People are projects. People, primarily those in the project team, deliver the project. The Project Manager steers them, but without the people the project does not reach it’s destination!

Project Managers lead, manage, direct, and protect the network of people tasked to deliver individual elements of the project.

Whatever the drivers for the project, it is through people that the project is delivered. Through relationships that Project Manager develops and ensuring that these are effectively managed. Deflecting interference, those external influences that may stop the individuals from delivering.

Project Managers coordinate and drive the individuals’ efforts and outputs. Get them working effectively, together. The primary role of the Project Manager is to manage the network of complex relationships among the stakeholder community, whether the core project team, the extended team or with external stakeholders.

How the Project Manager does this is key. It might be a simplistic perspective but “Projects are People”, without people a project is just something that exists on paper or in someone’s head.

The converse is also true, “People are Projects”. The Project Manager spends the majority of his/her project time focused on developing and managing relationships to ensure outcomes are achieved.

Some people become projects in their own right. I have had to deal with countless “difficult customers” who consume increasing amounts of my project time. Ignoring them would have been perilous, to say the least.

So you’ve been nominated as project manager to deliver this impossible project.

You need to consider your next move very carefully. Do you accept or not? Do you have any choice?

You know the situation, you’ve just heard your new boss inform you “I’m sorry, we just have to do it and you are the only PM available”, or “I know, it’s an aggressive deadline, but I’m sure you’ll find a way to deliver it on time”, or “Do I have to remind you that saying no is not an option” or maybe some other phrase with similar intention.

Alternatively, you might be excited by the thought of succeeding where others would fail. You may want to make your mark on the organisation, show everyone what you are made of, that you have what it takes succeeds.

Whether you embrace the situation or live with a probable disaster, you need to take charge.

Start working with the stakeholders, get to know them, their expectations, how they are going to interact with you, the team and each other. Get a feel for any flexibility they have, if you want a chance to deliver successfully you are going to need it.

Aim to discover what the project will deliver; when it must be delivered; what resources are available (staff, technology, budget, etc.). Don’t forget to factor in the quality and governance elements that have a bearing on the deliverables. Get a ballpark estimate for these four elements and start planning.

Look at what-if scenarios. Get creative, and think outside the box. Aim to come up with options that might be acceptable to your stakeholders.

Typically stakeholders want the project to be a success, to deliver what they need.

Forcing delivery of a project that’s expected to fail is not good business sense. Your stakeholders may well be persuaded to see the benefit of tweaking the elements of the project, shaping it into something that will realistically deliver. Negotiate compromises and agreement between your stakeholders and you’ll stand a good chance in delivering this project.

Good luck.

After all projects, in the classic definition, are new endeavours, they are not Business as Usual (BAU) activities, inherently the risks are greater with something that has not been done before. BAU have the capability of defining and refining repeatable processes, these techniques help keep risk low. Projects can exploit methods and processes too, but what are being delivered is new, untested outcomes with all the risk and opportunities associated.

Why on earth would a Project Manager take on such a burden, knowing that risk of failure was so high. Some Project Managers don’t realise this a at the outset, either through ignorance or disinformation. Others get told to “just do it” or face the consequences. Others are happy to embrace the unknown, deliver the undeliverable, hopefully gain some kudos in the process.

Project failure is a risk, it will never disappear when dealing with new endeavours. Success rates will increase as Project Managers and organisations learn to adapt and improve processes, but only to a limited extent.

Inherently projects are not BAU, they venture into and attempt to conquer new territory.

As explorers through ought history have experienced, for those few that succeed there are countless that don’t.

The Project Charter may authorise the project, enable a project manager to be assigned and is often recognised as the official kick-off of the project. But there is an essential step that must be performed before jumping in to deliver the newly authorised project. The project start-up meeting.

Irrespective of where your customer is based, whether in a nearby office or the other side of the world, every project based initiative needs a start-up meeting, often called a project kick-off, strategy session, planning session (every organisation has their own specific term for what is the same activity).

The impetus for this meeting is to ensure the project sets off “on the right foot”. With a well planned, effectively managed and productive session the customer and project manager can be reassured that the project is getting the best possible start.

