This dissertation discusses the importance of strategic people project management in critical cultural change projects. Appropriate people management in projects is as important as the application of tools and techniques. People make things happen. Their input into the delivery of goals and objectives is essential. These can be achieved by sharing knowledge, good communications and working as one team. I argue that nobody is perfect but a team can be. People in projects really matter. Tools and techniques assist project managers to manage their projects better but they are not a panacea to successful project management. They are simply there to be used as means to assist the project manager to manage his projects better.
My approach to strategic people project management proved highly effective to bring together the people elements of this project. Project Managers should familiarise themselves with and adopt the learning outcomes of this dissertation and consider applying these in their projects in future.
Inhalt
1 Chapter 1:Project Context
1.1 Origins
1.2 Context
1.3 History
1.4 Project Aims and Objectives
1.5 My Role
1.6 My Responsibilities
1.7 Budget Responsibility and Outcomes
1.8 Project Date and Reporting Date
1.9 Final Observations
2 Chapter 2:Define Tasks
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Project Definition And Integration Workshops
2.3 Risk Management: Project and People
2.4 Building Schedule of Requirements (B.S.O.R.)
3 Chapter 3: Generate Ideas
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Creative Thinking
3.3 Consulting Others
3.4 Learning Outcomes
4 Chapter 4: Make and Justify Decisions
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Decision Making Analysis
4.3 Learning Outcomes
5 Chapter 5: Plan Activities
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Resource Planning
5.3 Project Budget
5.4 Project Handover
5.5 Learning Outcomes
6 Chapter 6: Monitor, Control and Review
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Progress Reviews
6.3 Project Manager’s Ticklist
6.4 Change Control
6.5 Post-Implementation Review (PIR)
6.6 Learning Outcomes
7 Chapter 7: Communicate Effectively
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Active Listening
7.3 Informal Communications
7.4 Conclusion
8 Chapter 8: Work Effectively With People
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Influencing People
8.3 Learning Outcomes
9 Chapter 9: Continued Self-Development (CPD)
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Lessons Learned
9.3 Integration Of Work Development And Personal
9.4 Develop And Promote Professional Project
9.5 Conclusion
10 Conclusion
11 Bibliography
List of Figures, Tables and Appendices
Fig.1 Kliem and Ludin Model of People In Projects
Fig.2 Senge’s Fifth Discipline Model At The Start Of The Project
Tab.1 High-Level Switching Centre Plan
Fig.3 Own Project Organisation
Tab.2 Risk Analysis Method Used In This Project
Tab.3 Alternative Risk Assessment Method
Fig.8 Decision Process (Rowe and Boulgarides,1992)
Fig. 5 Revised Outline Progress Report
Fig. 9 Change Control And Impact Analysis Process
Fig.4 Standard Learning Cycle
Tab.4 Personal 5-Year Development Plan
Fig.5 Actions To Learn Cycle
Fig.6 Fisher’s Sixth Discipline Model
Fig.7 Fisher’s Model of People In Projects
Appendix A - Cellnet Group Structure
Appendix B-Regional Accommodation Programme
Appendix C-Executive Board Case
Appendix D- Roles and Responsibilities Of Project Team
Appendix E-Scotland Project Gantt Chart
Appendix F-Project Manager’s Ticklist
Appendix G-Artist's Impression of Finished Site
Appendix H-Generic Programme/Project Organisation Breakdown Structure
Appendix I-User Acceptance Testing for Handover
Appendix J Impact Analysis
Appendix K-Statement of Requirements
1 Chapter 1:Project Context
1.1 Origins
Cellnet owned jointly by British Telecom (BT, 60 %) and Securicor (40%), is one of the leading mobile telephone network operators in the United Kingdom (Appendix A) shows the company structure at the time of this project). BT employees joined Cellnet at its inauguration in 1985, bringing with them and maintaining a hierarchical structure. This structure was in place at the start of this project. Some progress had been made towards becoming a matrix-type organisation. The company wanted to become a well managed and effective organisation that knew exactly where it was, where it wanted to be and how it was going to get there. The company was open to try something different to the initiatives of the 1980’s striving for excellence (Peters and Waterman, 1982) and total quality management (Deming, 1986).
The idea of the learning company (Pedler, Burgoyne and Pedell, 1991) appealed to Cellnet’s senior management. The other initiatives mentioned had been tried before with varying levels of success. They did not provide the desired outcomes. People had not been actively involved in the process. They did not understand the reasons why change was necessary. Benefits were not explained well enough for people to buy into the new concepts of working. As a result, the initiatives failed.
People involved in the programme tried a different approach. We applied some of
Senge’s (1993) five disciplines (Fig.2) such as building a shared vision and systems
thinking to achieve the desired outcomes: cross-functional operational groups to
review existing work processes and procedures and find new best practices to move Cellnet forward to become a truly learning company, ultimately using all of Senge’s five disciplines to master this objective. We managed the needs of various operational groups within the company under one programme: to deliver equipment space in various locations across the United Kingdom (Appendix B).
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
Fig.2 Senge’s Fifth Discipline Model At The Start Of The Project
A previous project - Cellnet’s new Headquarter building in Slough - introduced a totally open-plan accommodation concept. This provided the appropriate environment for open communications, cross-functional and matrix-management type working. The equipment space programme developed this work further. A series of projects brought together the Property, Network Management and Operational teams to work together as one team. Differences were set aside. A no blame culture developed. Everyone was of equal status. Team members respected each other without qualification.
The company’s customer base was approximately 2 million by 1996, still rising fast, with Marketing predicting a customer base of over 4 million by 1998. The existing network equipment could not support this growth. The rapid increase in the number of customers, who subscribed to the network, was rising faster than had been predicted. New services had been introduced that reduced the network capacity even further. There were no plans in place to manage the future equipment space requirements of the business. Appropriate business processes were not in place to follow agreed business strategies and make things happen.
This programme provided vital equipment space and delivered major business benefits by taking a giant leap forward in enabling major improvements in business continuity, service availability, operability and general business management. We applied the Pareto principle of 80/20(Pareto actually never quoted this figure himself; he discovered a constant relationship, a regular algorithmic pattern, that could be employed in any country and any time period). We concentrated our efforts to achieve the Top 5 of our objectives (20%). These made up 80% of the desired outcomes, in terms of processes and procedures that required re-engineering.
Koch (1997,1998,a, p.11) argues that ‘Understanding the 80/20 principle gives you great insight into what is really happening in the world around you’. If it is true that only 20% of employees are responsible for 80% of outcomes- and some investigations usually show that this is the case- the implications are that there is a great deal of waste. 80 % of employees are only contributing 20% towards getting the work done.
Two economists (Independent on Sunday, 1997) completed a study looking at the lifespans and revenues of 300 movies released over an 18 month period. They
established that 4 movies, a total of just 1.3 % of the sample, earned 80 % of the revenue. This means that the other 296 movies or 98.7% of the sample earned only 20% of the gross income (Koch, 1997,1998,b).
