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CLASS ROOM TRAINING & IMPROVED PROJECT PERFORMANCE: CLOSING THE GAPING GAP
-- XPM CSF 5: Agile Organization: Secrets to Success

My own experience and that of several esteemed colleagues who provide project management training services all conclude: There is little transference of skills from the workshop to the workplace no matter how interactive and lifelike the training. Although knowledge increases, behavior stays nearly constant. Why? ‘Knowing’ does not easily translate into ‘doing’ without a very compelling reason. E.g., Most people know how to loose weight. Few actually ever make a lasting change.

Insight: People adopt new behaviors as they experience tangible and immediate results in pursuit of something that is important to them. In other words: Getting results causes training to take place, whereas getting trained may not cause results. (My experience over the last 13 years tells me that training is more often an output than an input.)

Success Secret: Improve the payback rate and profitability of individual projects by applying Just-In-Time Project Management.

Just-In-Time Project Management:
How to get immediate and repeatable results from Project Management (and become trained in the process):

• Get the help of an experienced instructor and apply project management to a real-project in real-time with the real-project team and key stakeholders participating
• Then, coach the project manager and others on how to apply Just-In-Time Project Management to other real projects in real time

Red flag: If people can’t find the time to work as a team using Just-In-Time Project Management on their assigned project, it signals that they won’t find the time to succeed.

THE END OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT AS WE KNOW IT
-- Doug, When is your new book coming out?
Prompted by the monthly series about my book that has been appearing on www.ProjectConnections.com, many of you have been asking, “When will the full book be published?” Answer: June 2004. Title: The End of Project Management As We Know It … A Guide to eXtreme Project Management.

NEGOTIATE OR EVAPORATE: HERE’S THE SKINNY
-- XPM CSF 2: Leadership by Commitment

You can’t be a project manager, extreme or any other flavor, and not be a negotiator. It’s a critical skill. Yet, few are good at it.

If there is a bible for effective negotiation, it’s the book Getting to Yes by Fisher, Ury and Patton. The authors provide a practical method for negotiating anything. It’s called Principled Negotiation. Principled Negotiation changes the game from a me vs. you power struggle to one of problem solving.

Case in point:

You’re the extreme project manager for Project Headsmart, a new liquid formulation for curing head lice. You need Kathy who is a proven expert in stability testing for complex formulations. Her boss, Lorenzo is short staffed and short tempered. You’re still ticked off at Lorenzo from the last project when he sent you, Max who caused a costly problem with the Food and Drug Administration.

How to apply Principled Negotiation

• Separate the people from the problem
  Attack the problem, not the individual. How? First, acknowledge the emotional issues (including your own), otherwise they will contaminate the negotiation.

  For instance, you could acknowledge that you know Lorenzo is short on staff and that you want to work toward a satisfying solution. You can point out what’s at stake on your project and explain why someone more experienced than Max is required (and not condemn Lorenzo for sending you a “looser” the last time). That’s why you want Kathy this time.

• Focus on interests and not on positions
  Key point: Move the negotiation from a position to be won (a contest of power and wills) to a problem to be solved.

  Your position is you want Kathy. Let’s say Lorenzo’s position is, “No way she’s already committed.” If the negotiation were to revolve “I want her” vs. “You can’t have her,” you would find yourselves in a power struggle instead of Principled Negotiation. A more productive approach: Leave your position out of the picture and examine your interests. What you really want is not Kathy, but the experience and skills she represents: experience with complex formulations and in meeting FDA requirements, plus a track record for meeting tight deadlines. This allows you to reframe the game and provides more latitude for you and Lorenzo to get to a mutually satisfactory solution.

• Invent options for mutual gain
  Now that you’ve reframed the game to a problem to be solved, you and Lorenzo baby now have more options to work with:
  >>> Lorenzo might have other people with the qualifications you want
  >>> Bring in a free-lance expert. Lorenzo could screen the individual
  >>> Outsource stability testing to a qualified lab
• Insist on using objective criteria
  At this point you would want to define just what you mean by “experience” with complex formulations and in meeting FDA requirements: How many years? On what types of stability projects, under what time constraints? Granted, you may have to negotiate these with Lorenzo, but with an open mind, he may convince you that 2 years of successful experience and not 5, will fill the bill.

WHEN CHANGE IS RELENTLESS, YOU NEED …
-- XPM CSF 4: Real-Time Communication

Things happen fast on extreme projects. Change is a constant. A wide range of stakeholders - internal and external to the project including customers and suppliers - need to share, access and manage information and collaborate in a timely way. Quick access facilitates rapid-decision making enabling the extreme project to continually self-correct. Needed: Feature rich, easy to use, integrated, collaboration-based project management tools.

Check out Teamcenter Project by EDS at www.eds.com/products/plm/teamcenter/proj.shtml. This virtual workspace serves as a home base for your project. Functionality includes:

• Collaboration tools to capture and exchange info in real time, including threaded discussions, notebooks, collaborative scheduling, instant messaging, a place to store popular templates and techniques.
• Project Management including scheduling, timesheet and resource management; as well as management of multiple-project interdependencies
• Document Management: version control, checkin/out, discussion link features, links to other applications
• Customizable Reports across multiple projects, executive summaries, cross project rollup

HAVE A GRATEFUL ATTACK
-- XPM CSF 1: Self-Mastery (or Self-Misery. You decide)

Given the day in and day out hassles and stress that many extreme project managers face, it’s very easy to become jaded and loose sight of the good things. Tip: Radavie Riom, a friend of mine whose business card reads “Inner Peacemaker,” gives this advice. “Each night before going to sleep, think of three things that you are grateful for." Nothing, but nothing is too trivial to qualify. Yesterday I was grateful for the wind that blew the debris off my deck.

------ EXTREME RESOURCES -----

MORE ON PROJECTS THAT DO NOT CONFORM TO CONVENTIONAL STANDARDS...
Jim Lewis recently interviewed me on extreme project management. The file is a download in MP3 format‚ so you can listen to it with your MP3 player while you travel. Or hear in on your PC. It costs $10. To purchase‚ go to this link: www.lewisinstitute.com/catalog/_store/default.asp and then click on Multimedia Products on the left side of the page.

EXTREMELY GOOD BOOKS
Creating The Project Office … A Manager’s Guide To Leading Organizational Change, By Englund, Graham & Dinsmore. Written by three of the world’s experts, the authors take you through the process from creating the change to making it stick.

Practical Project Management Veteran Harvey Levine provides a wealth of experience in the form of tips, tactics and tools.

From Engineer to Manager Author Mike Aucoin has been there and done it. Loaded with wisdom for anyone making the transition from a technical position.

Project Leadership Jim Lewis boils down tons of leadership theory and personal experience into tools and practices with clear explanations and practical examples. Perfectly suited for the relationship management challenges faced by today’s eXtreme project managers.