The session is as much about understanding and setting expectations of all concerned with the project. Often these won’t be fully realised during the session, but these will highlight gaps and differences which have to be addressed during the early days of the project.

During the elaboration of the expectations there will be opportunities to clarify high level requirements, identify risks, spot interdependencies with other projects (especially when the project is part of a programme), etc.

The main goal of the session is to agree what needs to be done, by whom (project team and extended project team), when (timescales), what likely challenges will be faced, and taking all this into consideration a high level plan.

I’ve seen projects take as much as five business days to conduct these sessions. You can imagine how drained the participants were by the end!

I’ve worked for a few forward thinking organisations who have recognised the challenges that PM’s face in delivering an effective project kick-off and how beneficial it would be to speed up the process and expedite all these activities. Subsequently I have had to design, develop and facilitate project kick-start workshops.

These half to one day kick-start workshops have got ALL the participants in a room to run through a meticulously planned process, the output of which was initial documentation and high-level plan, agreed by customer, stakeholders and project team. Sufficient for the project team to work effectively straight from the kick-off.

In a soon to be published post, I will elaborate on what is needed to make the kick-start work and what must be undertaken in the days, weeks following kick-off of the project.

Unequivocally, compliance monitoring activities must be comprehensive, planned, adapted to changes in the internal and external environments as they arise. Activities must be based on realistic and documented assessments of the compliance risks faced by the organisation.

Sounds relatively simple. In reality, every organisation has different challenges they must overcome to enable compliance monitoring, especially if they intend to compare risks on a consistent basis and select the most effective way to mitigate them.

Often the biggest challenge organisations face is the availability of effective systems and qualified resources to achieve their risk reduction objectives. A constant problem for most organisations in a constantly volatile market.

More organisations will fail to identify and mitigate against such risks. Failings will be published across social media and news feeds globally. When this happens, there will be increased appetite to invest in resources. Personally, I can’t wait.

Current research has found that 70% of change initiatives, especially technology enabled projects, are deemed unsuccessful.

The primary reason for such disappointment is a failure to define success criteria at the start of projects. Without determining success criteria any future improvement from a change initiative is purely subjective and each stakeholder will have their own view of success.

Based on the same research only 30% of projects are deemed a success, of these, approximately half of the projects had the project objectives altered during the lifecycle of the project. Often this change is due to expectations, either perceived or actual, of the stakeholders changing during the lifecycle. An immense challenge if you are the programme manager and project manager.

I have found that a necessary practice to utilise is expectation management. By communicating effectively with key stakeholders at the outset of the project one can refine and establish their expectations.

Expectation management is a form of truthful disclosure, a method where all stakeholders get to define and understand realistic, and ideally specific, outcomes at the outset. Importantly these are documented and agreed by all.

By performing this, sometimes exhaustive, task the framework of expectations is established. Often what is captured is the psychological expectations of the stakeholders, these are the ones that often fail to be satisfied in those projects that were “deemed” a success.

Without managing their expectations the project will frequently underperform in the stakeholders perceptions, even with the same outcomes. Applying expectation management is a highly recommended technique, it can be very useful and provide benefits throughout the project lifecycle.

A useful technique I have employed in expectation management is establishing a Baseline Assessment. More on this later.

The same is true for delivering programmes and projects, teams composed of resources from disparate areas. These virtual teams have become a common solution.

In a few years, virtual teams have gone from being an uncommon option to team working, to being mandatory and necessary choice. The economic meltdowns of recent years has led to budget cuts, downsizing, etc. plus the profound improvements in technologies have driven the changes in ways teams work and where they are located.

Organisations can draw talent from different functions, organisations and locations. Aiming to optimise the specialisms required in the team to typically to achieve the most effective execution and delivery. Cost is also a driver in an organisations drive to disperse teams.

One common problem impacts many organisations. They don’t address the issue that virtual teams are unlike traditional teams.

The challenges of managing and leading teams are compounded with virtual team. The issues inherent in detached work settings, whether working from home or in offices in other geographies, there are typically issues of isolation, trust, human dynamics, performance, etc. Maybe issues of cultural differences for team members on other continents.

