholders might raise and understand what approaches will reduce those concerns. They understand business stakeholder goals and tailor the project to help bring them to fruition. They FEEL as well as see what is happening. That feeling is a form of intuition, where they listen to the words stakeholders use to determine whether they are comfortable (or not).

Assumptions get you started but not to the finish! Systems thinking involves understanding the role of assumptions. Projects usually require assumptions prior to launch. Clever and reasonable assumptions can support projects that otherwise might not be approved. However, all assumptions are risks! If the assumptions are incorrect, the business case can easily become invalid. So, start by making assumptions, launching your project, and then work to validate those assumptions. As you validate your assumptions, your risk decreases. With sound systems thinking, most, if not all, elements within an assumption can be validated. These validated facts allow you to finish your project with minimal risk!

Hold methodologies loosely. With standard methodologies, you establish a pattern of behavior and share standard tracking reports that stakeholders are familiar with. That is a significant benefit but doesn’t guarantee that the methodology is the best approach to project delivery. With systems thinking, you can identify the value that each step and deliverable provides to your project and business. If a deliverable doesn’t provide value, skip it, or change or minimize it. Create a customized methodology for your project with only the steps and deliverables that add value and share the methodology with stakeholders. It shouldn’t be changed so much it becomes unrecognizable but should be better positioned to meet the needs of the project and its stakeholders.

Be as agile as possible. Being agile isn’t the same as using an agile methodology. Being agile means that you strive to learn as much as you can as early as you can in the project lifecycle. Develop prototypes ASAP – a whiteboard and post-it notes may be all that’s required. Test your products as early as possible. Recognize when your business is changing quickly or that stakeholders are figuring out what they need as they go, so you can be ready for changes to hit your project. Allocate contingency budget for changes if you are working in a waterfall model and be prepared to change plans quickly to respond to business needs.

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

Coming Up

Project 2021 and Project Online Desktop Client Essential Training will be published in a few months.

LinkedIn Office Hours April 13, 2022, 1:00PM MT- Prerequisites for a Project Management Entrepreneur

Have you thought about going out on your own as a project manager, instead of being an employee? Seyi Kukoyi, PMP, and Bonnie Biafore, PMP, provide guidance for that journey in the course Become a Project Management Entrepreneur. But being your own boss isn’t for everyone. In this LinkedIn Office Hours event, Seyi and Bonnie welcome John Riopel and Oliver Yarbrough to a panel discussion about what you need to know before diving into the deep end of the PM entrepreneur pool. We will cover how to tell if you’re cut out for entrepreneurship; the difference between being a contractor and a business owner; skills and tools you need to be a PM Entrepreneur, and steps to take before you quit your job.

PMBoK7 Perspectives: Systems Thinking

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The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK7) talks about recognizing, evaluating, and responding to system interactions, which means project managers must engage in systems thinking to drive positive project performance. Here are a few significant systems thinking perspectives that boost project performance. 

Business change is the goal (not just project completion). Smart organizations close projects when they have achieved the desired business outcomes, not when the project deliverables are completed. In a project world, integrating business analysis, project management and organizational change is at the heart of systems thinking. For example, a new business process or product description should lead to a plan for producing deliverables. That plan will describe the business value that is desired. As the deliverables are produced, stakeholders need guidance through organizational change management initiatives to ensure the products and business changes generate that value. 

Build on the past. Project deliverables can be more effective when they leverage what’s already in place via other projects. Agile project approaches do this well and quickly. Because deliverables are deployed in short sprints, the agile process consistently builds upon the past by improving features that aren’t as effective as they could be and expanding features that already add business value. However, you don’t need agile to build on the past. Projects in well-organized portfolios often represent steps to a strategic set of changes. Along the way, new requirements and business needs create obstacles or opportunities that must be managed.  You can enhance project performance by understanding the objectives for each project in the portfolio and the value they provide to the business. Then, you can determine how to incorporate newly discovered business objectives into a series of projects.