Existing processes and procedures fell into this category. Individual departments did not use resources optimally to do the right things with least effort. These efficiency issues had never been raised before. The company did not consider it necessary to raise these types of questions. Business was going well. Funds were available. So there was no need to stimulate changes. This programme changed these perceptions by employing radical action and matching appropriate resources with desired outcomes of effort to improve process efficiency.
At project level, the Scotland Switching Centre formed a generic design for all forthcoming Cellnet Switching Centres throughout the United Kingdom. These switching centres were single-storey industrial-type buildings, typically 25,000 sq ft in size, accommodated up to 30 people, with adequate space for network and peripheral equipment such as generators and uninterrupted power supply, plus delivery areas and car parking. The internal design included facilities for staff such as office accommodation, 2 meeting rooms, one smoking room and a large welfare area with cooking facilities.
We took a three pronged approach:
1. Deliver urgent network equipment sites-at strategic level
2. Carry out a detailed feasibility study to define the next phase of equipment sites
3. Implement the business processes that will ensure the future management of equipment space requirements
A first phase of programme of sites (Tab.1) needed urgent delivery to meet identified immediate business shortfalls in the short and medium-terms. These sites included the completion of the new Scotland Switching Centre together with a number of other sites in the North, the Midlands and London Area. These sites delivered a shortfall in network equipment space, enabling the rollout of a new planned network infrastructure.
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
Tab.1 High-Level Switching Centre Plan
1.2 Context
I have discussed, in brief detail, in the Introduction, the reasons for establishing Equipment Space Programme. It is more appropriate to move on to discuss the events of the project. Projects are managed at Programme level. This will not be discussed in detail in this dissertation.
At project level, one of the desired outcomes was a better and clearer understanding of the articulation of the emerging dynamics of the new organisation Cellnet wanted to be. We created a new approach to manage the acquisition and construction of new equipment space in Cellnet. This was a major achievement in project management with all the usual exercises of delivery on time (first building acquired and ready for service by May 1998 - see Appendix G for architect’s impression of building), within allocated budget and to specification.
Mixing a professional approach to managing projects with the need for organisational change in order to achieve the desired outcomes of the project, was a major challenge. It was an exciting opportunity to review the existing best practices to plan and manage the network capacity and equipment space within the company. This approach was devised to enable optimum delivery time-scales and cost together with minimised business risk. It ensured that what individual team members created in the overall process met the corporate aspirations.
This was easy in theory but often hard in practice. Each individual team member was a high -calibre expert in their own field such as Finance, Communications, Human Resources and Network Management. This element of project management or project direction was somewhat remote from Gantt charts and critical paths. These techniques were vital to the successful delivery of projects within the programme. The delivery of the strategic objectives, the facilitation of communication and organisational
behaviour were also key to success.
1.3 History
Prior to this, groups had worked in isolation. Each group looked after their own work areas but did but not always consider the work and requirements of other groups. People were not willing to co-operate, compromise and consolidate to introduce the necessary operational changes on a cross-functional basis to improve Cellnet's competitiveness. Existing ways of managing network capacity and encourage cross-functional planning and working together were challenged before. It failed. People were not ready to change. People were only beginning to accept the need to work together as one team. There was still a blame culture within the company. And the company was successful. Profits were increasing year on year. People did not see a need for change for financial reasons.
1.4 Project Aims and Objectives
Cellnet had a number of business requirements to either upgrade or extend its technology-based facilities. These requirements related to both operational and development facilities. The new sites needed to support immediate as well as new requirements. The sites needed to support future trends in Cellnet’s hardware over at least a 10 year span. These trends were:
- More computer platforms supporting revenue-generating value-added services
- More rapid time-to-market for Value Added platforms, with need for environment to suit the hardware, rather than hardware to suit environment
The objectives were linked into Cellnet’s corporate strategy in that they:
- Delivered key business needs such as enable install of additional network capacity
- Provided improved protection for critical revenue- generating activities
Scope
The programme covered all activities to deliver fully operational facilities. This included:
- Detailed design of property and technical infrastructure including shared facilities which support long-term ( 5-10 years) requirements
- Construction, fit-out and operational commissioning
- Development of operational procedures
- Hand-over of facilities to operational staff
Aims / Benefits
Aims
- To meet forecast demand for equipment space, over the short and medium-term at the new sites
- To support service restoration strategies
- To provide buildings that are flexible and adaptable for the future, dependent on business strategies
Benefits
- Building designed to ensure easy subsequent disposal
- Buildings fitted out to Cellnet’s accommodation/network equipment standards
- Capitalise on Cellnet’s experience with its existing buildings, and the generic design developed for the Scotland site, for construction and maintenance techniques to deliver cost-effective solutions
Opportunities
- To take advantage of the current property market place to develop a good value-for-money solution
- To reduce operating costs by consolidating a number of services into one space
- To reduce costs by utilising low maintenance, long life equipment
1.5 My Role
I was the Facilities Programme Manager (Appendix H and Fig.3), managing the facilities, people, technical and migration elements at project level. I orchestrated this diverse programme of projects within an overall strategic accommodation rollout programme. Scotland was the first generic project for others to follow. Each project was self-contained. Other projects had complex inter-relationships both within the overall programme and the rest of the company. I put in place a range of connective mechanisms and processes to hold all the elements together and to make it work. To become flexible and adaptive, we had to eliminate the physical, personal, hierarchical, functional, cultural, psychological and practical boundaries and barriers for it to work.
The project became instrumental in laying the foundations for the new way in which the management of equipment space requirements for Cellnet could be achieved and implemented.
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
Fig.3 Own Project Organisation
1.6 My Responsibilities
I applied professional project management tools and techniques such as Gantt charts
(Appendix G), risk management and project life cycles as the appropriate means of achieving these targets.
I prepared a roles and responsibilities document (Appendix D) for all my project team members (Fig.3) after the Project Definition Workshop (PDW) I held in April 1997. Team members signed off this document thus agreeing to deliver their inputs into this project within the constraints of time, cost and specification.
I assisted the Programme Manager to carry out business analyses leading to the formulation, development and agreement of comprehensive accommodation strategies. I carried out this work in close partnership with appropriate groups within the business.
I carried out feasibility studies leading to the formulation, development and agreement of Concept Proposals and Business Cases for the Scotland and other new switching centres within the scope of the programme. Cross-functional working with operational groups within Cellnet was essential to realise the objectives. I managed the current reality and established how the project team were going to get to tomorrow’s vision: by creating the necessary changes with people from these groups. Smith (1997,a) argues that ‘Without a clear process to follow, change is haphazard. He further purports that ‘Dreams alone are not enough. You need hard facts and clear plans if they are to become reality (Smith, 1997, b).
The points raised by Smith were applicable for my project. I managed the current reality and established how we were going to get to tomorrow’s vision such as creating improved processes to manage the facilities elements of refurbishment and construction type projects.
