What should we research?

What should we research?

 I asked a question at the latest PMI Research conference. “What would you consider the research that has had the greatest impact on project management performance in the past 10 years?”

The response from one of the Project Management Giants (the session was called standing on the shoulders of giants). “I pass on that question.” After a short discussion and from my table’s discussion, it was concluded that there has not been any meaningful research that improved our understand or our ability to manage projects in the past ten years.

Let’s explore project management research from a model that looks at the knowledge needed to effectively management a project. This model (the Darnall the Dimensions of Project Management) divides project knowledge into three categories (what a surprise). First is the basic or traditional project management areas of knowledge represented in the PMBOK (5 Process Groups and 13 Knowledge Areas).   

The second area of knowledge (skills and processes) needed to effectively manage a project focuses on the industry in which the project executed. The knowledge needed to execute a project in the construction industry (beyond the traditional PM) varies from the knowledge needed to manage an IT Project or even a movie production project (see my last blog).

The third area of knowledge focuses on the specific project. Most projects fall within a comfort range for most industries or organizations. The construction company that builds houses typically has good processes for managing the construction of houses but when the house falls outside the normal range, the project complexity increase and the normal processes may not be as effective. Understanding when the project falls outside the range and what new or additional processes are needed is important for project success.

As I review the current literature on project management, most of the research appears to be focused on the Industry Specific area. It is also within the range that most of the projects are managed. Most organizations have processes for managing projects within the organization and research and new processes seem to focus on improving the means and methods of understanding and managing these project. The literature on PMOs and project complexity appear to focus on this area.

Project management research dealing with project specific knowledge appears to focus on the large and complex projects. There appears to be an impression that many of these projects are not successful and this research and writing in this area suggest ways to better manage these projects.

Currently, I believe the project management research is to diffuse to address my opening question, “What would you consider the research that has had the greatest impact on project management performance in the past 10 years?” If we want to answer that questions differently in the  next ten years we need to develop new models for understand the project environment and focusing our research.

 

2014 PMI Research Conference

PMI 2014 Research and Education Conference; 27 – 29 July 2014, Portland, OR, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

I was able to attend the 2014 PMI Research and Education Conference this year. This is a much better conference when compared to the Global Conference. The research conference keynote speakers are project management professions with interesting, project oriented presentations and instead the management gurus of the speaking circuit at the typical Global Conference. The presentations do not have the glitz that can compare with the consultants of the Global conference but the presentations typically have more project management substance.

The GAC (PMI College Accreditation) invited Universities with Project Management degrees to discuss issues related to accreditation. The new PMI Vice President for Education and Research kicked of the meeting. As a new hire, he said he had no expertise in project management and then gave a speech proving him his point. Overall, a good session.  

There were a couple of things that struck me at the conference. I listened to several conversations on the need for a theory of project management. Interesting discussion but it did not resonant to me as a need for our profession. I asks at a panel discussion on something else “do we ned a theory of project management” and the consensus of this panel was no. I will be interested to see if this discussion develops traction.

Jack Meredith, author of lots of project management books, was the headliner on an unusual session Standing on the Shoulders of Giant”. Jack deserves recognition for his contribution and Erik Larson, another prolific author, interviewed Jack in a setting that gave the impression of a discussion in your living room. Jack met expectations. He reminded me of my grandfather, he had no political agenda and just said what he thought, so of it very interesting. If you can find a transcript, it would be worth listening to.

During the session I asked; “what were the two or three research finding of the past 20 years (this was a research conference) that would impact project management”? Jack thought a minute and then said; “I will pass on that question.” I wonder if he was avoiding the question because he didn’t want to hurt anyone feelings. That had not been the case so far. A small group discussion at our table concluded that Dr. Meredith did not believe that there was any significant research finding in the past 20 years that significantly impacted the management of projects. Think about the implications of that thought.

Here is a list of research projects recently funded by PMI:

• Establishing a Theoretically Sound Baseline for Expert Judgment in Project Management
  Paul Szwed
• Translational Science and Its Effects on Organizational Structure and Program Management
  Dorothy Kirkman, Kevin Wooten, Alix Valenti
• High-performance capital project front-end: a design commons approach
  Nuno Gil, Rehema Msulwa
• Scaling Agility: Adapting Agile Principles to Large Projects in Large Organizations
  Yvan Petit, Brian Hobbs
• Project Management as a Dynamic Collaborative Social Practice: Collaborative Innovation Revisited
  Roula Michaelides, Jeanne Dorle, Elena Antonacopoulou
• Community engagement strategies during the construction phase of controversial projects
  Melissa Teo

I also had a hallway discuss with Hans Georg Gemunden, editor of the Project Management Journal. PMI has struggled to increase the quality of the Project Management Journal. I mentioned that I often blogged a translation of articles from the PMJ for the typical project manager. (most articles are unreadable and only a few are worth going through the pain)

I was surprised to find that they understood the quality of articles did not meet their own standards. They were working hard to increase the quality. I look forward to seeing their new approach.

All in all, it was a good conference.

Next blog: I will presenting at the PMI Chapter in Charlotte in January and will provide a summary here.

