Project World Orlando, Florida November 6 9

Chuck’s Snippets 20.0; page 1 of 7 Chuck Millhollan, [email protected] www.millhollan.net

Space Coast PMI Professional Development Day, Melbourne, FL, September 23, 2011

Friends and Colleagues,

I’m delighted that you’ve chosen to review “Chuck’s Snippets 20.0” from the Space Coast PMI Professional Development Day. The event theme was Project Management is a Profession, Not Just an Activity. I have included the highlights from the presentations that I attended below.

If you are interested in discussing any of the specific topics and/or speakers in more detail, please feel free to contact me.

My standard disclaimer: While I believe all of the content of the attached summary is extremely valuable, I do not fully accept each premise or believe that all of the concepts fully apply in every organizational environment. However, these basic principles of effective leadership, business analysis and project management are definitely worthwhile contributions to our professional development.

Speaker: R.E. Niebuhr, Ph.D., CFO for Florida Institute of Technology Topic: Future of Project Management

1. Chuck’s comment: Dr. Niebuhr, who had spent time as project management practitioner in his early career (1980’s), transitioned into academia. His presentation was based on research from the Project Management Circa 2025, by Dr. David Cleland & Dr. Bopaya Bidanda, published by the PMI in 2009. PM Circa 2025 focuses on the “future of project management.” Funny enough, this kick-off, intentional or not, set the tone for the entire day. While the theme was Project Management is a Profession, Not Just an Activity, the presentations seemed to target the future of our profession and included many words-of- wisdom from leaders in project management. 2. Dr. Niebuhr started off with a rather funny spin on an old axiom; “Those that Can’t Do Project Management, End Up Teaching Project Management.” His dual intent in the presentation was to 1) refute that claim and 2) demonstrate the value of project management education and training. a. Dr. Niebuhr pointed out that he purposefully seeks practitioners as adjunct professors to ensure their graduate students (Florida Institute of Technology does not currently offer an undergraduate project management program) are exposed to the faculty members with an understanding of the application of the theory. 3. The PM Circa 2025 research indicates that the demand for the project management skill set will expand exponentially in the global marketplace, which academia is interpreting as a growing market for project management related education and career development. 4. Dr. Niebuhr pointed out that not all individuals are suited for project management or for participation in project teams. However, in his experience (and mine) little to no time is dedicated for ensuring there’s a fit between the assigned resource(s) and their ability to perform in a project team environment. a. As Rick Morris, another conference speaker, pointed out, this is the “Halo Effect” gone wild. Leadership’s perception about a demonstrated proficiency in one area Chuck’s Snippets 20.0; page 2 of 7 Chuck Millhollan, [email protected] www.millhollan.net

(e.g. technical expertise) will translate into proficiency in another area (e.g. project management). Rick went on to explain how he’s upset about how leadership gives the project management title away to experienced, talented technical resources that have had zero training (or sometimes desire) in leading project teams. This not only results in a less than effective project manager, but also potentially has a negative impact on the leader’s perception of project management as a whole. b. Project managers must be self-driven, have a high level of energy, and fill comfortable in ambiguity. The fact that someone displays excellence in their chosen profession does not mean that they have the skill set to be in project management. i. Chuck’s comment: How many of us knew after high school, or even as undergrad students, that we wanted to be project management practitioners? From my experience, most practitioners have evolved into the project management profession, which means their career started on a completely different track. In some cases, this also means that their formal training is in a different profession. How many of us held degrees, or had formal education (other than that required to be eligible for the PMP exam) prior to becoming a project manager? My observation is not based on statistical research; however, my guess is a very small percentage. If we accept this premise as true (I would love to hear your opinions), project managers do not start proactively developing their skill set until after they’re actively working in the profession. Scary, huh? c. Project team members must be comfortable performing in a team environment, willing to share their knowledge and expertise, and be willing to work with team members outside of their expertise. i. Chuck’s comment: This hit home for me. We often assume that our team members are comfortable working in a team environment and do not consider team building activities until there’s an indicator of conflict. How many of us can remember projects with a dysfunctional team environments? How many of us are there now? We would be naïve to think that anyone is focused on addressing that challenge other than the project manager. Team building and development is a fundamental PM responsibility. 5. Project Management Circa 2025 presents research that supports the following conclusions: a. Organizations that have structured, formal project management training demonstrated better project outcomes. b. Organizations with a higher percentage of PMPs demonstrate a higher project success rate. c. Chuck’s comment: Sounds logical, right? Since few of us plan from high school to be project managers and begin developing the necessary skill sets early, it makes perfect sense that organizations would benefit from a structured approach for developing their “accidental” project managers. Chuck’s Snippets 20.0; page 3 of 7 Chuck Millhollan, [email protected] www.millhollan.net