I developed the creation of the necessary changes with people from operational
groups. Smith’s suggested four pre-requisites for successful change and improvement
(Smith, 1997,c) which were relevant to this project:
- There was pressure from senior management for change
- I established a clear shared vision with my project team
- There was plenty of capacity for change
- Actionable first steps-I took the first steps to make it happen
However, hard facts and clear plans as suggested by Smith are not sufficient to ensure successful delivery of work, or in this context, projects. Planning in itself, and as such plans, do not make things happen. They are tools but do not guarantee delivery of dreams or projects. Tools help us to do our work better. There is no other value.
For example, in a recent cinema film (Blast From The Past, 1999), the main character, Adam Webber, learned all there is to learn from his father whilst the family (father, mother and only son) sheltered in a time-locked nuclear shelter, to be unlocked after 35 years. His learning was of little value to him. He had learned the theoretical applications but was not able to apply these below ground to check their viability and relevance in real life situations. His learning was not based on empirical knowledge but theoretical repetition. Once he was in the real world, this improved because he wanted it to happen. His attitude to learn, apply, review and learn more was of greater value than the learning itself. His drive, energy and will to make it happen were the prevalent success factors.
Project plans, for example, do not add value to projects unless the planned activities are acted upon and completed. I achieved the planned changes in my project. I time-activated identified activities by assigning ownership to actions and by reviewing progress regularly during progress review meetings, the subject of further discussion in Chapter 6.
It was my responsibility to identify the necessary skills set required for project team members to enable me to deliver my project successfully. I negotiated the commitment of these resources with line managers and achieved their sign-off.
I developed innovative approaches that offered opportunities to improve service and profitability within the company. I achieved business process improvements by working closely with operational units across the company.
It was my responsibility as project manager to apply the lessons learned from the Scotland project. This was crucial. We were going to build a number of other new switching centres across the United Kingdom. I had a number of objectives to achieve:
- to ensure that the generic design from the first project could be used as the blueprint for the other sites, to be modified to suit particular local conditions such as site security, e.g. a more sophisticated perimeter fence required
- to achieve cost savings for the acquisition of furniture, cabling and site design for follow-on projects( economies of scale)
- to reduce the migration time-scales for people for the other sites
1.7 Budget Responsibility and Outcomes
I prepared a comprehensive executive board case, which was approved, for the delivery of new equipment sites to address this capacity shortfall, for the short, medium and long-term (Appendix C). A major cross-functional study within Cellnet concluded to link the company’s property strategy to other strategic development work being undertaken across the Technology department within Cellnet (such as recommendations made by operational units leading to improvements in the way in which network services were managed in the past). The recommended approach had been devised to enable optimum delivery time-scales and cost, together with minimum business risks.
My total budget responsibility to deliver the technical, facilities and migration elements of the Scotland project was £1.616M . I had similar budget responsibility for all the other new sites. The total cost for completion of the programme was estimated at £23.47m.
I delivered the project under budget (£1.3M), on time (May 1998) and to agreed specification (handover accepted by the Regional Facilities Manager without conditions). I will discuss how I managed this budget with my project accountant to ensure the timely delivery of the project.
I met the user expectations and requirements for the new switching centre. I will discuss this further in Chapter 6.
1.8 Project Date and Reporting Date
The project started in April 1996. I delivered this project successfully in line with the eternal triangle of time, cost and quality/specification in May 1998.
The project phases and time-scales were planned as follows:
Concept June 1996
Feasibility July 1996
Implementation September 1996
Closedown May 1998
Post Implementation Review May 1998
I held phase reviews at the end of the concept, feasibility and implementation phases to capture the lessons learned early on in the project. I applied these immediately for the benefit of the other projects to make sure that the same mistakes were not repeated and that the benefits from the lessons learned were used to good effect.
I prepared monthly progress reports for both the project sponsor, owner and members of the steering group. I submitted weekly status reports to the Programme Manager.
1.9 Final Observations
Smith argues that the behaviour of leaders influences the way in which people perform. Setting a good example and being positive even when things do not go well are the signs of good leaders, or project managers in the context of this project. If you want people to try different approaches or take risks in order to improve performance, you must recognise their efforts and the results of their efforts openly and honestly
(Smith, 1997). There is no one right way of recognising success. There are many informal and formal ways for doing so. At the end of this project, I sent personal thank you letters to each project team member to express my sincere thanks for all the good efforts, their dedication and results achieved. I copied these letters to line managers to ensure they were aware of how I felt about their staff and their performance in this project.
This is essential to good people project management. Open recognition of efforts provides a sound foundation on which to build future project teams. This is a good motivational approach. For example, hunger motivates the act of eating. Similarly, my positive drive and attitude to achieve the desired project outcomes motivated team members to follow my example. They felt comfortable with me. I respected them for what they were. I respected their knowledge and experience and used both openly to good effect.
2 Chapter 2:Define Tasks
2.1 Introduction
I established the project deliverables from the Project Owner at the start of this project. I summarised the requirements in a concept paper. The Project Owner signed off this top level Statement of Requirements (SOR). It formed a true record of the project’s objectives, deliverables and covered other areas such as scope, assumptions and constraints.
Organising a project can be complex, although no single activity requires very much effort. The order in which things happen is somewhat arbitrary, depending on a number of factors such as how big the project is, how much has already been put in place and how many people are involved. Most of these activities must be completed during the first phase (Project Start-Up and Definition) of the project to avoid wasting valuable time due to lack of adequate definitions. I will discuss the value a Project Definition Workshop (PDW) adds to projects.
I did not integrate the various elements in this project such as facilities, technical and constructional by working more closely with the construction project manager. I will discuss the benefits of a Project Integration Workshop (PIW) and why it is essential to hold such a workshop in complex and high-risk projects.
If project managers are to deliver the agreed needs of their customers, they need to know first what these needs are. My customers in this project did not know what they wanted. They were not sure about their requirements. And yet the SOR is the single most important document in any project. It confirms the deliverables the customer expects the project manager to deliver. Without the SOR project managers cannot logically meet the customers’ agreed needs. I will show how I overcame these problems by employing knowledge, experience and lots of common sense to make it happen.
I was taking bigger risks during this project than I realised because my risk analysis was not sophisticated enough. I was working on a gut-feeling basis and was probably taking risks of which I was not aware. I will show that I did not manage these risks effectively. I will discuss the importance of developing risk management with the project team to give them a deeper understanding of the corporate risks associated with projects, the benefits for the team and how this new knowledge can be practically applied in future projects.
I will show that it is important that the project manager must not concentrate on obvious risks such as a change of project team members. Instead, he should concentrate on less obvious risks such as the use of unproven technology and unplanned events.
I did not consider the people risks of my projects such as key project team members being tasked to do higher-priority jobs or their employment being terminated due to lack of performance. For the project manager, people risks can be equal in importance to other risks associated with the project. I will discuss the importance of people risk management in project team environments.