Russ

Project Management Research Journal Article on Project Sponsors

Project Management Journal/ Research Articles:

When the research journals from Project Management Institute comes in I tried to explore the different research articles and see if I can pull out some nuggets for use of project managers.

I’ve been reading the February/March edition of the Project Management Journal. The first article discussed executive sponsor behaviors, Project Success and Executive Sponsor Behaviors: Empirical Life Cycle Stage Investigations by Kleppenborg, T., Tesch, D. & Manolis, C.

Essentially, the research involved re-looking at data from four previous studies them but one of the authors to discover the answer to what was labeled as two important questions. Over the duration of a project, does relative importance of compulsory executive behavior vary significantly at stages of completion? If you’re wondering what this means you’re in good company. After reading the entire article, I believe the authors want to know if and executive sponsor makes a contribution by doing something at various stages of the project. Second question asks over the duration of the project, does relative importance of the project success done mentions very significantly within and across different stages of completion? The author spent quite a bit of time discussing project success dimensions. At one stage it seems that they are indicating that success of the project means meeting cost, schedule, quality, and customer satisfaction goals of the project. They labeled this success dimensions. Later in the article they used different terminology to discuss success to missions and labeled these; the firm’s future, meeting agreements, and customer success. My understanding is they took the normal nomenclature of cost, schedule, quality, and customer satisfaction and develop their own terminology. They never explained why.

They justified the research in one instance I discussing the Standish group research that I’ve discussed a number of times and pointed out some obvious flaws in this research. I think the reason researchers continue to use this research is because the Standish group concluded that most projects fail. This is a great beginning for any research paper but the research is so flawed I believe it detracts from any conclusions that the authors may develop.

The authors included charts and tables with lots of percentages and data but there’s no real discussion with the charger cables being. There was neither a conclusion section nor a summary of findings section. There was in one paragraph summary of research contributions. In one example of findings in this section was “finding suggest, for example, that during the executing stage, project sponsor should focus on ensuring communications as a top priority and that such a focus will in turn enhance the most important element of success during this particular phrase the project- the extent to which a customer satisfied with the project deliverables.” Understand this to me the project sponsor to communicate a lot during the execution phase of the project.

I often wonder what we would want researchers to focus on as project management professionals. Until we can answer that question, I suspect researchers will continue to be defined terms and write articles that will be read by only a few people will probably writing their own articles on executive sponsorship of projects.

Russ

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” Albert Einstein

 “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”

― Albert Einstein

Understanding a project is absolutely critical to developing and executing an appropriate project plan. Project Managers spend significant time in defining client’s expectations, defining deliverables for the project and developing the data that we need to be able to develop a project charter in a project scope. We have developed tools and processes for gathering this information in articulating the information in different documents that become the foundation for developing a project plan. From these tools we gather a great deal of knowledge.

Sometimes knowledge is not enough. Developing an understanding of our project requires more than just gathering the data and collating the data into meaningful documents. Understanding requires seeing the interplay between the different components of our project and developing an understanding of how these different aspects come together to form a picture of a project. To understand our projects we need to think about the about the interplay between the different parts of the project, to process our knowledge of the project and develop a holistic view of our project.

The more complex[1] our project, the more difficult the task of understanding and developing this larger or more holistic view. The more complex our project, the greater the difficulty in developing a good understanding of our project. PMI has recently developed a tool for better understand the complexity of our project. In March of this year, PMI published Navigating Complexity: A Practice Guide online, hard copy is now available. Worth taking a look at.

Russ

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[1]   Complexity can be understood as the number of parts and their degree of differentiation

                                                                Dan McShea,

                             Santa Fe Institute for the Study of Complexity

PMI Meeteing, Networking and Trust

PMI Meeting in Ashville

I attended the PMI chapter meeting in Asheville last night for a presentation by Teddy Burress. Teddy made a presentation on networking and focused on how to build a social network. The basic premise was networking was built on the foundation of relationships. Relationships begin with people you know and expand outward as the people you know help you find others with common interest and common concerns. The basis of this relationship focused on not how you can use the relationship to further your goals but how can use relationships to support people in achieving their goals. This foundational belief will lead to times when people see the opportunity to help you.

This presentation was not overtly related to project management but themes are consistent in building relationships with your clients, your team members and your project stakeholders. Relationships are also built on trust. Not in the sense of unconditional trust that you may share with people that you have a more intimate relationship but trust in the sense that you have shared goals and shared understanding and beliefs on how to achieve these goals.

Establishing trust with your client as well as your team and stakeholders is one of the critical skills they project manager. Without this trust communication suffers. Without this trust commitment to a common goal suffers. Without this trust is difficult to have fun on your project.

Trust comes from respect. It comes from shared values and it comes from a belief in a shared future. You developed this trust respecting your client, your team and your stakeholders. You developed this trust by sharing your values and living your values daily. And you develop a belief in a shared future through developing a common vision of success.

One of the critical aspects of the teambuilding meetings that occurred during project initiation is the development of trust. Depending on the project profile, the processes and the investment in developing this team will influence your ability as project manager to develop an appropriate project execution approach and address the various issues that arise during the life cycles of the project.

Russ