Speaker: Keynote – Harold Kerzner, Ph.D., Senior Executive Director with the International Institute for Learning (www.iil.com), renowned project management author, and all around MacDaddy of project management! Topic: Preparing the Next Generation PM

1. To remain competitive and provide value to our organizations, project managers must become business managers. What does this mean? Continue reading… a. To make effective decisions, or provide effective decision making support, project managers must understand an organization’s business processes, not just their project management methodology. b. We must view projects, read as an organization’s investment in some product or service that is designed to meet a business need, as a collection of “value” that has been scheduled for realization. i. Chuck’s comment: This means the project manager must understand why the project was selected and what value the project is scheduled to provide. The reality is that many project managers are assigned after a project has been approved, budgets have been assigned, and senior expectations are set. Our job then is to find the answers to these critical questions. The answers set the foundation for business savvy decision making. c. Dr Kerzner concluded that due to the need for project managers that understand the business, the project management skill set and the business analysis skill set are blending together. The professions may remain separate, but the project manager must have an understanding of the business. 2. Project managers in the future will… a. …be more involved in strategy development and project selection. Since project selection supports meeting strategic goals, understanding an organization’s capability and capacity is critical in meeting those strategic goals (a gap that exists in many organizations). i. The ability to generate ideas frequently exceeds an organization’s ability to execute on those ideas. Focusing on the best amid many good ideas provides a competitive advantage and maximizes business value. b. …be involved at the beginning of the competitive bidding and vendor selection processes. Since project managers implement the chosen solutions, being involved in the RFP preparation and vendor selection process is important for selecting partners that can effectively support business needs. This also allows the project manager to understand the vendor’s capabilities and the RFP responses as a basis for implementation planning. c. …have more business knowledge than technical knowledge. This is a reversal of many current perceptions about project management skill requirements. Instead of being a technical expert, the project manager will rely on their team’s technical expertise. This allows the project manager to focus on the business solution, or the business need the product or service is designed to meet, while the team focuses on the technical work required to deliver the product or service. Chuck’s Snippets 20.0; page 4 of 7 Chuck Millhollan, [email protected] www.millhollan.net

