quantmleap

I’ve recently come across an interesting discussion in HarvardBusiness.org titled “For Startups, How Much Process Is Too Much?“. The author of the article, Eric Ries, discusses the three “Build”, “Measure” and “Learn” stages applicable to start-up businesses. From my perspective, these three stages are very relevant to any new set of processes, irrespective if the business is well established or not. In the context of project management, establishing, or enforcing a set of management and control processes would need to be monitored along these three stages, at least in the early days of process adoption and, most likely, throughout their life-cycle when they get modified and monitored.

Over the years I’ve been involved in a number of governance discussions associated with the integration of a Project Management System (PMS) with a Software Development Life-cycle (SDLC) methodology, resulting in an all-arching Project Management Delivery Framework (PMDF). It never ceased to amaze me how ‘process rich’ (which in this context should be taken as a euphemism for ‘complex’) these frameworks tended to be.

PMP certified project managers who are familiar with the 9 knowledge areas and 5 process groups will be aware of the number of artefacts required to have all the underlying processes managed from a Project Management perspective.

When superimposing the artefacts mandated by the software development methodology (irrespective which one it is) we end up talking about a major overhead imposed on the project, an overhead whose material impact is cost and time for a fixed level of scope.

just to illustrate (very simplistically) the complexity associated with a standard software development project we need to remember that when talking about the PMBOK Execution Process Group, then within the context of a software development project, that will include a number of phases, including Planning, Analysis, Design, Construction, Testing, etc.

Considering the fact that each of these phases can affect or be affected by a large number of factors, including servers, networks, operating systems, security considerations, business areas, software packages, technology limitations, geographical locations etc. it is easy to see why the number of project deliverables (as opposed to product deliverables) could end up being humongous.

The inherent problem with the way most traditional projects are run is that some processes are enforced because they are seen as the only valid way to manage the built-in uncertainty that exists with any endeavour. So rather then following a process because it is ‘the right thing to do’, some (if not many) are followed while the only purpose they serve is providing a control and validation mechanism.

While I don’t have a simple solution to this predicament it is clear to me that in many cases projects are unnecessarily complex and carry a high degree of fat that with some effort could be disposed of. Let’s be honest about it, in many cases, we are so process-holic because we are concerned about the consequences (to us personally) should something go wrong at a later stage and the wolves will be out to look for the scapegoats. We would then need to explain how come we failed to obtain a 3rd revision sign-off to a scope/requirements/design/etc. document from the 9th reviewer/authorizer who happened to be overseas for an extended period of time and neglected to empower another business/technical/customer/etc. person to review and sign-off on his/her behalf.

Changing this situation requires a fundamental cultural change where it becomes ok to make mistakes. I’m not talking about allowing series offenders to rein free in failed projects, but I am suggesting that once we deploy the appropriate professionals into their respective roles we let them collaborate and make ad-hoc decisions to make sure that things are progressing in the most efficient way without being bogged down by prohibitive processes. Let’s empower our teams to agree what is required and what is not required on the way to achieving the project’s objectives. Let’s bring common sense and allow our team members to think about what really needs to be done and not about how to cover themselves should anything go wrong.

Let’s THINK.

In part 1 of this article I raised a number of risk related observations, particularly around the validity of Murphy’s Law as well as the reality behind the Law of Averages.

Another series of Scientific American articles (sorry but I’m a real Scientific American fan), titled “Why Our Brains Do Not Intuitively Grasp Probabilities” and “How Randomness Rules Our World and Why We Cannot See It“ describes the concept of “Folk Numeracy” which is “our natural tendency to misperceive and miscalculate probabilities, to think anecdotally, instead of statistically, and to focus on and remember short-term trends and small-number runs”. In a nutshell, we are evolutionarily evolved to clearly notice short term trends but are predisposed to forget or ignore long term trends. The author of these articles goes on to suggest that our intuition has evolved in a manner which enables us to utilize this capability in the context of social interactions and social relationships (which means that our intuition does play an important role in our ability to form alliances and identify social path that could be of some usefulness to us)  we are nevertheless ill equipped to use this capability when it comes to probabilistic problems.

