Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Agility Means Different Things to Different People

According to Forrester analyst Craig Le Clair, business agility is the quality that allows an enterprise to embrace market and operational changes as a matter of routine. This is the attribute that enables companies to thrive amidst uncertainty. Unfortunately, most companies have apparently not accepted this broad view. When Forrester reviewed the elements of agility with its CIO and CMO clients, the firm found that while the issue of agile performance was critical, CIOs and CMOs did not agree on what it meant in practice.

To clear up some of the confusion, over the last several years, Le Clair has refined his 10 dimensions of agility and divided them into three major categories: market (channel integration, market responsiveness), organization (knowledge dissemination, digital psychology, and change management, and process (business intelligence, infrastructure elasticity, process architecture, and sourcing and supply chain). Let’s look at each dimension a bit more closely.

Market

• Channel Integration: Information sharing and cross-channel experiences
• Market Responsiveness: Customer knowledge and rapid access to resources

Organization

• Knowledge Dissemination: Broader sharing, flatter organizations
• Digital Psychology: Trend awareness and digital skillsets
• Change Management: Embracing change and embedded change management

Process

• Business Intelligence: Information management and distributed analytics
• Infrastructure Elasticity: Cloud awareness and embrace of cloud options
• Process Architecture: Process skills and core systems independence
• Software Innovation: Real-time experience and incremental development
• Sourcing and Supply Chain: Agile sourcing process and supply chain flexing skills

For more of Le Clair's ideas, head over to the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

Agile Businesses Are Successful Businesses

Everyone has heard the fable about the tortoise and the hare. Conventional wisdom says that slow and steady wins the race. A strategy may not be perfect, but if one executes it patiently and consistently, it may outperform better initiatives that don’t get the benefit of time.

However, in today’s rapidly changing business world, an agile business is a successful business. So how do you reconcile these two truths? How do you know when the best thing for the project  is to change the plan, and how can you execute and communicate changes without destroying team motivation and momentum?

Business Agility Insight #1: Create and Challenge Assumptions

Any major strategic initiative should involve the upfront establishment of goals, milestones, and success metrics. But, as Tim Berry pointed out in his article for the Small Business Administration website, assumptions should also be considered in your initial planning. “Tracking your results, you want to be able to compare them to what you had planned or expected to see,” he said.

“Get your team members together once a month to review your plan and its results. “Take a hard look at your underlying assumptions and assess whether or not they’ve changed. If they have, there’s no virtue whatsoever in sticking to the plan you built on top of them.”

Berry suggested you look at the difference between what you planned and what actually happened. Some results will be better than planned, and some will be worse. “For each key difference you discover, and all of them combined, use your best judgment to determine whether the differences were caused by false expectations or unexpected good or bad execution.”

“Also, consider external and internal factors that may have influenced the results. Maybe your expectations were too conservative, or too optimistic. In that case, you revise your plan,” he said.

Common sense, remarked Berry, is critical.  Although the project may be close to your heart, you want to remain pragmatic: for example, asking yourself if you were you wrong about the whole thing, or just about the timing? You also want to consider if something else has occurred in the market to change your assumptions.

In any case, said Berry, maybe you discover that you and your team have executed better than expected, or results were better than expected. “Hooray. Stick to the plan. It’s working,” he advised. “And maybe you discover that your execution was wrong, poor, or flawed. If that’s the case, change the plan.”

For more business agility insights, check out the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

How to Prevent Business Tech Overload

Technology for technology's sake can hurt. We are so inundated with new solutions that it's difficult to assess what's truly important. I discussed this issue with Amber Anderson, CEO of organizational advisory firm Kayson in Phoenix; Rebecca Devaney, CEO of Hunter Creative Labs, a pro-social product development lab in Boston; and Thomas Smale, co-founder of online business brokerage FE International in London.

What business technology do you need to run a successful company?

Amber Anderson: It totally depends on the business. Every business is different, and the technology that you need to run YOUR business successfully depends on a variety of factors including what your business does, your team's capacity, your budget and your goals. 