2.2 Project Definition And Integration Workshops
I held a PDW with my own project team during the Feasibility phase to cover the facilities, migration and desktop services elements of my project. The project team discussed and agreed the tasks to be done, who would do the work and by when. The definition workshop was a means to formalize the relationships, links and structures to deliver the project within the Equipment Space Programme (Fig 4.). I did not have a detailed SOR at this stage.
I produced a Gantt chart and a network diagram to capture the major tasks, milestones and dependencies, for review and updating at future project review meetings (discussed in Chapter 6). I invited the construction project manager to this workshop but he did not attend. This caused me problems. Many areas of my project overlapped into areas. It would have been valuable for him to attend to discuss and agree issues then action these. This would have saved time. It would have been good for a team building point of view, bringing both out project teams together much easier.
I used the PDW to bring in external bodies such as the furniture and facilities supplier for the site. I used the PDW as a tool to develop the project team through effective team communications and by planning the desired outcomes of the project such as deliverables and objectives. I prepared a project Organisation Breakdown Structure (OBS, Fig. 3) together with a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). I used these during the PDW to focus on each work area of the project, breaking high-level tasks down to more manageable levels.
At the end of the PDW, I had achieved the following:
- common understanding of the project’s objectives and deliverables
- one team approach
- immediate issues and risks
- project buy-in by the team
- tasks list from which I was able to prepare a GANTT chart, network diagram and resource plan
- Project Definition Report ( PDR) to confirm output of PDW, ready for sign off by project sponsor/owner
I did not cross-reference to other areas such as network equipment and the construction of the building. I did not consider the impact of our work on that of the construction project team nor identify dependencies between the two projects. For instance, furniture could not be installed until the floors had been finished and staff could not move in until the site was safe and fit for purpose.
The construction project manager held a PDW with his technical project team. There was no representation from my team. He concentrated on the network elements of the project. He did not cross-reference my project. Both of us, therefore, managed our own individual contributions to the overall project in isolation. We did not bring the two individual sub-projects together to work closer the common goals and objectives.
The construction project manager focused on his project. He did not cross-reference to the facilities, technical or migration elements of my project. He was used to working in isolation, not seeing other project managers, pr customers during the various stages of his projects. He had developed his project management skills in the construction industry and was biased towards their ways of managing projects. He did not recognise the need to accommodate changes.
Customers would get what they asked for at the beginning of the project with no room for changes. He was comfortable because this was how he used to manage construction-type projects in the past. He did not see the need to take a holistic view of this project at project or programme level to assess how the outputs of his project affected other areas.
He was not customer orientated. He was of the opinion that the customer agrees his requirements at the start of the project and should not get involved again until final handover. He felt that customers were a hindrance. They were getting in his was to deliver his project. Customer’s needs are stated in the Statement of Requirements (SOR), therefore, there should be no need for customers to have a reason to change the scope of the project or ask for changes. He did not want customers to come and see him but if there were a need to communicate with his customers, he would initiate the need for dialogue, not the customer.
I was not assertive enough to try and influence him to change his behaviour. I should have tried much harder to make him agree to hold a PDW with the whole project team to bond people and integrate work packages to ensure the timely delivery of the whole project. I should have been instrumental in setting up this whole team workshop.
I accepted his track record of having managed many construction type projects successfully, without verification of how he had achieved this. I felt uncomfortable to expose his shortcomings in case this might damage his self-confidence. I did not want to hurt his feelings by proving that he was not customer-focused.
I will continue to hold project definition workshops for standalone projects where there is no impact on other projects that, for example, form part of a programme. This has worked well and I do not see any reason why I should change an approach that has been successful and continues to be, based on the strengths of evidence of feedback from my customers, team members and project owners/sponsors.
I will take a different approach where my projects impact on the outcomes of other projects or vice versa. I will become instrumental in setting up project definition and integration workshops, appropriate to the size and complexity of these. Based on the learning outcomes of the Scotland project, I will be more persuasive towards other project managers. Irrespective of their previous experience and backgrounds, I will insist that they attend my definition workshops or send team representatives if they cannot attend. Previous success in unrelated projects is no guarantee for future success. Therefore, I will match the needs of the business to those of the projects. I will work closely with other project mangers to achieve synergy across the teams and tasks.
I will apply influencing skills to make it happen. Understanding why people behave the way they behave, will help me to plan my approach to try and influence others to change this behaviour to meet my project needs. I will discuss the act of influencing in Chapter 8.
2.3 Risk Management: Project and People
Project Risks:
I used the Project Definition Workshop as a means to discuss and establish likely risks, relevant to each area of the Work Breakdown Structure. I based this approach of identifying risks on one that I took in similar but one of a kind projects. I discussed each work area such as facilities, health and safety, security and technical installations to ascertain from the team which risks they felt were likely to develop during the project. The questions I asked the project team were:
1. What are the worst things that could happen in this project?
2. How likely are they to happen?
3. What steps do we need to take to prevent them?
I used the table shown at Tab.2 to assess each risk against a high, medium or low risk category, to ascertain the likely probability and impact for each risk. Where a risk had a high impact but low probability, I placed it in the high category. Conversely, where a risk had low impact but high probability, I placed it in the low category. I developed risk mitigation with the team to assess the most likely actions we could take to either eliminate the risk or reduce it. I transferred all this information to the project risk register in the master project file, showing the following information:
1. Risk number
2. Owner of risk
3. Date registered
4. Risk category: high, medium or low
5. Risk mitigation
I reviewed these risks from time to time but not on a regular basis and not always with the whole project team. I did not manage these risks in a timely manner.
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
Tab.2 Risk Analysis Method Used In This Project
Risks can originate from a number of areas, substantial enough to have an impact on project performance. A complex project, therefore, has higher risks associated with it than a less complex project, due to their diverse natures (Chapman And Ward, 1997, a). I did not recognise that the Scotland project was such a project.
I managed the identified risks as I had done in similar less-complex projects in the past. I considered this to be adequate because it had worked well before. As a result, I did not change my approach to managing these risks differently.
The very nature of the project was different to any other project I had managed in the past. This project was to deliver changes to the ways in which people worked cross-functionally. A single contractor who supplied all facilities services had not worked before under the direct control of the project manager. The project team developed a new generic design and layout footprint for future switching centres across the United Kingdom. Established suppliers had developed new switches for the new switching centres, based on unproven technology.
The risks identified and the method for identifying them for this generic project was essential not only to the success of the project but also for others to follow. It was inappropriate to consider that risks from other similar projects could be used as a starting point for identifying risks that may impact this generic project. Every project is different. The risks associated with one project are not necessarily appropriate to other projects even if the projects appear to be similar. For example, the location of the new site in Scotland was considered to be relatively safe compared to a location in Central London. Security risks, therefore, are lower. There was no justification for me to spend much time on identifying security risks. I concentrated on the obvious risks only rather than identify risks that could stop the company from providing services to customers. For example, I considered the risk of not delivering the facilities elements on time to be more important than the risk of installing unproven technological equipment. It was important to deliver the agreed facilities but these were less important in the overall picture. The impact of not having people space available on time was low compared to the risk of the network not being able to support the needs of Cellnet’s customers.