In order to effectively lead a virtual team it is imperative that the leader builds relationships with and across the team. This relies on effective communication and collaboration that goes beyond what is seen in a typical team. But without this virtual relationship the team is unlikely to succeed in its objectives.

One of the keys to succeeding in managing virtual teams is leveraging electronic collaboration and communication technologies. Often organisations have invested in technologies such as Microsoft’s SharePoint which enables very effective team collaboration along with real time online communication. Even today’s social networking tools can play a crucial part, making it easy for virtual teams to collaborate.

The trick is to leverage electronic collaboration and communication tools that brings team members together in ways that forge meaningful connections. It is these connections that make the virtual team gel and enable the team to deliver successfully.

A project management credential demonstrates a willingness to align your project management skills towards proven and established standards. These days with the problematic economy and lack of employment opportunities, it has become more typical to have at least one project management credential under your belt.

I have attained four professional qualifications and have become a PRINCE2 Practitioner and a Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) Practitioner.

PRINCE2 has become the de facto standard. Certainly in the UK. More apparent since 2008, when the job market for PMs become more difficult.

Prior to 2008, many experienced PMs saw little value in attaining these project management credentials. It was debateable whether they were worth your time and effort.

Today, project management credentials, especially PRINCE2 are a prerequisite, just check out the PM job specifications on any of the UK job boards.

But where is this heading?

Having project management credentials was once a differentiator. Not so today. So being certified in at least one credential becomes the norm. In order to differentiate you need another credential. And so on.

PRINCE2 Practitioner certification is even being pursued by non-PMs. I recently come across sales representatives and event organisers, who work in non-PM roles, that are studying for or have attained the certification.

Are experienced PMs expected to do more? A few years ago I opted to invest time, effort and monies in attaining a second credential, the Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) qualifications. I achieved the MSP Practitioner credential in 2009. Since then I have noticed more people becoming MSP Practitioners. But the credential does not occur very frequently, certainly not as a mandatory requirement by employers.  Maybe my efforts would have been better spent on another credential.

So if you’ve already have achieved the PRINCE2 Practitioner and Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) Practitioner credentials, what other credentials are worth the investment of time, effort and money in order to differentiate yourself in todays competitive market?

What is the next credential that employers expect their experienced PMs to possess? I expect many PMs would love to know the answer.

More and more organisations are realising this and are aiming to achieve project management excellence. Project Management is a strategic success factor for these organisations. They see value in delivering structured projects that enables opportunities to be delivered on time, to budget and to quality expectations. Unlikely to happen without project management.

Achieving project management excellence! For many organisations this is a major challenge. But it is time to start evolving the domain of project management across the organisation.

Previously, I have worked with numerous organisations at various stages of their initiatives to develop project management excellence. I have expedited the launch of such endeavours. Performed assessments on the viability and success of other initiatives. Implemented PPM and EPM solutions to facilitate initiatives. So have more than a few insights into this area.

Where do organisations begin?

At a minimum, you need to address three areas. 1) Evolve your organisation towards a project management culture. 2) Develop project management knowledge and best practice across your project leaders and project teams. 3) Implement proven and established standards and tools suitable for your organisation to further support your project management processes.

Project management credentials are a great way to standardise the necessary skills and knowledge across the project teams. More on this in a subsequent post.

As project management gains more and more importance, you must start evolving in this domain towards project management excellence. Initiate a programme that drives excellence, change the existing cultural to ensure project management delivers the value the business demands.

Microsoft have announced that they will be running a Project conference in 2012. The Microsoft Project Conference 2012 will be held on March 19 – 22, 2012, for more information check out the Conference website at http://www.msprojectconference.com/Pages/default.aspx. From May 2011 the site will be accepting registrations.

Having attended these excellent Microsoft events previously I can recommend the fantastic opportunities for delving deeper into the solutions, sharing best practices and connecting with peers, industry-leading experts and the team from Microsoft.

The downside for the global audience is that it being held in the USA, in Phoenix, Arizona.

IMHO I think it would be beneficial, for delegates and the environment, if Microsoft ran another Project conference closer to home. They did this at the end of 2007, running the Microsoft Project Conference 2007 EMEA in Madrid, Spain. If you are of the same opinion then please drop Microsoft an email at “projconf @ microsoft.com”.