d. …equally concerned about project and business success. The definition of project success is changing dramatically. Projects are no longer measured by simply meeting cost and schedule expectations. e. …earn certifications, or receive in-depth training on the following: i. Managing complex projects with multiple senior stakeholders ii. Expertise in organizational politics iii. Culture and religion iv. Business strategy v. Note: One mistake in politics, or cross one religious boundary, and the project can be ruined or the project manager’s credibility destroyed. 3. Project management will become a Strategic Core Competence. a. All businesses use project management concepts, some just better than others. b. Competitive pressures will require organizations to develop excellence in project management. “How can we possibly execute on our strategic plans without project management?” 4. Chuck’s comment: This next prediction might scare some of us. a. Dr. Kerzner stated that “Project Management Methodologies are about to disappear.” OMG! What does that mean? Read on my nervous friends… i. Rigid policies and procedures limit creativity and create unnecessary work and delays. ii. Instead of rigid methodologies, a more flexible approach (still a methodology) will evolve including forms, guidelines and checklists where the experienced, business savvy project manager decides how best to leverage their tools to meet the business need. iii. The best project managers have a project management toolbox vice following a step-by-step, unyielding method for each project. iv. Dr K quote: “There are three ways to manage a project, the right way, the wrong way, and the PMBOK way.” In other words, the PMBOK is a guide, not the way. 5. Something to consider for today’s trend to outsource project management… “If you outsource project management, the contractor leaves with the intellectual property and best practices learned throughout the project.” a. Capturing, and sharing, best practices will become a competitive weapon. 6. Dr. K’s advice for aspiring project managers, “Find the smallest company you can, with the fewest employees, for your first project management role. You will do it all! Too often, project managers in large companies find themselves performing specialized tasks and/or projects. When trying to strengthen your body, you do not choose to work on only your left bicep! 7. Defining success and dashboard design: a. Allow your customer to define success for your project early in the planning phases. Why? Because they will ultimately determine the success of your work after delivery. b. When you define success, you must determine how to measure that success (what metrics will you use?). c. The Doctor Office Visit analogy: What are the first things that are measured when you visit the doctor’s office? They take your weight, verify your height, measure Chuck’s Snippets 20.0; page 5 of 7 Chuck Millhollan, [email protected] www.millhollan.net

your blood pressure, and take your temperature. Do these “standard” measurements ever provide quality decision making information for the doctor? Probably not. They may be indicators of other problems, but the doctor needs to talk with you and ask questions to determine the cause of your problem. Likewise, project managers need to talk with leadership to determine the measurements they want to see for decision making. In other words, what do you need to measure and communicate to support decision making? 8. The future of project reporting will add “expectations management” information, such as… a. Time at completion (when do you expect to deliver?) b. Cost at completion (what are the “all-in” costs?) c. Benefits at completion (will you deliver 100% of the intended benefits or some subset of the expected benefits?) d. Value at completion (will the delivered functionality provided the intended value?) e. Time to value (when will the value be realized? Immediately after deliver or after some predictable delay?)

Speaker: Nani Sadowski, Principle, Enterprise Program Management & Architecture, CSC Topic: The Evolving Role of the PM in Healthcare

1. In a hospital environment, project managers must understand the concept of process engineering. a. Process standardization has become one of the biggest challenges in healthcare. b. In Nani’s experience with CSC, project managers are focusing on lean processes, process engineering from the ground up, and projects designed to streamline or standardize complex operating environments with professionals that have a medical expertise (not process-related expertise). 2. Challenges project managers can encounter in a hospital or healthcare environment: a. With the volume of patients and trends that demand increasing revenue and/or cutting costs, there’s a perception that there’s no time for training. This creates a risk to transitioning projects into operations as the medical professionals have little time (real or perceived) to learn how to use new systems. b. Many medical professionals have a “non-profit” mentality about requesting and purchasing new systems and equipment. Their focus, or typically their “justification,” is based on quality of care or safety. To make matters more challenging, it is very difficult to argue that quality of care or safety is not important; however, the lack of understanding of cost versus benefit has caused many hospitals to close. i. Project managers: Do you understand the CBA (Cost Benefit Analysis) for your project? Are you cheerfully, proudly working your hardest to spend organizational resources for a final product or service that will not provide a benefit? c. In general, medical profession sponsors have little training or concern about how a project request or purchase ties back to strategic goals. Chuck’s Snippets 20.0; page 6 of 7 Chuck Millhollan, [email protected] www.millhollan.net