However the impact of adequate risk assessment, on the whole programme was high, considering that we were going to build another five switching centres based on the design of the Scotland site. It was essential to establish likely risks for the generic site, manage these accordingly and apply the lessons learned to the other projects. A study by Jean Couillard (1995) confirms that the management of project risk is essential to the successful delivery of projects. Risk, in particular, is a characteristic that should determine the best management approach. Where project risk is not considered, the application of project planning tools and techniques such as project evaluation and review technique (PERT) and critical path method (CPM) do not have a significant influence on project success. The reverse is true for high-risk projects. He concludes that high-risk projects should be more closely planned, monitored and controlled than low-risk projects.
A number of project team members had little or no experience in risk management. I had managed a number of complex refurbishment projects for the company prior to this project. I widened my knowledge of risk management doing this project. I was in a good position to pass on my lessons and expertise in risk management. However, I did not explain the benefits of risk management well enough to the whole team to get the most out of their knowledge and experience. Involving the team in risk management has a number of advantages. The team has an opportunity to consider the likely risks associated with their project. This is good for team building and bonding. Making sure that every team member participates, the project manager can ensure that everyone contributes to establishing the risks. It is more likely that the risks will then be managed properly because people have been involved in the process of identifying the risks. By applying appropriate risk management in projects, people can be educated to give them a deeper understanding of corporate risks in projects. Thus they are turned more into business-oriented people. This makes the business in itself more effective.
To make risk management work, it is essential to identify all risks associated with the project and then manage these in line with Couillard’s conclusions. This is what I should have done in this project: establish risks not based on previous experience only but also to consider the likely risks in areas other than those I was responsible for, such as the technical installation and management of network equipment. I will hold risk assessment workshops for the whole project in future after I identified the initial risks at the project definition workshop (PDW) during the feasibility phase. This is a good opportunity to capture all risks for the project, irrespective of the area where they may happen such as facilities or technical. I will have the overview of all risks and can own the risk register making sure that all risks will be managed appropriately and in a timely manner.
I will carry out phase reviews for risk assessment with the project team before entering each stage in the project life cycle. The initial risk assessment workshop can only be as good as the quality of the information available at that time. At the end of each stage, the project manager needs to review risks to check that these are still valid or whether the probability or impact has changed. Regular reviews at each project stage are a good opportunity for the project manager to carry out a risk sanity check for the risks associated with the project. Chapman and Ward (1997,c) suggest the integration of risk management into each project stage: ‘Prior to each stage, a preliminary risk analysis could guide the first step, but as more details and options are considered in subsequent steps, further risk analysis could be performed with increasing detail and precision to continuously guide and inform the project management process.
James Lewis (1995,a) defines ‘anything that can go wrong in a project as a risk, and since things that go wrong can cause me to suffer harm or loss, I then need to ask how we can manage risks in projects’. It seems reasonable to say that it is always better to avoid risk than it is to manage it (Levine, 1995). However, I will not follow Lewis’s example and assess every risk in detail using the methodology described earlier. Nor will I try and avoid risks if possible, as suggested by Levine. Risks must be managed. They use an integral part of effective project management. They can contribute positively.
Risks are opportunities. They can be painful but the rewards are worth there while. I will use the risk assessment methodology shown at Tab. 2 for initial risk assessment. Once I have identified those risks with the highest impact or probability, I will use the risk probability assessment process described by Lewis to assess risks more accurately.
Lewis suggests to calculate a risk probability number. The probability of occurrence, severity of the effect and the detection capability of each risk is assessed and ranked, on a scale from 1 to 10:
Probability of Occurrence: From Very High-10 to Remote-1
Severity of Effect : Hazardous-10 to No Effect –1
Detection Capability : Absolute Uncertain-10 to Absolute Certain-1
The three numbers are then multiplied to give the risk probability number (Tab.3). I will thus concentrate my efforts on most likely risks rather than waste time with low probability, low impact risks that have little or no impact on the successful delivery of the project.
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
Tab.3 Alternative Risk Assessment Method
People Risks:
The contractual arrangement for the technical manager responsible for the Data and Corporate Network design and installation of this project was terminated at a crucial point in the project, due to an unacceptable deterioration in his work standards. He was responsible for the overall design of Voice and Data systems. He prepared appropriate documentation ready for customer sign off. The cabling installation on site was almost completed and his next job would have been to supervise the testing and commissioning of this infrastructure, prior to going live with PC and Telephone Exchange -type equipment. He was not a permanent Cellnet employee. His contract was to complete the Scotland site and continue to do the same work in other new switching centres that formed part of this programme.
The termination of his employment happened unexpectedly. There was no prior warning. I had been working with this person on a number of projects before where he showed a good and positive attitude towards getting his job done, completing work on time and to customer satisfaction. I did not anticipate this risk, and had, therefore, no mitigation plan prepared to deal with this situation.
I did not identify any people risks. I was focused on the risks associated with the project deliverables and objectives and did not consider people to be a risk within my project. There was no need to think any different. Things had gone well in the past and apart from minor resource issues, project team members had always performed well. I assumed that this would continue for this project.
I had no mitigation plan in place to deal with this type of problem. I did not consider it necessary. Internal technical Cellnet resources were available in previous projects to assist when contract resources were unavailable. This worked well. The work was done on time and to specification. Good harmony existed within the team. There was mutual respect between the contract and internal resources.
They were willing to help each other whenever the need arose. I had not received any complaints about lack of service from my customers. I did not see the need to change this acceptable situation.
I did not take adequate time to monitor his performance closely. I ignored the early warning signs of his lack of performance. He turned up late or not at all at progress review meetings. He did not complete some tasks within agreed time scales. He had performed well in previous projects and I assumed these problems were only temporary and would sort themselves out.
I did not have the necessary technical knowledge to challenge some of his status reports. This allowed him to make me believe we were still on target in areas such as cabling and infrastructure design when we were not. I did not ask him to verify his progress statements.
He had performed well in the post and had delivered work on time, to specification and within budgetary constraints. He displayed a healthy attitude towards his work, his customers, his peers and me as project manager. I assumed there was no reason to suspect that his behaviour had changed.
I did not plan for backup. In the past, this agency had worked on the principle that a number of their contractors worked on other projects so they could cover each other during holidays and when people changed employment. This ensured no loss of service to their clients. I assumed the agency would provide suitable replacements at short notice based on past approaches.
I did not work closely enough with the Programme Manager. I did not take the wider view of the impact this lack of performance might have on the programme. I was busy concentrating on my own project work. I considered this to be my issue and not the Programme Manager’s. I did not want to be seen to escalate minor issues. I was too complacent. I thought I knew best how to manage this situation.
