Transcript Slide 1

Steve Barron 2008
project management leadership
Steve Barron
Lancaster University
Projects
Deliver
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Products/
Services
Deliver
Benefits
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3 Types of Management?
Strategic Management
Effective
Efficient
‘Doing the right job’
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‘Doing the job right’
Operations Management
Project Management
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A project....
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Has a start and an end
Uses resources, and therefore, money
Must satisfy performance expectations
Balance of time, cost and performance
A unique scope of work
 Uncertainty
What happens to projects?
Influence and Cost over the Project Life Cycle
Concept
Design
Realisation
Comm
Operation
Level of
influence
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Cost to change
Time
x1
x10
x100
x1000
Cost to change one
item for an IT
project
Source: Rory Burke,(1999) Project management,
Planning & Control Techniques, Wiley
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Management Effort
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Management effort over the Project Life Cycle
Brilliant
Whoops!
Okay...
Time (Project Life Cycle)
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Uncertainty over the Project Life Cycle
Uncertainty
2 modes of
uncertainty:
Predictable and
Complex
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Certainty
Sensemaking
Start of
Project
End of
Project
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The technical expert...
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The real world...?
 We are not ‘James Bond’
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 “Mission Impossible” does not show their
planning
 The A-team ‘loves it when a plan comes
together’ but we don’t ever see their plan
 How good are we at ‘winging it’?
 Can we do this with a project? E.g. Going to
the moon?
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Plan this...?
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Types of Project
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unfamiliar
Making Movies
Lost in the Fog
Painting by
Numbers
Quest
Task
(What to do)
familiar
familiar
Obeng, 1996
unfamiliar
Setting
(How to do it)
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Stages of a Quest project
Implementing
Definition
building
commitment
Selecting options
Resourcing
Setting limits
Implementing
Implementing
Review
assessment
& selection
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Implementing
Implementing
Definition
building
commitment
Selecting
options
resourcing
setting limits
Implementing
Review
assessment
& selection
Implementing
Obeng 1996
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Stages of a Movie project
Explore Goals
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Seeking &
Identifing
stakeholders
Modifying goals
to match resources
Review with
stakeholders
Sticky steps
planning
Redefine
goal
Create
storyboard
Review with
stakeholders
Agree
goals
Setting the
vision
Step
review
Resourcing
core team
Step
review
Step
implementation
Step
implementation
Review with
Stakeholders
Check versus
vision & modify
Obeng 1996
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Uncertainty vs. Ambiguity
Ambiguity
Low
High
“SOFT”
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“Existence of multiple
and conflicting
interpretations”
Confusion and lack
of understanding”
“HARD”
Atkinson, Crawford &
Ward, IJPM vol 24 p673
Adapted from Thiry (2002)
IJPM vol 20 p221
Ongoing
Conversations
Sensemaking
& Value Analysis
Ongoing
Operational
Risk Analysis &
Problem Solving
Low
High
“the difference between the data required
and the data already processed”
Uncertainty
Key actors:
 Professional Associations – enforce standards?

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Member driven – who is driving each BoK?
Consultants – convert abstract into applied.
Resist investment in updates.
Gurus – translate & legitimise knowledge
Consumers – professionals, practitioners –
certificated people resist changes that require recertification
Academics & researchers – quality control,
objectivity/challenge & education process.
Appropriate scope & mechanise application
Roles of Professional Associations
 to establish formal professional progress

