The Dangers of Personality Driven Project Management
Mike: “Well, if we want to go the route of project management fundamentals, the new communication request that came out last week should be captured in a communication plan and that could potentially be a change request.”
Tom: “Well, you don’t work on a statement of work basis, so there is no change order that would need to be done to allocate more money or more time.”
Mike: “This is project management change management that I am talking about. We need to establish more control over what happens and when.”
This, and a few other events I will share, actually happened. Names have been changed to protect the innocent (and the guilty, for that matter).
What is Personality Driven Project Management?
The answer is simple – the project manager is the process. It’s the “soup of the day” style of project management that plagues more organizations that you think.
This can happen when there is no process or when process compliance is not enforced.
Why Does This Happen?
It really just boils down to excuses. I’m not talking about causality. I’m talking BS excuses.
“We’re too nimble of an organization to have process!”
Great! Tell me how nimble you are when it takes more than 1 release of your system to get it right. Also, tell me how much your customers appreciate your “nimbleness” when you keep on getting it wrong the first time.
“We don’t have time for process.”
This one is my favorite. My response is that if you don’t have time to do it right, you definitely don’t have time to do it over.
“Process will just slow us down. We have to deliver.”
This is pretty similar to the previous one, but a little different.
I guarantee process will slow you down as you are learning and absorbing it. However, if the process is created properly, you will become more skilled in its use.
Justine: “Ok. This is your cube. I’ll set up some introductory meetings with your project stakeholders. Welcome aboard.”
Thomas: “Great! Where can I find the templates and processes that I will be using? I’d like to start familiarizing myself with them.”
Justine: “We don’t have anything formalized except for status reports. Oh, and a RAID log, but people started using SharePoint recently, so, it’s different from project to project.”
This wasn’t exactly a conversation, but it could have been. I’ve actually been in this position.
I’m a PM in this Position! What Do I Do?
Not being sarcastic here, but God bless!
You will most likely be subject to the whims of whoever is running the PMO or is the executive sponsor on your project.
You might be successful, if you can get the project team to adopt some sort of process because that is the other problem with this – where there is no/little process, there’s little desire to follow or adopt processes that they haven’t used.
Wait a Minute – You’re Talking about My Organization!!!
If you think that’s true, you need to start evaluating how things are going and change them. Projects don’t just deliver themselves on sheer luck.
You should become introspective and honest with yourself and your team.
AND DON’T GO OUT AND JUST GET ONE OF THE BIG FOUR TO COME IN AND FIX YOUR PROBLEM!!!
Your problems are deeper than that. They are most likely cultural.
It is best to start out small. Get some data on why projects are failing. Get some data on why projects seem to be failing, but aren’t (it does happen). Get data on successful projects. Tell the stories driven by data that will help people understand. However, really find out what is missing and causing projects to fail.
You may very well end up revitalizing the reputation of the PMO as the one-stop shop for excellence in project management.
Your path to business success.