In “Knowing Your Chances” (Scientific American Mind – April/May 2009), the authors make a reference to an early book published in 1938 by the English writer H. G. Wells, who predicted in his “World Brain” that statistical thinking would become an indispensable trait, similar to reading and writing. This prediction, however, has not materialized and the authors of the article make the observation that “At the beginning of the 21st century, nearly everyone living in an industrial society has been taught reading and writing but not statistical thinking – how to understand information about risks and uncertainties in our technological world.  That lack of understanding is shared by many physicians, journalists and politicians…and as a result, spread misconceptions to the public.”

So what does it all mean?

We are all naturally pre-disposed to a certain level of Risk Attitude. Risk Attitude (as defined by David Hillson & Ruth Murray-Webster) is a “chosen state of mind with regard to those uncertainties that could have a positive or negative effect on objectives, or more simply a chosen response to perception of  significant uncertainty”.

Josh Nankivel, based on a podcast by Cornelius Fichtner (which I thoroughly enjoyed while preparing for my PMP) gives a good summary of the commonly referenced Risk Attitudes (a complete copy of which is given below):

1. Risk Seeker – enjoys and seeks uncertainty in search of greater opportunities, can be overly optimistic and not take possible negative consequences seriously.
2. Risk Averse – uncomfortable with uncertainty, doesn’t like risk
3. Risk Tolerant – reasonably comfortable with uncertainty, but usually sticks head in the sand and ignores them
4. Risk Neutral – analyzes risks and weighs negative/positive possible outcomes and probabilities objectively.

Josh makes the observation, which I tend to agree with, that most project managers will tend to be Risk Tolerant. They will conduct basic Risk Identification process early in the piece but then rely on their gut-feel and ‘lets hope for the best’ approach when faced with reality. Josh goes on to suggest that the Risk Neutral is the goal and he is probably (excuse the pan) correct. The problem, as indicated above, is that for most of us this will require conscious effort and elaborate attention to details we are not naturally inclined to adopt.

Formal adherence to Risk Management processes can cut through the complexity and the PMBOK is certainly a good place to start as it refers to the basic tools and techniques required to ensure you manage your risks adequately.

I’ve had some interesting professional challenges lately, all of which can be traced back to issues associated with risk management. This is not surprising. In my view, the biggest challenge in any project is properly managing risks. It’s not that all other areas of project management are a walk in the park. It’s more around the fact that when it comes to identifying and managing risks some tend to be swayed by subjective arguments, wishful thinking and gut feel.

Most people subscribe to the reality of Murphy’s Law, namely that “if something can go wrong, it will”. Despite the common wisdom hidden in this simple, yet powerful, statement, some people tend to dismiss it on the grounds that statistically speaking our chances of hitting a bad run are equal to our chances of hitting a good run. So no reason for overwhelming concern as the Law of Averages will sort things out.

This notion is not quite correct, as demonstrated in an article published in the April 1997 edition of Scientific American under the heading of “The Science of Murphy’s Law”. The article’s conclusion is that “life’s little annoyances are not as random as they seem; the awful truth is that the universe is against you‘. So in that respect, when we say that “if something can go wrong, it will”, we actually mean it. Not that things will go wrong 100% of the time, but there are good chances that they will go wrong over 50% of the time.

Which, puts in question the Law of Averages. Well, things are not quite straightforward there either. Another Scientific American article (this time from April 1988, titled: “Repealing the Law of Averages”) tackles the common wisdom, according to which, when tossing a fair coin and maintaining a running count of how many times each side turns up, then after a large number of tossing in the air, we will get a relatively even number of heads and tails. This assertion is mathematically correct but only in VERY large numbers (can you count to infinite?). In real life situations, where the sample group is limited, the Law of Averages cannot be invoked, at least not as a serious planning tool.

To be continued…

Imagine you were prepared to take the PMP certification examination and realised, at the very last minute, that you’ve been reading the wrong guide. You based your studies on PMBOK3 while the current version is PMBOK4.

How would you feel?

Check out the video below:

I’m not going to muck around with this one so I’ll say it up-front. My view (and I feel rather strongly about it) is that Social Networking is not positively contributing to proper Project communication. My conviction that this strong belief of mine is shared by most, if not all, fellow professionals has eroded somewhat in recent months after I’ve read a number of blog articles, each of which promoting some aspects of social media and social networking.