But for the most part, you'll find all businesses nowadays should be using email, cloud storage, and a well-designed, easy-to-navigate, mobile-friendly and -functional website. Also, you need a list and email marketing tool, as well as a bookkeeping [and] accounting system.

Rebecca Devaney: In addition to the obvious needs such as computers and hardware, there should be software systems in place to address casual project conversations, such as Slack, and project management systems, such as Project, Wrike, Basecamp or Zoho Projects. 

The PM software you choose depends on a few things, including time-tracking and task dependencies. In addition, you will need bookkeeping software, such as Botkeeper or Quickbooks, and then a shared file service such as Dropbox or Google Drive. No document should ever live on a staff member's desk.

Thomas Smale: A good portable laptop and smartphone are essential to keeping up on the go. I always carry a portable charger to ensure that I don't have battery issues. 

Tell me about a business technology you've employed for your business that hasn't been worth the time, money and energy. 

Smale: We tried to make everyone have a smartphone, tablet, laptop and desktop PC. We found that some people preferred using two or three devices and almost no one used all of them. 

Individually, each can be incredibly useful, but when you have them all, the benefits are mitigated. If your people work in an office with permanent desks, get them PCs with dual monitors and a smartphone. That's really all that most will need.

Devaney: Several years ago, we built a 16 terabyte, fiber-optic storage system to produce and share videos. It was great, except that there were about three people in the world who could fix the system. It broke all the time, and we couldn't upgrade our computers or add any new software to it. It would have been better to pass hard drives around old school!

Anderson: In the beginning stages of my business, we implemented a customer relationship management (CRM) system. The system was complicated and expensive, and we weren't ready. We didn't have the team in place to manage it, nor the processes to make it useful. CRMs and other automated systems are amazing, but only when implemented at the right time and the right place.

For the rest of the interview, head over to the AMEX Open Forum.

The Project Management Industry Just Got a Facelift

In a 2016 Fast Track piece, I covered a disconcerting study conducted by The Project Management Institute (PMI). The research illustrated that organizations around the world waste an average of $122 million for every $1 billion spent on projects as a result of poor project management practices.

Called Pulse of the Profession®: The High Cost of Low Performance study, the study indicated that the amount of waste had increased 12 percent over the prior year. Featuring insights from nearly 2,500 project managers, nearly 200 senior executives, and nearly 300 Project Management Office (PMO) directors from a range of industries, Pulse of the Profession was one of the only studies to look at project management trends globally.

Despite the fact that of the industries included in the study, government agencies had the lowest average monetary waste on spending projects ($108 per $1 billion spent, financial services was much higher), the feds were the first to take action.

On His Way Out, Obama Saved Project Management

Without getting overly political, I feel that Obama did a lot of good for our country, and especially for the field of project management. Allow me to explain. Before he turned the reins over to Trump, Obama signed bill S.155, or the Program Management Improvement and Accountability Act (PMIAA).

The PMIAA requires the implementation of established project management strategies to create a more consistent, efficient and effective federal government, as well as the carrying out of policies to correct widespread inefficiencies.

Obama got this done with relatively little fanfare, mostly because unlike much of his proposed legislation, the PMIAA received substantial bipartisan support. “We are thrilled that this significant piece of legislation has been signed into law by President Barack Obama. PMIAA will help maximize efficiency within the US federal government, thereby generating more successful program outcomes and increasing the value that Americans receive for their tax dollars,” said PMI President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Langley in a press release.

Implementation of the new law will be overseen by the Deputy Director for Management of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The legislation mandates that federal agencies work together and consult with private sector organizations to determine the best project management practices. It’s a sweeping law, meaning that all areas of government fall under its umbrella with the notable exception of the Department of Defense.

All Bases Will Be Covered

The specifics are even more intriguing. According to Moira Alexander at CIO, any government agency that is required to have a CFO is mandated to appoint a Program Management Improvement Officer. This officer is responsible for developing a five-year strategy to improve program manager roles within the agency, as well as implementing all associated policies and reporting on progress. In addition, a Program Management Policy Council within OMB is expected to be established for the purpose of improving program and project management practices.