I will manage the people risks in my future projects better by adopting a proactive rather than a reactive approach. I will carry out a risk assessment for each project team member and assess the likely risks associated with each person on the project, such as the impact if the person needs to be replaced and likely personality clashes within the project team.
I will assess the impact these risks may have on other projects or programmes and prepare appropriate mitigation plans. I will work closely with contract agencies (external) and line management (internal) to discuss and agree adequate resource backups, should staff be called off to do other work or their employment is terminated. I will insist that more than one person is familiar with the work to achieve minimal disruption to service in the short term whilst negotiating for a long-term replacement person.
I will monitor the performance of project team members more closely. I will not accept the contents of progress review reports or verbal reports as evidence of work completed. I will check and clarify rather than assume that work has been completed.
2.4 Building Schedule of Requirements (B.S.O.R.)
It was my responsibility as project manager to ensure the timely completion of the Building Schedule of Requirements (BSOR) for the new site. It was within my role to capture customer requirements. Without these requirements, I could not deliver the project, as I did not know what the customer wanted.
The Regional Facilities Manager did not want to get involved (I will discuss the reasons in more detail in Chapter 3). He was engaged in other work. He was busy managing other new sites the company had just acquired. He did not want to commit himself to sign for anything, or indeed, state his exact requirements.
He had no experience of fitting out new generic switching centres. He felt uneasy and apprehensive about changes in case things went wrong. He had a fear of not delivering the right things such as floor layouts and office furniture.
His staff did not want to get involved. He made it clear to them that he wanted the project team to produce proposals for the site. He wanted his team to comment after proposals were produced. He did not want to expose his lack of care for his customers. He put his own needs before those of his customers. He viewed customers as unnecessary overheads. His philosophy was that will get what he wanted them to get. I will tell them what they can have. I know the company policies on providing accommodation and related services. They do not. So I will decide. He did not like customers to change their minds. They always want to change things. They should just accept what they will get from me.
I was left of my own devices to prepare and deliver the BSOR for this project. I had produced a number of these in previous refurbishment projects in Cellnet. I was the expert in the production of these by default. I managed Cellnet’s property portfolio in my previous job in the company as Senior Facilities Manager. So I understood what the facilities team were looking for in terms of building layouts, facilities on site and how these could be maintained optimally.
This worked well for the Regional Facilities Manager. If things went wrong, he had someone to blame: the project manager. He preferred this approach. It meant he could not possibly be blamed for failure or shortfalls. The buck stopped with the project manager: me.
The Regional Facilities Manager was not project management oriented or focused. He firmly believed that he knew better how to deliver the facilities elements for his project. He based his beliefs on previous experience of managing projects in a facilities environment he had operated within. He did not deliver these successfully. He did not meet customer requirements well. Customer feedback after the project was unsatisfactory. There was a disconnection. He thought he had delivered to the agreed BSOR but his customers had different perceptions of him. He had no formal training in project management. He did not understand the importance of the BSOR document for both the project manager and the customer. It was the common link between both parties in the project. Therefore, it was important to create a link that was right and acceptable to both parties.
I wanted to deliver this project successfully, in line with agreed customer requirements. Based on the strengths of evidence, the Regional Facilities Manager did not want to help me to prepare the BSOR, circulate it for comment and produce the final version ready for sign-off by appropriate signatories such as himself and myself. As a result, I changed my approach to achieving my desired outcome.
I prepared a draft BSOR document. This was a complete summary of all the technical, network and facilities requirements for the new switching centre. A copy is shown at Appendix M for further study. The content was based on facilities I had provided in other Cellnet properties where I was the facilities project manager. My customer feedback was excellent. People felt I had delivered agreed requirements in accordance with the signed-off BSOR. The Regional Facilities Manager did not like it that I got on so well with people in the past. He did not get on well with others. He was jealous. He feared there was direct competition from me. This was not the case.
I valued our professional relationship. I respected him for what he was. I did not categorise him. I respected some of his past achievements. I had no desire to get drawn into personal conflict. This would not resolve the BSOR issues but rather make it worse. The draft BSOR document was a summary document of all customer requirements I considered essential for the new site. I kept the contents generic so its template could be used for all other follow-on projects. I circulated the BSOR to him and his team for comment.
I received no feedback. I signed off the document on his behalf and circulated it, for information, to all key project members such as the facilities team, owner/sponsor and affected operational managers. I did so with the full knowledge of the Regional Facilities Manager. I was not prepared to wait any longer for him to sign off this document. I had given him ample time and opportunities to provide input into this BSOR. He chose not to provide this input. The design for the other sites was dependent on the outcome of the design for this site. Time was running out. I acted in the best interests of all my customers. I placed the BSOR under change control after sign off.
Conclusion
Project Definition Workshops are essential to successful project management. They provide opportunities to check the Organisation Breakdown Structure with the project team to ensure that all operational areas that have inputs into the project, are represented at the workshop. The project team gets together as one team for the first time.
Good communications are vital to build the team and ensure that all members have a common understanding of the project goals and deliverables. The team can then identify immediate issues and risks. The project manager can act on these and take appropriate actions to mitigate or eliminate these.
Cross-functional working should also be encouraged. It is a pre-requisite for effective project management. No single department in any project can manage projects on their own. Expertise in core competencies lies with a number of departments. These workshops are unique ways to introduce synergy to cross-functional project teams.
However, in programmes where a number of projects are managed in parallel, definition workshops are not the panacea for the successful delivery of these projects. Each project manager will have their own preferred method of managing their projects and teams. They will identify, for example, issues and risks relevant for their projects only. This is acceptable provided these are brought together in integration workshops so that the impact can be assessed on the programme as well as individual projects within the programme. Programme Review meetings are essential. The Programme Manager can review the status of his programme as individual project managers report progress made in their projects.
Dependencies between projects need to be identified and managed. This can best be achieved by holding integration workshops with representation from all projects. Taking the holistic view will encourage people to step outside their own boxes and work with others to find best practice solutions to problems they now share. In smaller projects both the definition and the integration elements can be combined in a single workshop.
Risk Management is essential to the successful delivery of projects. It is an integral part of good project management. Each project has different risks associated with it. According to Chapman and Ward, ‘the essential purpose of risk management is to improve project performance via systematic identification, appraisal and management of project-related risk’ (Chapman and Ward, 1977,b).
Managing risks effectively is an opportunity to reduce or eliminate things likely to cause harm or loss to the project. As discussed earlier, I overestimated my ability to manage risks and I underestimated difficulties.
All projects carry an element of uncertainty with them. To deliver projects in a timely manner, it is necessary to identify risks appropriate to the scope of the project. Experience from previous projects is acceptable as a starting point for similar projects but it is necessary to consider each project on its own merits. Every project is different and risks identified in one project are not necessarily relevant in another project. For example, the same structured cabling used in one building project does not have the same risks associated with it because architectures of buildings are different.
In an ideal world the project manager will have adequate time to manage each identified risk. Reality is different. In a fast-moving competitive project management environment, the project manager needs to concentrate his efforts on managing risks most likely to occur or risks with high impacts. This does not mean that all other risks should be ignored. It is simply a realistic approach to apply effort in priority order.