The straw that broke the camel’s back (metaphorically speaking) was a recent post by Derek Huether (from The Critical Path) where he elaborated on the following concept:

From our PMP Exam we know that the number of communication paths in a project is [N(N-1)]/2. Now, we all agree that communication is an important (if not crucial) aspect of project management. We also agree that knowledge accumulation is conducive to increased innovation and is paramount for correct decision making process. We can therefore conclude that by initiating and conducting large amounts of communication, provided that this is attentive communication (i.e. we actually listen and absorb the content of that communication) must result in positive results.

Right?

Wrong!!!

There is already a growing body of knowledge, supported by recent research papers, that not only ’social networking attitude’ is on the rise but its true impact is yet to be realized.

• A December 2009 study by Helen Hodgetts of the University of Cardiff in the UK warns that “Email notifications and instant messages all cause a break in focus of the task in hand, even if they are attended to only very briefly”. “Hodgetts and co-author Dylan Jones found that even a five second interruption caused people to take longer than normal to complete the next step in a simple seven-step computer task.”

• A 2009 study released by the Kaiser Family Foundation, and which was set to explore the use of media by young people (age 8 to 18 – born between 1991 – 2001) has found out (amongst other things) that Young people were found to devote an average of seven hours and 38 minutes to daily media use (an increase of 20% from an earlier study conducted in 2004 – in which it was found that the time spent on media use was 6 hours and 21 minutes). The study further found that the level of multi-tasking (i.e. a combined use of varying modes of media simultaneously [for example, watching the TV, while at the same time browsing the net and sending a text message]) has increased from 26% in 2004 to 29% in 2009.
• A 2008 Accenture study made the observation that people who were born between 1977 and 1997 (corresponding roughly with Generation Y) expect their employers to respect their IT preferences, including their computers and applications and that employees in the above age group would show a preference to use instant messaging, text messaging, and RSS feeds to communicate with their clients and customers. The study further found that over a quarter of the employees surveyed use technology that is unsupported and unsanctioned by their employer. Amongst Gen Y employees, almost half reported that they use social networks, blogs, or Twitter without having their IT departments’ approval.

There are a number of basic and self explanatory risks associated with the growing proliferation of social media and social networking. These are:

• The development of bad time management attitudes, associated specifically with over reliance on multi-tasking.
• An apparent lack of adherence to corporate policies regarding the use of corporate mandated application and communication protocols.
• Inefficient use of management time on non-productive communication approach.

I’d like to finish off with explaining why I believe the approach outlined above, regarding the utilisation of a large number of communication path to increase effective project communication is flawed.

The reasoning is simple. If there are 200 people in your communication network this will equate, using the formula above, to 19,900 communication paths. So, using the Twitter example of having 200 contacts, if they each send one message to all other contacts, you will enjoy the wisdom spread over just under 20,000 messages.

Let’s think about this prospect for a minute. If reading each of these messages took you only one second, how much time will you need to invest in order to review all these messages?

19,900 messages / 60 seconds / 60 minutes = 5.5 hours!!!

Got that? With just one second per message, you will need to invest 5.5 hours to review all messages in your communication path. That’s not quite realistic though, is it? So let’s assume you spend, on an average 10 seconds per message. Got the point? With 200 contacts and 19,900 messages, with 10 seconds required to properly review, absorb and internalize each message, the amount of time required will be staggering 55 hours!!!

Tom Davenport of the Harvard Business Review has a wonderful post about the suggestion (inferred from a couple of recent studies)  that the content of social media is trivial at best. In another excellent post he speculates about the contribution (or in fact, the lack) of  Social Media to the decline of our civilization. The reality is, and arguing against it based on solid facts would be difficult to do, that it is hard (if not plain impossible) to gain much from the clutter of information (and mis-information) stored in the millions of Twitter messages floating in cyberspace. Anyone trying to convince you otherwise ought to provide hard, objective and measurable evidence to substantiate their claims.

Did I mention already that as far as I’m concerned Social Networking is not positively contributing to proper Project communication?

Have a great week.

