It’s finally confirmed –
ANYONE CAN DELIVER A PROJECT OR BE A PROJECT MANAGER, EVEN IF THEY’VE NEVER DONE IT BEFORE!
It’s true! There are a (significant in my opinion) number of practicing ‘Project Managers’ in todays market, that when you break down the actual activities they perform on a daily and weekly basis, literally anyone who can use Excel and PowerPoint and can speak in a meeting without breaking down could deliver those exact same activities without having any previous experience, training or certification in Project Management.
I mean let’s be honest, all that Project Managers have to do is;
- ask people what they need to do to deliver something,
- ask how long it will take them,
- ask them what risks there are of not being able to do this
- ask them how they would mitigate that risk.
- Put this info into Microsoft Project, a RAID log in Excel and a status report in PowerPoint!
- Ask the same people the same question a week later i.e. repeat!!
I suspect (and hope) that there are at least some Project Managers reading this that are getting extremely angry with what I am saying. Having spent over twenty years working in the world of projects there is nothing that winds me up more than the true value of Project Management being diluted further and further because companies are allowing people to run their projects in the way I describe above without question – either because they have never worked with a truly professional and experienced Project Manager, or because they are not close enough to realise that they are actually getting zero value from them.
SO HOW DO YOU EVALUATE A GOOD PROJECT MANAGER?
In my opinion, a good Project Manager should be aiming to have zero issues arise in their projects (that could not have been foreseen) i.e. there will always be issues that occur that could not have been predicted and that are out of the projects control. However, if the PM has done the right level of deep and detailed risk and dependency analysis and management, then those risks should never escalate into an issue. What this means is that the PM’s main focus should be on looking at short, medium and long term risks and actually doing the detailed analysis needed to mitigate every one of these out.
This clearly sounds like a text book, almost utopian position, but (again in my opinion) all good PM’s should spend their entire day striving for this which would ultimately lead to the least amount of issues and blockers occurring on their projects therefore giving the project the best chance of delivering successfully. When you see this in action what you find is that the PM will be doing such things as;
- talking about changing direction to avoid technical debt or unnecessary cost.
- challenging ways of working (even if its halfway through a project) because there is a more efficient and cost effective way to deliver.
- shutting down conversations and activity that are just noise and don’t move the project forward.
- setting expectations with stakeholders about things that could happen in weeks or months if the project continues on the same trajectory.
- telling sponsors that the money will run out before the project has delivered the current scope – even if the project still has six months to go.
- asking for additional test resource in three months time because of the scale of development work completing around that time.
- asking to descope the work in order to deliver in time for a regulatory change coming into effect in four months time.
…I could go on an on!
Don’t be fooled into thinking that because you have a Project Manager that is always resolving issues, they are great at their job. The fact that there are constantly issues on their project gives you an immediate indication that they are not doing enough detailed forward thinking risk and dependency management (unless the issues they are constantly dealing with have been genuinely unpredictable) and they are not therefore bringing real value as a Project Manager – issue mitigation for a PM is a great and necessary skill but should only be a small percent of the overall value they bring.
Do you agree or do you think PM’s should be focused on other things?