If Lao Tzu were a project manager - part 5

"The sage guides his people by putting himself last" - Tao Te Ching, chapter 7

Servant Leadership has been a popular phrase recently, but clearly it goes back a long way. In modern times, Robert Greenleaf wrote the book “The Servant as Leader” in 1970 and others like Stephen Covey, Peter Senge, and Ken Blanchard also supported the notion. However, writing from 4^th century B.C.E. India also supported the idea of the leader as servant.

So what is servant leadership? The leader first decides to serve and then leads as a way to serve. It emphasized collaboration over a hierarchical control structure. Trust is important and power should be used ethically. Since project managers don't always have hierarchical power anyway, this can be a good model to follow. You put your project team first and help them succeed, which will bring success to the project itself.

Agile or Traditional, How to Chose

Here's a link to an article I've written recently on how to decide if agile or traditional is the best approach to a project. Enjoy.

Agile Article

If Lao Tzu were a project manager - part 4

"And the sage’s greatness lies in taking no credit" - Tao Te Ching, Chapter 2

To me, this quote talks about team building. As project managers, we are leaders and as leaders we have to give serious consideration to the development of our team.

I interviewed a project manager recently that I think exemplifies this quote. We were discussing how she ran her projects and the topic turned to team development. She did a number of things to recognize her team, from financial incentives for performance to recognition on birthdays and other small things like cooking dinner for the team. She looked for opportunities, big and small; to tell her team they were important.

So what have you done today for your team? Deepak Chopra would say your gift doesn’t even have to be something material. It could be a show of appreciation, a compliment, or even a silent prayer for them. So go be a leader.

If Lao Tzu were a project manager - part 3

"So the sage only looks at what is really real. He doesn’t look at the surface." - Tao Te Ching, Chapter 38

So here I am doing a project in the Nordics. One of the topics of discussion has been on status reporting. I have seen a lot of organizations that use the red/yellow/green stoplight motif for their status reports. I have also seen project managers that figure out how to manipulate the data so that their project will appear as green until things really fall apart, at which time they go to red. Taking this approach doesn’t really help because management can’t see when things start to go wrong and when they need to step in to assist.

An effective organization will have true transparency in their reporting. When an issue surfaces, it is communicated without fear of “shooting the messenger.” There’s not a focus on who’s to blame, but on how to fix things. Without this type of open communications, status reports aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

Another day, another country

I'm on the road again, this time to Copenhagen. My project involves assessing how well projects are being run in the Nordics region for my client. I'll be interacting with folks from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland.

The cultural side of this project will be interesting. Although my client has grouped all these countries together to run as a region, they are each unique. It gets back to the discussion about the world being flat or not. To what degree do you have to consider culture when working across multiple countries, even when they are close together?

If Lao Tzu were a project manager - part 2

"Everything must have its roots, and the tendrils work quietly underground." - Tao Te Ching, Chapter 16.

Plants can't survive without roots. Likewise, a project can't survive without a plan. There may be varying levels of planning, but without a plan the project will wither up and die.

So what is the right level of planning? It is really based on the project. If you are working in a stable environment and have a good idea of what your requirements are, you can put together a pretty detailed plan. If you have a lot of uncertainty, you are better off starting with a high level plan and working out the details through an iterative approach.

Regardless of the approach, you should still plan out how long the project is going to take. Timeboxing works well in uncertain conditions. You determine when you're going to finish and you get as much done in that amount of time. If you prioritize the work, you know you'll get the important stuff done.

If Lao Tzu were a project manager - part 1

I did a presentation a while back with a colleague where we compared the leadership styles of Lao Tzu and Sun Tzu. I was thinking about that presentation recently and came up with the idea of doing a series on what Lao Tzu would do if he were a project manager. So here’s the first of the series, starting with project initiation and the project vision.

“If the sage governs with vision then his people will not go wrong.” – Tao Te Ching, Chapter 3

During my recent presentation at the PMI Conference, I talked about how important the vision was in agile projects. In reality, it is important for all projects. A good vision will help the project manager and team make good decisions down the road. The vision should be developed during initiation and captured in the project charter.

Is the project manager responsible for the vision? To some degree, yes. Ideally, the project owner should be the one with the vision. However, the project manager should challenge the project owner to ensure the vision is good.

So what is a good vision? It should give the project team a picture of the end state. It should provide motivation. It should come to their rescue during project conflict.

I recall one project I managed where the vision was good. We were building a computer-based product catalog (before the days of the web). The owner gave us the general features he wanted but he also had a vision of a product that would “wow” the customer when they installed it, something that would look really cool. That vision shaped the project. The team got excited to show off new ideas. When we were at decision points, we thought about which choice better supported the vision. Having a good vision drove us to a successful project.

So what’s the vision of your project? Does the team know it? Is it working to guide your project? If not, maybe you need to talk to your project owner.