Just when you thought it is safe to go back to work, a 2009 study released by the Kaiser Family Foundation, and which was set to explore the use of media by young people (age 8 to 18 – born between 1991 – 2001) has found out (amongst other things) that:

1. Young people were found to devote an average of seven hours and 38 minutes to daily media use (an increase of 20% from an earlier study conducted in 2004 – in which it was found that the time spent on media use was 6 hours and 21 minutes).
2. The level of multi-tasking (i.e a combined use of varying modes of media simultaneously [for example, watching the TV, while at the same time browsing the net and sending a text message]) has increased from 26% in 2004 to 29% in 2009.

I’ve mentioned in an earlier post a 2008 study by Accenture that made the observation that people who were born between 1977 and 1997 (i.e. people who would be today at the age of 13 to 23 – corresponding roughly with Generation Y) expect their schools and employers to respect their IT preferences, including their computers and applications and that students and employees in the above age group would show a preference to use instant messaging, text messaging, and RSS feeds to communicate with their peers, clients and customers. The study further found that over a quarter of the employees surveyed use technology that is unsupported and unsanctioned by their employer. Amongst Gen Y employees, almost half reported that they use social networks, blogs, vlogs, or Twitter without having their IT departments’ approval.

The Kaiser Family Foundation’s study provide further reasons for concerns in Corporate HR and recruitment departments. The trend reported on in the Accenture report seems to be intensified with a generation, that is yet to enter the workforce, who’s time management attitude are or particular concern.

On one hand there will be the issue of over dependency on media, including the constant need to use social media tools in order to keep in touch with and keep track of family and friends. There is also an increased probability that there will be an increase in the unauthorized use of social media.

On the other hand, the over reliance on multi-tasking, the productivity impact of which has now been well and truly understood as having negative influence on corporate and project performances.

The trends shown in recent studies are not a real concern and should not be used as reasons to be alarmed. What they do however, is raise the awareness that the appropriate training and policies will need to be put in place in order to ensure that once this generation joins the workplace, they are able to be integrated in the smoothest and painless way possible. Project Managers who are on the recruitment path will need to be aware of the generational attitudes of this generation (fondly called Generation M² – as in ‘Multi-Media) while they make their HR decisions.

On a lighter note, this is what Mike Melanson from ReadWriteWeb.com had to say about this issue:

“With teens spending more time with media in a week than the average person does at a full-time day job, we can only wonder what this next generation will look like as they enter the work force.

Oh wait, are they called “bloggers”?

Have a great week.

Demian Entrekin has posted an article titled “What is the IQ of your Project Team” where he proposes a set of variables that could be used to measure the team’s performance over time. The variables he suggests used are Skills, Ability to Learn, Experience, Speed, Communication, Unity, Curiosity and Openess.

Whereas I like his idea I would like to suggest we expand this concept and device the appropriate means to identify and manage the Project Team’s Emotional Intelligence (also referred to as ‘EQ’). In a nutshell, EQ refers to the capacity of individuals and teams to assess and then manage their emotions. In the context of a project team, the application of EQ will relate to the ability of the project team to identify, assess and then manage its interpersonal interactions. While there is no single definition for EQ, it is commonly accepted that it will include variables like Self Awareness, Social Awareness, Emotional Management, Change Management, and Self Motivation.

The rational behind the proposal to monitor a team’s EQ is based on the documented observation that teams with a higher EQ operate better than teams with an observed lower EQ. A research conducted by Australian researchers concluded that increase in the level of tested EQ resulted in improved decision making capabilities and ultimately an improved team effectiveness.

So, how would you increase your team’s EQ?

There are numerous techniques for improving team’s EQ and they include activities aimed at increasing Trust, Problem Solving, Listening, Appreciation, Solution Focused and others. See, for example, here and here. What ever method you choose to use don’t forget that the future of your project is largely in the hands of your team and as you fulfil your professional obligation to develop your team you really help them help you meet your project objectives.

I call this a win-win solution. Don’t you?

One of my biggest issues with the ‘Project Management 2.0′ concept is that it is conceptualized around other ‘2.0′ concepts like ‘Web 2.0′ and ‘Enterprise 2.0′; both of which are terms that emphasis and denote a technological dimension relating to human interactions. In that context, and following the same logic, PM 2.0 is meant to be denote the application of ‘2.0′ technologies to enhance project management capabilities.