The Office of Personnel Management will be involved too. This group will ensure that the government as a whole ups its PM game. It will regulate PM competencies, develop a new program and project manager job series, update existing PM jobs, and identify new PM-related career paths.

As an additional safeguard of accountability, within three years of the law passing, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) will issue a report documenting the effectiveness of the new initiatives – including strategic plans, policies, and guidelines – and the performance of the Program Management Improvement Officers and the Program Management Policy Council.

There’s little doubt that PMIAA is a boon for the project management profession. “Passing this law opens up opportunities not only within the government setting, but it also amplifies and elevates the profession as a whole,” wrote Alexander in CIO. “PMIAA creates an increased awareness of the need for certified experienced PM professionals across America. It shines a spotlight on the imperative role PM professionals play in government and the private sector especially as it relates to accountability, efficiencies, and strategic value.”

For more, head over to the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

Project Management: What's Hot for 2017

The Project Management profession is evolving. Just this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics gave project management its own occupational category, a major sign that Project Managers are more important players than ever.

Here, we feature some of the most intriguing Project Management developments heading into 2017, including 3D and virtual reality PM, crowdsourcing, corporate social responsibility, big data, and the rise of DevOps.

 Trend #1: 3D Printing and Virtual Reality

Many projects today take place in the cloud and via distributed teams, which can make it difficult for team members to feel fully immersed in their work experiences. Virtual reality and 3D printing technology reinvigorate the project lifecycle so that tasks and collaboration efforts resonate more strongly.

dFakto is a small 45-person startup in Brussels, Belgium that has brought both VR and 3D into the field of program and project management, mainly for large enterprises like banks. As dFakto CEO Thibaut de Vylder said in a recent Forbes article: “We created a UX experience in project management that allows people to update their project status in 30 seconds or less each month just by focusing on what’s most important.”

The virtual reality experience provides full immersion with an app that allows Project Managers to see progress charts in a personal theatre style. Focus your eyes on a particular chart, and it grows. You can dive into elaborations the same way. The 3D printing component, similarly, facilitates the sense of touch. It creates something you can put on your desk, unlike a digital report that you can’t see once you close it.

Trend #2: Crowdsourcing

 According to a recent article on Raconteur, more project managers are taking advantage of new software programs to coordinate contributions from various sources. Wazoku Idea Spotlight is one software-as-a-service tool that allows organizations to create a central hub for ideas, innovation, and feedback. Users include Aviva, Oxford University and Waitrose, a UK-based supermarket that leverages Wazoku to capture ideas from its 60,000 employees.

“The success of our Partner Ideas scheme goes to show that sometimes the truly great innovations can be as simple as making small changes to the tasks you do every day, rather than the big ideas which transform everything,” said Stuart Eames, operational improvement manager at Waitrose. “By engaging our partners with the right platform and process, we’ve managed to achieve significant productivity and financial savings.”

For the rest of the post, head over to the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

What Does Digital Transformation Mean to You?

Digital transformation is a transformation because it affects everyone within the organization from the c-suite on down. But at this point in time, is it more of a theory – something that organizations aspire to – or a reality? A group of recent studies provide insight into the degree to which non-IT employees desire and are helping to move the needle.

Age Discrepancies Are Real

To start, Capgemini Consulting conducted a 2016 joint research study with the MIT Center for Digital Business. The partners interviewed over 150 executives across a broad range of industry sectors and geographies. Not surprisingly, the research found that younger workers today have greater familiarity with digital tools and ways of working than their more tenured counterparts.

The Capgemini consulting executives highlighted a growing gap between older and younger workers in their expectations and work habits around technology. Where older employees face a learning curve, millennial workers are often underwhelmed by the digital tools available to them.

One executive commented: “these people coming into the company, mid 20s, late 20s, even early 30s, they do everything electronically.  They say:  ‘Come on, I know the company is over 100 years old, but our information and IT capabilities don’t have to match the age of the company!’”