Understand the “dominoes.” Change is a constant in the business world. Business changes, personnel changes and new requirements can create a cascade of items to address. For example, a change in a construction project alters the triple constraints of scope, cost, and schedule. But it can also change contractor agreements, suppliers’ processes, financing, and inspection requirements. Understanding the cascading changes that arise during a project and addressing them proactively is a fundamental way that systems thinking boosts project performance.

Integration is a PEOPLE process. Product integration is challenging, as products don’t always come together as intended. This can lead to project delays and ballooning budgets. An example is the Mars probe that was lost due to a simple integration failure, when one module used imperial measurements and another used metric. The best systems thinking approach to integration is to work on people, ability, and team integration. Your product integrations will go smoothly  when you ensure the skills you deploy have positive relationships and show respect for each other and the contribution each can yield. Those relationships increase the effectiveness of communication and the sense of a shared goal. Better products, with fewer instances of integration elements being missed, is the result when teams work together more effectively.

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

Coming Up

Project 2021 and Project Online Desktop Client Essential Training will be published in a few months.

LinkedIn Office Hours April 6, 2022, 1:00PM MT- Embracing an Entrepreneurial Mindset in an AI-Driven World

Yesterday’s future is today’s reality. In order to fully take advantage of that reality, professionals need to think entrepreneurially while leveraging the latest technological advancements such as AI.
In this Office Hours session, Oliver Yarbrough and Bonnie Biafore will discuss how you can grow you career by –
– Harnessing an entrepreneurial mindset
– Leveraging AI to deliver successful projects
– Adjusting your outlook and approach to delivering value
– …and so much more
The world is changing. Ask yourself, “How will I adapt to these changes, so I can advance?”

LinkedIn Office Hours April 13, 2022, 1:00PM MT- Prerequisites for a Project Management Entrepreneur

Have you thought about going out on your own as a project manager, instead of being an employee? Seyi Kukoyi, PMP, and Bonnie Biafore, PMP, provide guidance for that journey in the course Become a Project Management Entrepreneur. But being your own boss isn’t for everyone. In this LinkedIn Office Hours event, Seyi and Bonnie welcome John Riopel and Oliver Yarbrough to a panel discussion about what you need to know before diving into the deep end of the PM entrepreneur pool. We will cover how to tell if you’re cut out for entrepreneurship; the difference between being a contractor and a business owner; skills and tools you need to be a PM Entrepreneur, and steps to take before you quit your job.

Defeat scope creep with effective change approval criteria

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Scope creep is an insidious ooze of changes that can sink a project. Robust change management that thoroughly evaluates the merits of proposed scope changes is key to thwarting the creepy scope threat. One place to start is with solid change approval criteria. 

Typically, change approval criteria evaluates:

  • How scope changes
  • Project costs added or removed due to scope change
  • Schedule changes due to scope change

These evaluations are enough for small projects or very minor changes. For more significant scope change, it’s better to strengthen your change approval criteria. 

How does the scope change affect project risk? Change-related risk can vary. Adding new technology, tightening deadlines, or deploying multiple changes simultaneously can challenge your business. Examine the risk each change brings to your project and the business.

Does the scope change add stakeholders to the project? Adding stakeholders to an existing project can trigger replanning, alter success criteria, or lead to issues with prioritizing requirements. These activities can be very disruptive and should be carefully evaluated before approving a change.

Is additional integration involved? Increased integration of technical tools, business processes or both will add complexity to your project and expand your need for testing. This can also require additional specialized personnel on your project.

Are multiple vendors required? Multiple vendors add contract management time. In addition, vendors working together can add complexity and conflict, as vendor expectations and agendas may differ. Examine your history with vendors to assess the merit and impacts of a change.

Does the proposed change support the spirit of the project’s original scope? Ambitious or creative stakeholders can recommend project scope changes that won’t enhance or expand the original intent and business case for your project. Evaluate changes against the initial project purpose to ensure your projects remain focused and stay within triple constraint expectations.

Do you use other criteria to evaluate proposed project changes? If so, share with us in the comments section.

For more about change management, check out Scott Mautz’ Change Management Foundations course.