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review analyzed the reasons behind the failure of western Intelligence Services to prevent the recent terror attack on an American Airline. The article states that the whole episode represents a “massive failure of collaboration among intelligence and governmental officials”. The facts known about this terror attack are sufficient to conclude that although there was sufficient information to enable an effective prevention of this incident, it lacked nevertheless the final  touch of connecting all the dots and consolidating the known data into effective management information.

The author of the HBR article concludes that despite the US (and other countries) investing in IT systems aimed at supporting the above detection and alert systems, it lacked nevertheless the investment in cultural change necessary to ensure that information is not only collected but is also shared. This, the author says, is a matter of cultural change, one that will encourage and foster not just collaboration but effective collaboration.

An interesting case study is cited by Professor Morten Hansen from the INSEAD institute, where SONY failed to launch an effective competition against the Apple iPod and, despite having a collective know-how and expertise in all aspects of designing and manufacturing an iTunes-iPod hybrid, “it turned out to be a failure because the individual departments did not work in unison”.

In an earlier post I have stated that ‘a fool with a tool is still a tool‘. The premise of that post was that a tool in the hands of an inexperienced user, will not generate the desired results. The observations cited above add another dimension to this claim. they highlight the point that even when used by experienced users, desired results are still dependent on other organizational factors, primarily based around cultural adaptation.

These are the posts (in no particular order) I found to be most intereting this week:

1. 9 Things we learned about us in 2009 - LiveScience.Com has published a list of 9 scientific discoveries made during 2009. One of the discoveries mentioned in the article is (surprise, surprise) the realization that multitasking, when executed by less disciplined individuals, can cause an extrapolated loss of time due to focus on irrelevant and unproductive information. Those who are mildly familiar with the Theory Of Constraints and the rationale behind this theory wouldn’t need this scientific evidence to substantiate their understanding, but it is, nevertheless, nice to see that science is finally catching up!
2. Dilbert strip – re. Action Points – just in case you haven’t caught up yet on the importance of documenting and following up on decisions made during your meetings, this Dilbert Comic Strip will help you look at this issue from the right perspective.
3. Deconstructing the PM 2.0 Description – Glen Alleman is relentless in his efforts to demystify, or more correctly clarify, myth from reality regarding on-going PM 2.0 claims. This article is a must for anyone wondering what the fass is all about. Glen’s bottom line is that if you are a seasoned PM who’s been doing things right, then there is nothing new for you in the PM 2.0 band wagon. And if you’re not doing it right now, PM 2.0 will not save you either.
4. Not sure how to title this one – but it’s a sharp Papercut, do I need to say any more?
5. Project Management Certifications Compared- A Preliminary Comparison – a beautifully researched article reviewing the various program/project management certifications and providing, for the first time as much as I can ascertain, a method for comparing them with each other.
6. The Decade in Management Ideas – A few HBR editors have elected in this post their most influential management ideas of the millennium (so far).  My pick off their list would be the proliferation of Open Source.

I’ve read many other good posts but these ones, I believe, worth mentioning specifically.

If we were not convinced already, a study conducted by researchers from the Stanford University (see here) concluded that people who engage in a number of simultaneous activities are not able to achieve the same level of effective attention or control as the ones who complete their tasks, one task at a time. The research showed that one of the reasons multitaskers achieve lower productivity is because they tend to waste productive energy on unproductive, unimportant or irrelevant information.

The Theory Of Constraints has long argued that multitasking leads to not only inefficient use of project resources, but also ends up in longer delivery times due to the overheads associated with dropping off and subsequently picking up project tasks. The Stanford research adds another dimension to this point, as it highlights the fact that people who are naturally inclined to multitask would also have a tendency to focus their attention of the less than important things thus further exacerbating the multitasking affect.

Although I fully agree with the consequences of the multitasking syndrome I can’t see how it would be possible to completely avoid multitasking in projects. Quite often, during project life, I need to call on the help of shared IT resources, like Database Administrators and others, to assist in various infrastructure activities. These resources, coming from a shared resources pool, are quite often required to support a number of projects at any one time, and as such are being asked to look after the urgent needs of multiple projects.

The bottom line is that, as much as possible, multitasking needs to be minimized as it’s negative impacts are proven beyond doubt. This also means (just in case you’re not sure) that time wasting activities, including social networking, constant e-mail checking and all other facebook twitting endevours are to be avoided as  they will surely impact your team’s performance.