Along the same lines, according to the Dell Future Workforce Study, which was conducted in 2016 by Penn Schoen Berland, nearly half of American millennials (42 percent) said they’d likely quit a job if workplace tech didn’t meet their standards – nearly 4X as many as baby boomers (14 percent). Eighty-one percent of millennials reported the technology available influences their decision to take a new position compared to 53 percent of baby boomers.

Sixty-two percent of millennials said remote teams and better communication technology will make face to face communication obsolete compared to 48 percent of Gen X-ers and 32 percent of baby boomers. And nearly 3 in 4 American millennials (72 percent) said it’s likely they will be working in a smart office using the Internet of Things in the next five years – compared to 52 percent of Gen X-ers and 35 percent of baby boomers. Finally, 68 percent of millennial workers anticipated using AR/VR products in their professional life (compared to 55 percent of Gen X-ers and 42 percent of baby boomers), and 70 percent of millennial workers agreed that their jobs could be made easier with the assistance of AI (compared to 49 percent of Gen X-ers and 34 percent of baby boomers).

Adoption Remains A Barrier

Some of the executives Capgemini Consulting and MIT interviewed reported success in using platforms such as enterprise social networks or collaboration tools, but others highlighted challenges. Given the investment made in these systems, lack of adoption is a serious concern. One respondent stated: “We’ve spent an awful lot of money on technology, but I still see people working in the old way.”

On the user side, executives reported a lack of understanding and unclear business value as major issues. A leader in the food service industry explained: “I think people are apprehensive about new technologies. They don’t understand them and there is a fear of the unknown. They don’t fully understand how they’re going to drive business outcomes.”

Many of Capgemini’s respondents recognized that new digital tools, automation of business processes, and an increasing role of data in decision-making can increase transparency in an organization. But, as conversations move online and information is more freely available, they also witnessed resistance from management employees.

Managers may view these trends as a threat to their autonomy or influence. Explaining sales managers’ reactions to the introduction of a real-time reporting platform, one Capgemini executive commented: “That kind of transparency, they’re not used to, so there’s an initial push back.”

For the rest of the post, head over to the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

The Future of Project Management with Moira Alexander

Project management thought leader Moira Alexander chats exclusively with The Fast Track about issues such as the difference between Project Management and change management, the unique requirements of remote project management, and the most effective use of software tools to complete project management and non-PM related tasks.

Moira Alexander is the founder and president of Lead-Her-Ship Group, as well as a project management and IT columnist for CIO Magazine whom I’ve often admired and cited. Her book Lead or Lag: Linking Strategic Project Management & Thought Leadership was just released this month. Here, Moira sounded off on some of our burning questions related to the field of Project Management in late 2016.

What’s new and different about the field of project management this year?

Project Management (PM) is a field driven by business strategy and it’s under increasing pressure to not only execute project specific requirements, but also provide evidence it can effectively link efforts back to higher-level company-wide, and even industry based goals. This makes it necessary for project, portfolio, and program leaders to take on the role of a true partner with company leadership in this regard.

There’s also a continued trend towards a higher degree of global visibility that’s creating an environment where transparency, accountability, and social responsibility are significant factors in measuring project, portfolio, and program success.

This year and well into the future, I believe successful delivery will mean project professionals will need to sharpen their technical knowledge, adopt hybrid methodologies with increasing frequency, and greatly expand on their softer skills to influence positive results.

What are some key differences between project management and change management?

Although project management and change management share a closely linked relationship, they are completely different disciplines with distinct roles and responsibilities. You could also think of change management as a subset of Project Management.

The role of project management: Project Management involves the actions and activities required in the actual implementation of a product or service.

Project management professionals manage all project specific activities from initiation to close, and ensure stakeholder goals are successfully accomplished. They facilitate project meetings, maintain communication with all stakeholders, and ensure projects remain within scope. Project managers should work with the company leadership to ensure there’s alignment with business strategies and help to mitigate risks. Ultimately, Project Manager focus is project specific activities that enable a company’s vision.