Coming Up

Project 2021 and Project Online Desktop Client Essential Training will be published in a few months.

LinkedIn Office Hours April 6, 2022, 1:00PM MT- Embracing an Entrepreneurial Mindset in an AI-Driven World

Yesterday’s future is today’s reality. In order to fully take advantage of that reality, professionals need to think entrepreneurially while leveraging the latest technological advancements such as AI.
In this Office Hours session, Oliver Yarbrough and Bonnie Biafore will discuss how you can grow you career by –
– Harnessing an entrepreneurial mindset
– Leveraging AI to deliver successful projects
– Adjusting your outlook and approach to delivering value
– …and so much more
The world is changing. Ask yourself, “How will I adapt to these changes, so I can advance?”

LinkedIn Office Hours April 13, 2022, 1:00PM MT- Prerequisites for a Project Management Entrepreneur

Have you thought about going out on your own as a project manager, instead of being an employee? Seyi Kukoyi, PMP, and Bonnie Biafore, PMP, provide guidance for that journey in the course Become a Project Management Entrepreneur. But being your own boss isn’t for everyone. In this LinkedIn Office Hours event, Seyi and Bonnie welcome John Riopel and Oliver Yarbrough to a panel discussion about what you need to know before diving into the deep end of the PM entrepreneur pool. We will cover how to tell if you’re cut out for entrepreneurship; the difference between being a contractor and a business owner; skills and tools you need to be a PM Entrepreneur, and steps to take before you quit your job.

PMBoK7 Perspectives: Focus on Value

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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.

PMBoK7 Perspectives: Creating a Collaborative Team Environment

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Photo by Randy Fath on Unsplash

In this edition of Project Pointers, we’ll look at building a collaborative team environment, one of the new project delivery elements in the Project Management Institute’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK7.) Here are a few ways to create a collaborative team environment for your projects.

  • Define roles, not just responsibilities. Productive teams have clear roles and approaches, which can be defined by the project manager, team leader or the team themselves. Team members need to understand their roles, so they know where each person’s responsibility begins and ends, and how information or process steps will be passed from one person to the next. For example, “perform testing” describes a responsibility. That isn’t enough for someone to understand the role. Are they supposed to test a product at various points as it is built, or only the end product? Do they perform testing themselves or include a customer or end user? How and where will the test results be recorded and shared?
  • Organize sub-teams. Often, the best way to tackle a set of tasks is with a small group of people. Define sub-teams and identify who will coordinate the team’s efforts to share status with the project manager. This isn’t necessarily a team leader, but rather the person who will ensure proper coordination and communication as the sub-team performs its tasks. To reinforce collaboration, recognize the entire sub-team when items are completed, not just the team leader or coordinator.
  • Establish support and review standards. Teams that produce outstanding work use the collective experience and expertise of its members. Leverage that with a peer review process to assure deliverable quality. The peer review process is not to find fault, but to identify ways to produce superior work. To reinforce this approach, recognize both the individual who identified an improvement and the person who adopted the improvement into their deliverable. This supports a team environment where collaboration is recognized.
  • Focus on communication approaches. The larger your team, the more communication processes need to be defined and followed. This used to be straightforward, when periodic meetings would be scheduled in a conference room. This isn’t as easy today when team members work from offices, homes, and other locations. Different tasks and reporting requirements necessitate different communication mediums. For example, reporting task completions can be done via a virtual meeting tool. Reviewing a complicated technical deliverable requires rich communication that’s beyond the average person’s and work location’s capability with virtual meeting tools. The lesson here is twofold. First, pick the communication medium based on what the meeting needs to accomplish. Second, understand each team member’s capability with virtual tools when face to face meetings aren’t feasible. Make sure well-trained team members can put the full capabilities of virtual tools to use. 

Do you have any tips on building a collaborative environment? If so, share with us in the comments.

For more about team collaboration, check out Dana Brownlee’s Essentials of Team Collaboration course and Communication within Teams by Daisy Lovelace.

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.

PMBoK7 Perspectives: Be Adaptable

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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.