d. There is frequently conflict between the medical practitioners and hospital administration professionals due to variances in goals and objectives; one focused solely on patient care, while the other is focused more on efficiency, revenue, and/or costs. Project managers will need to proactively manage these difference sets of expectations. 3. Understanding these challenges from the start can help project managers in a healthcare environment set a foundation for success through… a. Setting a shared vision between the project implementation team and the clinical team. b. Defining business objectives with specific goals and quantifiable benefits. c. Working collaboratively to define a governance process for managing the implementation to address competing priorities, training requirements, etc… 4. One of the typical oversights we make as project managers is a failure to fully understand the time demands on the users (medical professionals in this case) associated with each project. Do the users have time to be involved in the project? What if there are multiple projects that create a concurrent demand on the medical professional’s time? What is the resulting impact on the quality of patient care and safety? What is the resulting impact on our project timelines? a. Chuck’s comment: This discussion was a real eye-opening reminder for me. It is easy for project managers to complain about a lack of user involvement; however, do we really understand the factors that are influencing their lack of engagement? Was the project requested and approved with their involvement? The answer to this question may have a direct impact on their level of interest. Does the timeline conflict with other demands on their time (either operational demands or competing projects)? These are factors that project managers must consider in the project planning phase to ensure a smoother transition into operations.

Speaker: Frank Saladis, President, Project Imagers, Inc. Topic: Architecting the Future through Project Management

1. Project managers can be viewed as a leader, a facilitator, or a necessary evil. Whether naysayers want to accept this reality or not, project management is inescapable. a. Think for a moment of all the products you use on a daily basis. The new phone you just bought, the car you’re driving, the building you’re sitting in right now, the next high speed processor that will make the computer you downloaded this document from obsolete…all of these products exist because of project management. The increase in acceptance of, and desire for expertise in, project management stems from the unavoidable fact that project management is a key competency for executing strategic goals and remaining competitive. i. How cool are we!?  b. With absolute certainty, we can say that the perceived value of project management is still evolving. We must spend more time demonstrating the business value of project management than worrying about how we’re perceived. In short, our actions speak louder than words. Proclaiming our value will not convince anyone. Demonstrating our value will help win over project management advocates. Chuck’s Snippets 20.0; page 7 of 7 Chuck Millhollan, [email protected] www.millhollan.net

c. Business Strategy + Project Management (read as the ability to execute on that business strategy) = A company’s future viability and profitability. 2. The future of project management depends on the continuous evolution of the greater PMBOK. Frank was not referring to “The Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge,” but to the full body of knowledge. In short, project managers must evolve to meet business’ evolving expectations. a. Wow! Does that mean that someone, or something, other than the PMI will define our role and responsibilities? Yep. b. Frank believes that what made project managers successful up to this point will not continue to make us successful in the future. We must continuously seek to enhance our skills and ability to contribute to our organization. i. In the words of great philosopher Janet Jackson, “Yes, I love project management. My project manager is fine; they have done lots of nice things for me, but what has my project manager done to add business value lately?” OK…I took a few liberties with the lyrics! 3. Chuck’s comment: Here was a real “attention getter” that woke a few people up… a. Frank, in a loud, clear voice, stated that creating business value through project management is all about SEX! i. SEX stands for Selective EXecution, or ensuring your managing the right projects (through a structured project evaluation, selection and prioritization process) and doing things right the first time (through a structured approach for managing projects and stakeholder expectations). ii. In Philip Crosby’s book Quality is Free, he coined the phrase “Do the Right Things Right the First Time. In other words, spending time defining and validating expectations and planning on how to meet those expectations helps prevent “defects.” 1. Chuck’s comment: Quality is Free: the Art of Making Quality Certain by Philip Crosby was first published about 25 years ago and is one of the cornerstones in modern quality philosophy (in my humble opinion). Preventing defects, sometimes called the “Zero Defects” approach to quality is not about an absolutely necessity for no (or zero) defects. Instead, the concept is about developing an understanding of how neglecting quality is costly. Leaders are encouraged to continuously identify ways to prevent defects and proactively identify and remove the root causes from processes that create defects. a. An important note for us to remember as project management practitioners is that quality is conformance to requirements. In other words, a defect for us may be a missed requirement or a failure to meet a requirement. Do you have a dedicated, structured approach to eliciting, validating, and managing requirements?