The role of change management: Change management monitors and manages only the impact of changes that result from organizational and project management activities. It involves the implementation of strategies to deal with change (sustainability aspects).

A Change Management professional guides, communicates, documents, and implements effective strategies to manage change. They help company leadership, employees, and other stakeholders through the transition as changes occur, and improve process adoption and buy-in to reduce anxiety and resistance. The primary focus should be the impact of change on people and processes.

For the rest of Moira's interview, head over to the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

Disruption 101: How to Ignite Change in Your Company

As a general rule, human beings fear change and will often fight to maintain the status quo. If there are individuals within your organization who are either not interested or downright hostile toward a focus on disruptive scenarios, there are several steps you can take to bring them into the fold.

Open a dialogue

Before you attempt to persuade colleagues to jump right into a specific initiative, provide a safe space to discuss disruption in general. Organizational change consultant David Hofstetter suggested posing questions such as: Where and how could disruption impact your business? How will your skills and those of your employees be impacted? Are you embracing change, shying away from it, or ignoring it? What are your competitors doing that you are not? What the newest trends in your industry?

Attend forward-thinking industry events

The sessions and conversations you and your colleagues will have at conferences centered on innovation will take your thinking to another level. Encourage your colleagues and employees to see for themselves what disruption means and what it can do for growth and profit. Appropriate events may vary by industry, but some good ones are Tech Crunch Disrupt, World Business Forum, and Fortune Growth Summit.

Hire an outsider

Sometimes, an internal person can repeat the same message dozens of times, but no one really hears it until it comes from the mouth of an external consultant who is perceived as an expert. When it comes to embracing disruption, you might make greater headway by bringing on a single or team of advisers who can offer an objective picture of your organization’s status compared to the larger market, and can provide direction and next steps.

Conduct periodic market disruptor analyses

Often, disruptive innovations (<<interview with Guy Kawasaki) are considered far away, irrelevant, and optional. There is no better way to make a case to in-denial executives than to regularly monitor and explain how disruptive competitors are threatening your business TODAY. “As the barriers to entry in businesses get lower and easier, competitors and new ways of doing things will appear fast and more often,” said Hofstetter.

Change your tone to one of urgency

As I mentioned before, human beings prefer to support existing ways of doing things. For this reason, companies tend to be conservative, reactive, and focused on immediate business fires rather than the ones that threaten to burn from miles away. Use the data from your market disruptor analyses to connect the dots for your leaders – why is disruptive change something that requires attention this instant? Speaking in terms of lost profit or customers is more likely to resonate with some leaders than “we should really try this new thing.”

Fight the temptation to be insular

While being laser focused on your own daily operations is more comfortable, putting on blinders is dangerous in a business world that changes rapidly. Therefore, you should make sure that your company has a pipeline to receive guidance from a variety of sources. For instance, an advisory council that taps people in different roles in different fields will provide a fresh perspective that is impossible to get otherwise. When it comes to understanding where your market is going, often you can take cues from other industries that are a year or two ahead of yours.

For more where this came from, check out the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

Want to Improve Your Organization? Beware These Pitfalls

Joseph Drasin is the director of University Process Innovation, Division of Information Technology, at the University of Maryland. In a recent article for Educause, Drasin described his dealings with the university department known for being inefficient and difficult to work with. “Their processes were perceived as cumbersome, costly, frustrating, and antithetical to their stated objectives,” said Drasin. “Several IT systems had been purchased and implemented to address these issues, which actually exacerbated the problems.”

Drasin and his team worked with the department in question to develop an overarching process that improved service and reduced administrative costs. After ensuring that all practices were consistent, aligned, and adding value, the group was able to implement a complementary technology solution.

Reflecting on the redesign process, Drasin shared words of wisdom that likely apply to most readers here. “When an organization buys a shiny new piece of technology and then tries to implement it without first having looked hard at its own processes and people, the vast majority of the time, the project doesn’t live up to expectations,” he said. “Even when successful, too many times the new technology looks a lot like the prior technology in terms of how it works.”

