“The Project Economy is one in which people have the skills and capabilities they need to turn ideas into reality.” — The Project Management Institute (PMI)

When people fail to turn ideas into reality or when businesses fail to turn strategies into results, a common root cause is that people and organizations lack the right skills and capabilities.

The people include project managers (regardless of their formal titles), team members (or contributors), and project sponsors (management).  Almost everyone is involved in a project in organizations.  The project management (PM) maturity of an organization depends on the skills and capabilities of all people, not just the project managers.

What are the skills and capabilities required for project success?

The PMI Talent Triangle® outlines three skill sets:

• Technical Project Management
• Leadership
• Strategic and Business Management

It is the combination of these skills possessed by people throughout the organization that is required to realize the idea or strategy. In other words, we need adequate skill levels in all nine cells in the role vs. skills matrix (pictured above).

As a project manager, line manager, or consultant in the industry in the past two decades, my observation is that most organizations have low PM maturity, and PM skill development is focused in technical project management for the project managers, i.e. only one of the nine cells.

While the traditional PM skills (such as scope and time management) are critical, they are insufficient because of the increasing complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty in the problems we try to solve using projects.  Empowering project teams is impossible if project managers and members do not understand the business priority and strategy to make the right decisions.  Unless they demonstrate their business acumen and ability to think strategically, project managers will not be fully empowered.  In my previous blog “Project Managers are Managers,” I offered some suggestions to new project managers to help them think strategically and manage stakeholders effectively.

I was very pleased that the PMI developed the Talent Triangle to help close the skill gap in project managers.  Furthermore, I’d say that we have to assess and develop PM skills for everyone in the organization, for two reasons. 

First, we prepare future project managers for their roles.  People don’t become a competent project manager overnight – it takes years of learning and practice before and after they are given the project manager role.  Even if not in a PM role, each person is leading projects of different sizes and complexity and can benefit from the skills.

Secondly, to ensure project success, project sponsors and members should have the PM skills to perform their roles effectively.  Otherwise, the project managers have to spend much time doing technical project management, unable to focus on the big picture – the business and strategic value.  When project sponsors do not know how to manage projects at the strategical level, their management practices can lead to project problems or failures that even the best project managers cannot prevent.  I touched on some of the practices in my blog “Projects on Schedule.”

How are you assessing and developing PM skills in your organization?

Project delays are common.  I heard many executives concerned or frustrated with projects missing critical dates.  Many organizations train project leaders in project management (PM) or even hire professional project managers to ensure that projects will meet the milestones.  Project management certifications, such as Project Management Professional® (PMP), have become a hiring preference or job requirement. 

Yet having trained project managers is seldom enough to eliminate project delays.  What is missing?  

Project managers are supposed to manage risks that can cause delays.  However, they also have to work within the confines of the organization, where senior management operate in ways incompatible with the best PM practices. 

An organization’s management practices often lead to unintended consequences, including project delays and missed deadlines.  These management practices include, for example

• Adding new projects without prioritization or additional resources
• Changing the deliverables or expanding the scope of an existing project
• Optimizing utilization by sharing the same critical resources among multiple projects
• Relying on fixed target dates in decision making without understanding the associated assumptions

The last one is worth elaborating. 

In most organizations, project managers prepare a project plan, which includes a schedule with dates of key milestones.  Some plans require more detailed activities and corresponding dates shown on a network diagram (e.g. a Gantt chart).   The activities and their durations can be uncertain, depending on the project.  For example, in a R&D or process improvement project, where the activity outcome is unpredictable and/or the method is unproven, the estimated time to complete a task can have a high degree of uncertainty. 

However, this uncertainty is not always communicated effectively to the decision makers.  A typical schedule given to the senior management is highly simplified and shows only one fixed duration or target date for each activity or milestone.  If not properly explained, this simplified schedule creates a perception of certainty that does not exist.  Unfortunately, many sponsors are not experienced in PM or are too busy to question the uncertainty in the schedule.  They subsequently use those dates for operational decisions and hold the project managers accountable for delivering on schedule.  The result is predictable.