The lessons I learned in this project will provide me with opportunities to manage risks more effectively and efficiently in future.
It is not adequate to just identify and quantify risks. If risks are not acted upon and simply collected in a risk register, the project manager does not add value to the project through appropriate risk management.
People risk management, like project risk management discussed earlier, is equally important to the successful delivery of projects. The project manager needs to assess whether the various personalities in the project team work together well or not. A mitigation plan will help to either eliminate these risks or at least mitigate them.
It is important to assess the likelihood of key staff leaving the project at a crucial point. Project managers need to know what impact this could have on their project so they can consider alternatives should this event occur.
People are the most important element in projects. It is also in this are where more things can go wrong badly. It is through people that project managers get the work done. And yet project managers do not take adequate time to assess the people risks associated with their projects. Provided they do, people risks can be managed in a constructive way. It places the project manager in a position to manage all project risks and stay in control of his project.
Every project team has the same ultimate mission that an organisation has- to meet the needs of customers. To do so, however, it is important to know and understand what these needs are. It is equally important to capture customer needs and wants in a single document: the Statement of Requirements (SOR). It is this document that, ultimately, forms a contract between the project manager and his customers. It is not acceptable to expect the project manager to complete this document without help and input from customers.
I will complete future Schedule of Requirements at meetings with customers. The advantage of this approach is that both parties work together on the document. Closer bonding between the project manager and his customers helps to improve project communications. Project success is more likely.
I will escalate non-customer co-operation in future projects to the steering group or the project sponsor/owner but only if my own attempts to remedy shortfalls have failed. Schedule of Requirements must be signed off by all relevant parties and then placed under change control. Failure to do so means that people can change their minds at any time without giving any reasons. This puts unnecessary pressure on the project manager to follow up every change, irrespective whether it can be justified.
3 Chapter 3: Generate Ideas
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” (George Bernard Shaw)
3.1 Introduction
Creativity is an integral part of effective project management. By definition, project management is about the management of change. Therefore, project managers should look for new ideas of creating change within their projects to move things forward. I used this project to identify new ways of finding ideas that create change. In this respect, this project was unique. It provided me with opportunities to develop new ways of working cross-functionally as one team and develop different approaches in managing construction or refurbishment type projects. Finding these changes was not coincidental. It was planned.
I will show how I was able to create changes that assisted me in delivering my objectives successfully. I will discuss that it is up to the individual to make good use of this urge we sometimes experience to try something new. This something in us is called the spirit of creativity (Goleman, Kaufman and Ray,1997,a). They argue that once this spirit has been awoken, it will change one’s life forever because it will be dominated by the wish to create something new, to do things differently or to let dreams become reality.
As a professional project manager, I was looking for innovative and creative ways of
moving my project forward. Conventional approaches such as brain storming had
failed to produce the desired outcomes. Based on my learning experiences from the
linking project, I was more confident to experiment with new tools and techniques
such as divergent and convergent thinking.
Kolb (1984) has come to the conclusion that learning occurs through the grasping of experience and the transformation of it. The transformation of the impact of experience on the senses, through internal reflection, allows the emergence of ideas that can be extended into the external world through new actions Unless the process can be completed in full, learning does not occur and individuals may not begin the journey to qualitatively finer and higher forms of awareness, which may be called development. New ideas are often considered to be crazy until the idea is successful for example the Sony Walkman.
3.2 Creative Thinking
I arranged a one-day workshop with users and the furniture and facilities supplier for the new site. The purpose of the workshop: to integrate the furniture and people elements early on in the project. However, my main desired outcome of this workshop was to establish and agree the
user requirements, using brainstorming as a means to get to the needs of staff relocating to the new site. I had not used this method of generating ideas with a large group of people before. Until then, I had used it only at meetings with up to four people. I felt uneasy. I was not sure whether my approach was appropriate for this type of project. I concentrated solely on the new Scotland site. I did not consider the requirements for any other site.
My approach to consider ideas for the new Scotland site only was inappropriate. I lost the opportunity to develop new ideas for all sites with key players of my project team. What might be relevant and ideal for one site, might not be suitable for any other site, and vice versa. Sites differed in size and shape because of their geographical location.
I limited the scope for new ideas and solutions to facilities problems by focusing on this project only. I missed the opportunity of using a large group of people with different backgrounds and experiences to generate new ways of fitting out switching
centres. I did not make optimum use of available people resource to instigate appropriate creative thinking. I missed the opportunity to innovate by generating novel ideas through the application of creative approaches.
I focused too much of my attention on the design of facilities for this project. It was the first project in this programme. Naturally, I was more inclined to resolve the facilities requirements for the Scotland switch rather than being too concerned with the other projects. Those were still in the concept phase. There was no urgency to divert my attention to these.
The team provided good ideas during the brainstorming session for the design of the new site. But the method we used, brainstorming, was inadequate for the desired outcomes. I directed the team towards generating ideas in specific areas such as welfare facilities, general office layouts and external facilities. This was inappropriate. The application of brainstorming in this way did not allow people to let their minds run wild in any direction to find the widest possible range of ideas, both for this and all the other projects. I missed opportunities for people to associate follow-on thoughts based on previous ones. Association of one idea with another often creates divergent thinking in people so they can produce more ideas.
Limiting creative thinking in this way was demotivating. I limited peoples’ creative thinking by being restrictive. This was self-contradictory. Creative thinking, by definition, should not be restricted. The benefits of not having any restrictions imposed are what makes creativity work.
Issues with the design of the new site arose because I did not use divergent and convergent thinking with the team, e.g. let the team think as widely as possible without hindrance or restriction. I assumed that people were not familiar with this concept. I did not check whether this was true or not. I further assumed that people were uncomfortable using this way of generating ideas. People sometimes feel uneasy to share their ideas in case they are too radical. People are ridiculed as a result. Loss of confidence in their abilities and lack of interest in the project is the likely outcome.
‘Creativity is the ability to produce ideas that are both novel and valuable’ (Myers, 1995). Enabling people to learn more will produce more mental building blocks. The more mental building blocks we have available in our mind, the more opportunities we have to combine them in novel ways. This will create more ideas, images and phrases. The result is an increase in generating innovative ideas. I assumed that my project team members learned extensively during their private and working lives. The knowledge and expertise they acquired were the main reasons for them being on the team. Therefore, this learning should have been adequate to generate creative ideas.
However, I did not consider the fact that adults have a disadvantage when it comes to being creative. As stated in the introduction, children under the age of five are at an advantage over grown-ups: their minds have not been corrupted yet to conform, for example, to expected standards of behaviour set by the society they live in. Magic is a child. Imagination is alive. Creative thinking is unhindered. Children only have to dream to create a scene. Dorothy Law Nolte (referenced by Adler and Towne, 1993) recognised that ‘Children Learn What They Live: If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn; If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight’. So if a child lives with no creativity, he learns conformity to be the accepted norm. By the time children have completed their education, their ability to be creative has been substantially reduced.
