Doing It Right Doesn't Mean Doing It All

Doing It Right Doesn’t Mean Doing It All

Man PerplexedAt the conclusion of a recent project management class, a student sighed heavily and noted that, “If I did all of this stuff, my stakeholders would shoot me.”

I hear this sentiment often from students who are new to project management or working in organizations that are new to project management.

The good news is that no one suggests that project management best practice means implementing every best practice on every project. Considering that many organizations expect project managers to manage projects and be a team member and, often, the SME, that wouldn’t be feasible.  And, frankly, it probably wouldn’t be good project practice.

The intention of learning best practices in project management is to become familiar with what they are in order to know which ones make sense and how to scale them appropriately for your project in your organization.

This may be self-evident to people who have been in the field for awhile, but it can be liberating for those trying to get the reins on unmanaged or poorly managed “projects” and who can become quickly overwhelmed with that should be done to manage projects correctly.

Which of the best practices are applied and the degree of rigor around them should start with an honest assessment of what’s not working and causing the most pain.  If, for example, an organization hasn’t acknowledged the role of sponsorship and doesn’t have people willing to take on that role, getting excited about developing a lengthy risk register may not be time well spent.

To get a sense of where to begin, listen to the frustrations of stakeholders, pay attention to problems causing the most noise, and ask key stakeholders what they wish they could change most about how projects are handled. Then work with them to prioritize those frustrations.

If the primary obstacle to project success is that key decisions don’t get made, maybe it is a sponsorship issue. A reasonable place to begin might involve a discussion around sponsorship and defining roles and responsibilities.

Maybe stakeholders complain most that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, in which case maybe communications planning is a good place to start.

Perhaps it’s confusion about the purpose of the project which might suggest that introducing a charter and/or scope statement would be a good investment of organizational resources.

Of course, these things are interrelated. But the response to the inquiry “what are we doing wrong?” can’t be to start doing it all.  Many a project management journey begins like any other – with one step at a time.

Work with others to figure out the one or two best practices you can start with.  Then identify your champions and advocates and work together to show small successes.  As you accumulate those successes, add to your best practices toolkit as necessary, draw others in and let the results speak for themselves.

The journey may not take you exactly where you’re expecting, but that’s OK.  There will be stumbles and detours along the way.  Sometimes project management is messy.  The important thing is to be able to get to the end and recognize that you learned something together that you can take with you to the next project.

Best practices in any discipline are important to understand.  What’s not important is doing them all.

Good luck on your journey!

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Andrea Brockmeier, PMP, CSM, PMI-PBA, BRMP is the Director of Project Management for Watermark Learning. Andrea is an experienced trainer, facilitator, speaker, and project manager, with over 25 years of business experience. Andrea oversees certification and skills development curriculum in project management, business analysis, and leadership. She has been a speaker at IIBA® and PMI® conferences and is an active volunteer. She enjoys practicing what she teaches and has a steady stream of projects that she manages. Andrea is highly committed to partnering with her clients through projects, consulting, and training, and seeks to make every engagement enjoyable as well as valuable.

Andrea Brockmeier, PMP, CSM, PMI-ACP, PMI-PBA, BRMP

Andrea Brockmeier, PMP, CSM, PMI-PBA, BRMP is the Director of Project Management for Watermark Learning. Andrea is an experienced trainer, facilitator, speaker, and project manager, with over 25 years of business experience. Andrea oversees certification and skills development curriculum in project management, business analysis, and leadership. She has been a speaker at IIBA® and PMI® conferences and is an active volunteer. She enjoys practicing what she teaches and has a steady stream of projects that she manages. Andrea is highly committed to partnering with her clients through projects, consulting, and training, and seeks to make every engagement enjoyable as well as valuable.

2 comments

  1. Dear, Andrea
    Thanks for this article, and I agree with you that not all Best Practices are a must to do, but from my experience there is a MUST -TO-DO Practice in EPC (Engineering, Procurement &Construction ) Projects ,
    which is the KICK OFF MEETING ,
    Kick off Meeting , is the first gathering between all projects parties,i.e Owner, Contractor & Consultant.
    In this meeting you catch ,common understanding of scope , introducing of key responsible s of all parts and Team building between all parties start , they agree about ways of communications between them and therefore minimizing gray areas during execution.

  2. Mohamed,
    That’s a great idea. A kickoff meeting might be a great first step in introducing best practices. You can cover a lot of ground and it’s highly visible, which could be just what the organization needs!

    In the article, I was thinking about situations where someone is trying to introduce best practices in an organization that is very resistant to and/or inexperienced in PM, in which case a kickoff meeting might be seen as just one more meeting. It may be difficult to convince people of the value and show up. Also, for a really novice project manager, the idea of a kickoff meeting could be overwhelming. So that’s why I think you have to be sensitive to what’s the best way to get your “toe in the door” when trying to introduce this stuff. The first small step or two that will work best depends on the organization and the person introducing the change.

    But you are right – kickoff meetings definitely belong on the list of options for where to begin! Thanks so much for your thoughts!

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