Proven Actions for Project Success
Rosemary Hossenlopp, founder of Project Management Perspectives is the facilitator of an audio series by key project management professionals on what Business Leaders must understand about accelerating execution of strategy through project work.
She interviews Michael O’Brochta, former senior project manager at the CIA, who has been writing and speaking worldwide about proven actions business leaders can take for project success.
The project management industry is facing challenges. One of them is showing that we actually deliver benefits to the business.
Click here to listen to the interview. Approx 10 minutes.
What’s the story behind the topic of Proven Business Leader Actions for Project Success
Michael explains that one of the reasons that this topic seems to get so much traction is the convergence of mutual interests between the business leaders who are working toward implementing their strategic vision and the extraordinary focus given by project managers toward delivering results. In a June 1999 Fortune Magazine article it was reported that the number one reason for business leader failure was “…bad execution. As simple as that: not getting things done, being indecisive, not delivering on commitments…” I believe that it those business leaders today who are working to avoid his type of failure who have recognized and embraced their dependency on project management.
What can leaders do to improve project execution?
Michael illustrates the situation with a short story. This story is about George. Now, George is a fictitious name of a project manager at the CIA where I worked; he is actually a composite of the thousands of project managers at the CIA that I encountered when I developed and ran the CIA program for training and certifying project managers. And, according to the research, there are huge numbers of “Georges” working in organizations worldwide.
George discovered a technique that would allow him to address a critical limitation he was encountering establishing the needed level of authority to run his project; the technique involved writing and getting signed approval for a project charter document.
George recognized that by using this best practice technique he would dramatically raise the odds of his project success. But, as enthused as George might have been to employ this technique, disappointment and perhaps even frustration soon emerged when he was told that “we don’t do charters” in the element of the organization where he worked.
- The point of this story is to illustrate but one of the actions a business leader could take to permit and perhaps even encourage the Georges to adopt best practice project techniques; in this case the action would be to establish the use of project charter documents.
- By taking this proven business leader action not only will the project be more likely to succeed, but the strategic vision of the business leader that the project is linked to will also be more likely to succeed.
Improve Communication between leadership and project teams
The good news regarding this story is that the business leader actions for project success are largely known and understood. Project management practitioners have been engaged for quite some time in identifying the actions that they would like their business leaders to take for project success.
- Lists of these business leader actions can readily be adapted to suit the specific organization and situation; and project managers are quite adept at supporting the business leader with this.
- It doesn’t take much more from the business leader than a simple request of the project manager to list the actions they would like the business leader to take for project success; and by extension, the actions that will result in the success of the business leader’s strategic vision. Thus avoiding the number one reason for business leader failure; bad execution, not delivering on commitments.
Project Communication Challenges
The challenge for the business leaders is to understand that some barriers exist to their taking actions for project success. These barriers, both perceived and real, can limit and sometimes derail even the most dedicated business leader.
Fortunately, the barriers are understood and better yet, approaches already familiar to the business leader can be used to overcome the barriers.
Barrier busters such as servant leadership and such as structured communications can be adopted and adapted by the business leader to fit the project context. In fact, one very powerful barrier buster is to get help directly from the project managers themselves; by forming a project management council to help implement the business leader actions for project success.
There is a critical dependency between business leader success and project success and we have heard the good news that the actions available to the business leader to raise the odds of project success are well understood. We have recognized that barriers exist for the business leader interested in taking these actions and we have recognized that approaches already familiar to the business leader can be employed to bust the barriers.
Additional information about this and related topics can be found on Michael O’Brochta’s website at www.zozerinc.com
Tags: Business Leader, Business Leaders, Cia Program, Commitments, Convergence, Facilitator, Fortune Magazine Article, Key Project, Leader Actions, Leader Failure, Management Perspectives, Mutual Interests, Project Execution, Project Management Industry, Project Management Professionals, Project Managers, Project Success, Rosemary, Short Story, Strategic Vision