I will take a different approach in future projects to enable people to become creative without restriction. We used this during one of the taught modules at Lancaster University last year. To generate innovative ideas, we were asked by the tutor to use the Blue Peter approach of simplification down to basics. This approach worked well. People had difficulties at first to generate basic ideas but this soon changed. We had learned to unlearn. There were no restrictions. There were no inhibitions. We respected people and their ideas for what they were. As a result, we created innovative ways of, for example, finding solutions to problems we could not resolve before when we still acted in pre-programmed ways discussed earlier. It worked in the safe environment at Lancaster University. There is no reason to suggest that it will not work in a live situation at work. I am going to use this approach in my next project to test its validity.
I will apply brainstorming more selectively. This method is appropriate if only a few ideas are required to identify innovative ideas, for example, for building designs. I will use a small number of people to achieve the desired outcomes, building on small successes to move on to larger groups later. They will be trained in the application of this tool so that they feel at ease and competent during brainstorming sessions to get involved. The key is to make people part of the process. They must understand what the benefits are for them. Thus it is more likely that people will use the process to find innovative ideas. They will associate the benefits for them with the need to be creative. This is a win-win situation.
I will provide the right environment for people to be creative. I will get people to laugh at the start of brainstorming sessions ‘because laughter is so strongly part of the creative mindset’ (Hall, 1995, referenced in Lewis, 1998,b). A good laugh at the start helps to bond people by sharing an experience such as a good joke. I will use creative meeting rooms to encourage creative thinking. It is important that teams have facilities such as flipcharts, whiteboards, post-it notes, coloured pens and papers available to support the process of creativity, and being able to move the furniture to achieve a room layout appropriate to their needs.
Another appropriate form of creative thinking is the theory of divergent-thinking. John Baer (1993) argues that “The divergent-thinking theory of creativity has a great deal of intuitive appeal, especially the suggestion that creativity will be enhanced by considering, in the process of looking for new ideas or designing a solution to a problem, all of the following: (a) many, as opposed to only a few, ideas; (b) a wide range of ideas; and (c) unusual ( as well as more typical ) ideas.”
The problem with the divergent thinking theory is that it does not actually state how much time should be spent finding creative solutions to problems. It might be that all that is needed is a little bit of divergent thinking, as Howard Gruber(1981) has suggested
Arriving at the widest possible range of ideas is excellent for me as project manager. This approach is of greater value than simple brainstorming: it seeks to consider the radical or unusual thus not limiting the generating of ideas.
However, I will converge the ideas to fit my purpose: to create suitable ideas to move my projects forward by emloying the innovative minds of people, irrespective of their backgrounds. The process of convergence is important for me as project manager. It brings together the divergent ideas under appropriate headings so I can consider their application in my projects. Divergence without convergence is like a body without soul-it has no purpose.
3.3 Consulting Others
I prepared the Building Statement of Requirements (BSOR) using my knowledge and experience from facilities projects I had previously managed in the company. I have already discussed the purpose of the SOR document in Chapter 2. I covered all facilities elements such as layouts, design, safety, security and ongoing maintenance. I considered the best interests of all people involved in and affected by the project:
- The company
- The Regional Facilities Manager and his team
- Staff moving to the new site
My approach worked well. Facilities staff managed the acquisition of new office accommodation and, therefore, had less time to spend helping me with this project. They left it up to me to put this document together because they trusted me to complete it with their best interests in mind. They could trust me to deliver based on previous experiences. I was familiar with and had a good working knowledge of current company accommodation policies and how to apply these realistically and with common sense. However, the Regional Facilities Manager was too complacent. He left the entire design of the SOR document up to me without regular appropriate inputs from him or his staff. This caused me a personal problem. I preferred to work with him and his team to establish their requirements and incorporate these into the SOR for later sign-off once all requirements had been captured:
- To get their buy-in
- To get their commitment to deliver their inputs
- To show evidence of widest consultation
- To share the credit for finding best practice to move the project forward
The Regional Facilities Manager did not believe in consulting others. This was reflected in his management style. He told people what to do and expected his staff not to participate in finding alternative solutions, for example, to problems that arose. He openly criticised his staff for trying out different approaches when these failed. He had worked in an environment for years where his line manager told him what to do and how to do it. Creative thinking and consulting others was not encouraged nor supported. He considered himself to be an expert in Facilities Management who knew all there was to know about the subject.
He knew what he wanted but was not prepared to share his views with me. And yet he was the first to criticise me for not meeting his requirements. I tried to consult him to get his views but he would not let me. He cancelled meetings with him at short notice. Whenever I went to see him at his desk, he claimed to be too busy. I sent draft SOR documents by E-mail for his comments. He did not reply.
In the end, I signed off the SOR on his behalf. I had developed the contents of this document with his staff, finding best practice for the design of the new site and ongoing maintenance. This worked well and produced the desired outcomes.
However, I will try a different approach in future projects in similar situations to reflect the learning outcomes from this project. I will continue to consult others to get their inputs into my projects. This is an opportunity for people to state what they really think, their concerns, make suggestions and ask questions.
I will spend more time to understand the backgrounds and personalities of those who find being consulted uncomfortable. This will help me to develop my approach to try and influence their behaviour so they feel comfortable to be consulted and, ultimately, consult others themselves. I will do this at the beginning of the project by selling the benefits of effective consultation. I will work with people to ensure that they understand what these benefits are. This is essential. Unless I can sell the benefits people will not change their behaviour. It is more likely that they will then see why good consultation is important in project management. This will be a win-win situation of particular benefit in multiple-project situations like this one. The first acts as the generic project for others to follow. So learning can be employed immediately for the benefit of the other projects.
The benefits of consulting with others are vital to successful project management. Good consultation is a pre-requisite to incorporate as many contemporary views as possible. It is the basis for finding optimum solutions to problems. It is vital for decision-making, keeping abreast of trends and picking up on potential problems or opportunities. Mc Bride and Clark(1996) argue that ‘Maintaining good relationships makes dissatisfaction less likely and enables you to snip potential problems in the bud. Hidden agendas, personal resentments and hostile politics impede efficiency and can undermine management ‘. This was true and applicable to say for the issue I had in my project with the Regional Facilities Manager as discussed earlier. I could have stopped this undesirable situation by taking a more proactive approach to develop a better working relationship with this person.
3.4 Learning Outcomes
- I will continue to use brainstorming as a tool to generate problem-solving solutions to ensure potentially useful options are not overlooked
- I will use the methodology of divergent and convergent thinking to create novel ideas for innovation
- Consultation with others is an essential ingredient in effective project management. I will take time to establish rapport, establish why I need good consultative relationships and not just tolerate differences but exploit them to make them work for both me and the individual concerned
[...]
-
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X. -
Téléchargez vos propres textes! Gagnez de l'argent et un iPhone X.