Managing Projects in the ‘Really Real’ World

A long time ago in a telecom not so far away, Kevin Smith and I managed two large project management teams (~350 staff combined) charged with oversight of all local and long distance network build activities. To kick off the New Year, we were asked to meet with our Chief Operations Officer and a number of senior vice presidents and executive vice presidents from across the company in order to review the status of our most critical projects. Other program groups from within the company were also in attendance – each group was asked to present the status of their respective programs/projects.

As each group presented, we noticed something interesting. Every single group indicated that better than 90% of their projects were on target, just an amazing statistic given the complexity of the network builds we were involved in delivering. When it was our turn, we informed everyone that our projects were running approximately 55% on target, with 25% in “at risk” status, and the remaining 20% in “late” status. The reactions in the room ranged from smugness to disappointment, with more than a couple of nervous looks from my boss and his boss. We knew going into this meeting that our numbers would probably shock the senior team, and we did it on purpose. As we explained to the group, when Kevin and I took over management of these teams we realized that the usual way of managing projects simply wouldn’t be effective given the pressure we were under to always meet quarterly build goals. Clearly a new way was called for and we were excited to meet the challenge.

So we decided on a different path – we made two key decisions concerning how we would manage our group going forward. First, and foremost, we concluded that every project would be managed with a high degree of sensitivity to risk. We directed our project managers to immediately tag each project with a yellow “at risk” status if there was even a chance that a critical issue might cause the project to slip by even one day. We also directed our project managers to tag any project with a one-day slip to the critical path as a “late” project. Our reasoning was straightforward. Because network build projects are highly interrelated, even the smallest project can derail a number of higher visibility projects. Given this fact, we realized that an early warning system was the best way to draw attention to “at risk” projects. In this way we were able to quickly triage our projects and bring to bear executive intervention quickly and appropriately.

The second key decision we made was to obsessively focus on shared values. As discussed in a prior EIR (EIR #3, “No Surprises…”), Kevin and I focused our energies on creating a culture of shared values that would guide our project managers as they made the numerous decisions each day that would result in either success or failure. We firmly believed that coupling these behaviors with the broad guidance to always raise early warnings would provide our teams with the latitude to creatively and successfully do their jobs. We felt that our track record up to this point of never missing a quarterly target was the best evidence that our methods were right, and we said so. In fact, we pointed out that we would be happy to “manage to the green” as we liked to refer to the other way of managing projects. We would stop raising early warnings and we would re-baseline all our projects with extra time built into each project and play it safe. We probably would miss a few quarterly dates, but things would look much better to the executive team as we moved along. Certainly these statements involved more than a little brinksmanship but we adamantly believed in our strategy and we wanted to get the executives’ attention. Well, we certainly did that.

The effect on the executive team was immediate and powerful. The COO immediately grasped the ramifications of our strategy. He informed us that he would like to see quarterly reviews of our projects. He also indicated that he would be utilizing our web-based project tool to check daily status of those projects he deemed either critical or at risk. Finally, he informed the rest of the management team that he would like to see the other groups manage their projects in the same way that our teams were being managed. While this clearly upset more than a few folks in the room, we didn’t care. We honestly believed that our methods went beyond normal politics, risk aversion, and the like. And our results spoke volumes. As mentioned in EIR #3, over 16 quarters we never missed a quarterly target.

So whether you are an executive with strategic oversight or a mid-level manager with tactical involvement in projects, the implications are the same. Focus on shared values and insist that your projects are managed with an obsessive emphasis on raising issues early. As Shakespeare said, “to thine own self be true…” And make sure the rest of your organization follows suit, you will be amazed at the results.

About the Author:

Jon Windley is a former co-founder/managing partner at NextWave Performance LLC.

© 2007 NextWave Performance LLC