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

requirements,
autonomy over the terms and conditions of
practice,
a code of ethics,
a commitment to service ideals,
a monopoly over a discrete body of knowledge
and related skills.
The discipline of Project Management is still emerging
The breadth of practice of managing projects is outside the
control of professional bodies
PMI BoK structure (USA)
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Negative:
•Not based on any real
research
•Missing important
content about “front
end” topics – project
delivery
Positive:
•Detailed definitions –
constructivist
•International
acceptance
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APM BoK structure (UK)
Positive:
“Management of Projects”
Negative:
•Aspects include broader management
knowledge
•UK acceptance?
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P2M BoK structure (Japan)
Reflecting uncertainty in approaches to leadership
(Ambiguity)
Far from
No possibility of creating
direction -frozen by anxiety
or lost in chaos
Ambiguity/
Agreement
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Situational
Leadership
Visionary or
Transformational
Directive
leadership
through control,
organising, planning,
deciding, systems, etc.
Close to
(High Uncertainty)
Leadership
as an emergent
property - engaged actors
Certainty
Far from
Situational Leadership
Supportive
Behaviour
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High
Low
Supporting
Selling
Delegating
Directing
Directive Behaviour
High
Team-working vs. Uncertainty
 When do you need a real team?- after David Casey (1993)
Team mode
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Real team
needed
Co-operative mode
Co-operative
group can cope
No team
needed
Work full of
certainty
Working with
some
uncertainties
Working with
considerable
uncertainty
Tanaland – a complex problem…
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Applied actions (e.g.):
Pest control
Water pumps
Fertilization
Medical care
Measure:
Livestock
Crops
Population
Deitrich Dorner – The Logic of Failure
Recognizing and Avoiding Error
In Complex Situations,
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Tanaland – Majority Results – Catastrophic Failure!!!
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Tanaland – Rare Success
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“Tanaland” – Activity for failure
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Frequency of engagement in:
•Making Decisions for action,
•Reflecting on overall situation and
possible courses of action
•Asking Questions
Assumption that early collected
information was sufficient to
sustain action
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Tanaland – Activity for failure
Poorly performing participants:
 Acted without prior analysis of the situation
 Failed to anticipate side effects & long term
repercussions
 Assumed that absence of immediately obvious
negative effects meant needed corrective
measures
 Let over involvement in detail cause blindness to
emerging needs & changes in situation
 Prone to cynical reactions, blame others &
groupthink
Deitrich Dorner – The Logic of Failure, Recognizing and Avoiding Error In Complex Situations
Preserve view of our own competence
 Contributes significantly to shaping the direction
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and course of our thought processes
Self protection
Redirect thinking about the goal to thinking about
preserving the sense of our competence
Only act if we are at least minimally competent to
complete the task
Focus only on immediate problems - We don’t
think about problems we don’t have
Deitrich Dorner – The Logic of Failure, Recognizing and Avoiding Error In Complex Situations, p188
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Control
"in control“
Not "in control“
Streatfield p18
Streatfield p19
manager as an individual who
objectively observes
manager as participant in group
interactions
manager intentionally designs the
process
manager responds in ways invoked or
even provoked by features of the
process and the human interactions it
involves
processes are designed to be
predictable so that the manager
can deal with certainty/ the known
the processes are sometimes
unpredictable so the manager must deal
with uncertainty/the unknown
the aim is to reduce variability so
producing conformity
the aim is not simply reducing variability
because deviations are also variable
conformity is sustained through
detecting/correcting deviation
it follows that diversity may be as
important as conformity
(groupthink??? –Janis 1981)
What makes a good decision?
When do we need to
know we have made
a good decision?
Here?
Here?
Here?
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Decision
Point
Time
We need to know
we have made
a good decision
when we make it.
Or some different time?
So, how can we
make that happen?
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A decision making process
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Data:
Identify
Collect,
Analyse,
Present
Who is involved?
Stakeholders
Options and their
Consequences
Decision
Point
Time
What data do I need?
Will we achieve our
Measures of Success?
Where is it?
How can I get it?
How can I give it meaning?
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Project Planning as a System: simplified
SoR
Objectives,
Strategy,
MoS.
Network
Deliverables,
Milestones,
Assumptions
Constraints
Traceability
WBS
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Mitigation
Id.
Risks
Schedule
& Budgets
Estimates
Risks
Resource
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Project Planning as a System: simplified
SoR
WBS
Estimates
Risks
Network
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Resource
Estimates
Schedule
& Budgets
Resource
Network
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Challenges for projects in organisations

Application of project management to a range of project types with
characteristics that differ from those for which project management
practices were first developed (government funded defence/aerospace
and construction).

Extension beyond “execution-focused” project management to a wholeof-life concept of projects – from initiation, through operation to
cancellation.

Change of focus from product creation to value creation, from welldefined outputs to less tangible outcomes or benefits.

Extension of the breadth of project management to include program and
portfolio management in a broader conceptualisation of management of
projects as a strategic corporate capability.

Increasing actual and perceived complexity – for many reasons including
changing societal values; increased stakeholder involvement and
influence; more complex governance, ownership and delivery structures;
and advances in communication technology that enable global and
virtual working, and accelerate time pressures.

Integration with the business rather than isolation of projects from the
business.
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“Leadership is constantly changing, and survivors
learn to change with it.”
“Yesterday, natural resources defined power.
Today, knowledge is power. Yesterday, leaders
commanded and controlled. Today, leaders
empower and coach. Yesterday, leaders were
warriors. Today, they are facilitators. Yesterday,
managers directed. Today, managers delegate.
Yesterday, supervisors flourished. Today,
supervisors vanish.”
Dr. Denis Waitley, The Toastmaster, December 2000
Alvesson: Organisational
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 A Grand Project – organised and driven
Cultural
Change
as:
 Organic social movement – emergence,
spontaneity
 Re-framing of everyday life –
management of meaning by one or few
senior actors, incremental and informal
 “One cannot manage change, One can
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only be ahead of it”” Peter F. Drucker
 Design the future p92
Ref: Drucker, P – Management Challenges for the 21st Century
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SUCCESS IS...
satisfying one's needs
solving a problem, completing a project
positive feedback or evaluation
realization of achievement
reaching one's goals
Koberg & Bagnall, (1991) The Universal Traveller, Crisp Publications , California ISBN 1-56052-045-0
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