Drasin went on to share process excellence lessons from his journey, some of which were inspired by Alec Sharp, the author of Workflow Modeling: Tools for Process Improvement and Application Development. I’ve cited several of them here and also included some additional gems from Velaction blog author Jeff Hajek.

Issue 1: Getting ahead of yourself

“It is easy to let the conversation go straight to the details before describing the environmental context and determining what the individual processes are and how they relate to one another,” said Drasin. “Everyone needs to be on the same page contextually, and you’ll need to emphasize the importance of discussion — or the project can derail quickly.”

Issue 2: Decisions by consensus

“You should never vote on a process or other business decision,” said Hajek. “Those should be grounded in facts, not popular opinion. If there are two competing choices, decide on the criteria you will measure them by, but let the options go head-to-head against each other on their own merit.”

Issue 3: Placing stock in the law of averages

“It is very uncommon for averages to help you improve processes,” explained Hajek. “For instance, the average ship time compared to your target time tells you very little about on-time delivery. The average size of the component may make it look like a part is in tolerance when in reality it has a high defect rate. Make sure you have some way of looking at the spread of your results rather than just the average.”

Issue 4: All hail the artifacts

Drasin described physical deliverables like diagrams and flowcharts as artifacts. Problems occur when teams focus on artifacts to the exclusion of the processes and conversations that build them. “If the tools themselves held the value, you could simply borrow flowcharts from a similar organization and implement them. But developing artifacts alone, without the necessary context and commitment, rarely results in effective recommendations,” Drasin said.

For more where this came from, have a look at the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

The Rise of the Chief Project Officer Role

The Project Management Institute recently commented that organizations are, in increasing numbers, seeing added value from appointing chief project officers.

According to Rebecca Langdon’s piece on Morgan International’s supply chain blog, the chief project officer (CPO) is responsible for providing governance over an organization’s internal projects. Specifically, he/she:

• Ensures every project supports the right business goals
• Links all projects to business strategies
• Drives efficiencies and linkages between projects
• Manages resource requirements across the project portfolio
• Ensures that every project as an effective project manager
• Implements and oversees implementation of a project management methodology

Chief project officers, which are more common in some industries than others, are sometimes seen as preferable to project management offices because project management offices may not have board-level influence and therefore can’t accomplish their strategic priorities.

Langdon pointed out that chief project officers are in the ideal position to raise the profile of the project portfolio, and to demonstrate the importance of projects to business development and maturity. “The CPO can also ensure that projects are resourced effectively. In organizations in which there is no chief project officer representing the needs of projects, projects might suffer for resources compared with other functions that shout louder,” she said. “A CPO is also a cost-effective option than a full-scale PMO.”

The logical next step in project management’s evolution

The idea of a chief project officer is not entirely a new one. Back in 2014, Andy Jordan, president of the Canadian-based consulting firm Roffensian, made a case for it on ProjectManagement.com.

Jordan explained why having a project management office and rolling project portfolio management (PPM) into it doesn’t go quite far enough. “At best, the PMO is a subset of the accountabilities of a CIO or COO, and the focus and objectives of those functions reflect that. Sooner or later, that is going to send the message that PPM is not a top organizational priority, which in turn results in a loss of focus and a degradation of performance,” he said.

“By creating an executive role responsible for project execution, an organization sends a very strong message. It is a visible commitment to the importance of portfolio management as a tool to deliver corporate results, and ensures that there will always be a focus on not just delivering those benefits this year, but also on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the process going forward.”

When project management is elevated to this level of importance, it can no longer be viewed as optional by other business functions that may have their own processes. A chief project officer, said Jordan, makes it easier to manage initiatives in a multitude of departments, reduces the organization’s risk exposure, and drives lower costs, better results and a more engaged employee base.

For more, read the rest of the piece at the QuickBase Fast Track blog.