I was invited to participate in writing the 77 Sins of Project Management. I had fun looking over the juicy list of sins. It was hard but I choose Blaming, Rigidity and Satisficing. Why? I had some great project examples and suggestions for project improvement. My thoughts:

Blaming is an aggressive and often acrimonious assignment of blame for project failure.

During project execution blaming is a reflexive, speed of light response. It is part of our human nature. We are rational. We want answers. The sound byte nature of guilt assignment is beguiling. Quick and witty assessments resonate with us. The issue is decided; maybe only in our mind. So we blame, dump on others and move on to the other 50 action items that we need to accomplish . . . before noon. But is blame that simple. No.

Many of the 77 Sins of Project Management are organizational or cultural issues. This one is personal. The following solutions will improve project practices and so they look like they are fact based. Actually the solutions are about controlling your emotions. If you don’t control your emotions, when you feel under attack, you will attempt to blame back.

Basic marriage counseling principle is changing yourself before you request change from others. What does dysfunctional communication have to do with project management? Lots!

Dysfunction 1: Recognize when we blame. This doesn’t need to be a weekend offsite retreat event. It is a quick process of self-evaluation. Watch for when your emotions are engaged. There might be a bit of judgment, criticism. Stop and picture the situation from the others perspective or a longer time frame.

Dysfunction 2: Recognize when we are at fault. Great project managers are authentic and genuine. Have a sense of humor and humility if you have publicly expressed an erroneous or uninformed decision. Model humility and fess up to the thought process that got you here.

Dysfunction 3: Recognize a team opportunity for improvement. If you model open and honest communication, you can request that the team does the same. Paybacks in loyalty are immense.

Reprinted [adapted] with permission from The 77 Deadly Sins of Project Management, © 2009 by Management Concepts, Inc. All rights reserved. www.managementconcepts.com

How does a project portfolio office go about answering the question of what value does the portfolio provide the organization? There are bunches of obstacles to creating and maintaining a set of projects that can deliver the most benefits to the enterprise.

Project Management Portfolio Office Challenges:

- Chaos in the external environment

- Clashes in the executive suite

- Competency in the portfolio office

Portfolio offices are staffed by senior project management professionals assisting business leaders in steering the funding of the organization to respond to the chaos in the external environment, politics and personalities in the C-suite, and they may not be prepared to understand the details of the content of the projects or the mechanics of portfolio data analysis. Whew.

We can help by understanding business needs, ensuring those needs are included in the business case for portfolio selection, and creating forums for portfolio alignment. Yup – I’ve done these things.

But what is really the answer to surviving a job in a project management portfolio office? I believe that in large part it is a focus on outcome management. This is a phrase coined by my peer in the industry, Russ McDowell. We need to help an organization identify the key measurements that drive the health of the organization. Next, we identify how projects support improvement of those metrics.

What are the key outcomes your organization needs to manage? Vote Now! Enter your vote below:

Copyright 2009 PM Perspectives LLC Rosemary Hossenlopp PMP

Operations and project work is bridged by organizational project management (OPM). Projects better serve the organizations when there is a better fit between project work and the strategic plan. The organization benefits if high-value projects are executed well so the ongoing operations can use the project outcome.

How do project managers go about answering the question of what value does their project provide the organization? The answer to that question from a project manager is pretty tactical; just align the project to either the program goals, or the business case.

So what’s a pragmatic and practical approach to get this done? Use some standard tools available in our project management toolkit. They are:

Project Alignment Tools and Techniques

• Charter that states high-level business, mission and project requirements

• Scope alignment with business case intent and content

• Product/service requirements alignment with high-level requirements

In practice we have some challenges. Some BIG challenges. What are they?

Project Alignment obstacles

• Lack of business case

• Multiple stakeholders with conflicting needs

• Missing charter

• Adverse Internal Organizational Environmental Factors

• Challenges in Risk Analysis

o Missing, or

o Forced silence

• Organizational Change Management impact analysis isn’t included

Did I get this obstacles list correct? What is missing? I welcome your comments.

Copyright 2009 PM Perspectives LLC