There is no universal solution to project delays because there are many causes.  In addition to having competent project managers, senior management must recognize the impact of their own action on project success. 

The one practice that I recommend to all sponsors is to ask the project managers to show the uncertainty of milestone dates – how likely will it be completed by this date and why?

There are many ways to communicate the uncertainty.  One simple way is to show three scenarios¹.

• Most likely (or 50%/50% sooner or later than this date)
• Most optimistic (or 10% of chance sooner than this date)
• Most pessimistic (or 10% of chance later than this date)

The exact definitions of the three cases are not as important as the practice of using multiple dates to express the uncertainty.  This dialogue allows us to assess the risk more appropriately and make decisions accordingly.

In project management, the emphasis is on planning, not the plan.

1. Interested readers may want to look up the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT).

As a result, project managers have to navigate in an environment where project sponsors, teams, and other stakeholders have little experience in project management and have wildly different expectations.  The project managers are given little authority and limited resources, and yet they are expected to manage teams and deliver results on time in chaotic environments.  It is a challenging job even for the most seasoned project managers.  For those new to the role, the job can be frustrating and stressful.

Experience will help.  It starts with the most crucial stage – project initiation.  Here are a few suggestions for the new project managers.

1. Be a manager

Whether you are leading a product development or continuous improvement project, you are a leader and manager, even if you don’t have a formal authority.   You are responsible for the success of the project. 

This mindset can be hard for some who haven’t been in a management role.  A project manager is a manager, like any other business manager, even if some people don’t treat them like managers.

To be a manager, you need to show ownership and think strategically.  

In my early career, I made the mistake of jumping on projects without helping define them as if they were non-negotiable tasks to be executed.   I continue to see project managers making similar mistakes.  For many reasons, projects are rarely well defined at the onset.  Some are poorly conceived. 

It is project manager’s job to help the management or sponsor create a clear project charter to achieve the desired outcome.  Discuss with your sponsor to understand the big picture, e.g. what is the true intent, how is it aligned with the overall business objectives, and how does it relate to other projects or initiatives?

2. Understand stakeholders

Some new project managers have only managed their own projects, not ones done by a team.  Cross-functional projects are much more common and present a new set of challenges. 

As a project manager, you depend on others to collaborate and deliver the results, although in many organizations project managers are expected to contribute as a subject matter expert.  It is the project manager’s responsibility to mobilize resources and influence decisions.  In many projects, the project manager also plays the role of a change agent, facilitating a smooth transition to the future state and ensuring sustained results.

It is critical that the project manager knows all the stakeholders involved.  They can include their direct manager, other executives and decision makers, team members, support functions, and external parties. Proactively meet and discuss with them from the very beginning of a project and understand their roles & responsibilities, interest, concerns, and attitude toward the project.   These conversations can uncover potential risks and opportunities and help plan for effective communication and engagement of the stakeholders throughout the project.

3. Set the right expectations

Stakeholders have different expectations of the project and of the project manager.  Many projects get into trouble because of misaligned and ambiguous goals, deliverables, scope, decision rights, roles & responsibilities, etc.  It is the project manager’s job to manage such expectations.

Built on a clear understanding of the stakeholders, the project manager can help clarify and align expectations and communicate in the form of a project charter.  If you think of a project charter as another formality or a template to fill out in the process, it would be a mistake.  It transfers the ownership and project management responsibility from the sponsor to the project manager.   It is true that the sponsor or senior management remains accountable for the decision of initiating the project.  But now you are the manager; you accepted the responsibility to execute it according to the charter. 

The project charter is a powerful tool that allows a project manager to refine and/or re-define a project to achieve the true intent of the sponsor, minimize risks, and maximize return on investment and probability of success.  It facilitates strategic and tactical conversations between the sponsor and the project manager, who is a business manager and trusted advisor.

Don’t miss this crucial opportunity.  Insist on shaping the project charter before accepting the role as a project manager.

Of course, knowing what do to is only the first step.  There are real-world challenges in organizations with low project management maturity.  A manager’s job is never easy, prescriptive, or straightforward.  Project managers are managers after all.