Last Thursday was International Project Management Day, and, along with 800 other project managers, I attended Synergy, a ‘day of celebration’ in London.

None of us really knew what to expect. It had never been billed as a traditional conference and it was held at the IndigO2, part of the O2 arena which mainly hosts concerts. There was only one track of speakers. We had allocated, theatre-style seating. It was practically impossible to see anything inside that wasn’t on the stage – it was like a nightclub, or an arthouse theatre.

We queued a long time for a cup of tea, only to find out that it cost £2.50. Most of the day ran late. HRH The Princess Royal was unable to attend. The two closing acts were comedians, Andi Osho and David Armand (he did this, amongst other songs).

It was a very strange, unexpected day, but I think that’s what they wanted to achieve. They turned the idea of a project management conference on its head. Even the ‘traditional’ speaker slots had a different feel to them – more energy and passion than a normal conference (with one exception).

Emile Faurie, Equestrian Ambassador, talked about building a team to take a jittery horse from being too jumpy to take part in a race to winning events. A whole host of people talked in short bursts about taking project management skills into schools. Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London, talked about the UK’s poor track record with civil engineering projects in his famously blunt way.

Steve Carver from Cranfield University did a demonstration of team work. He threw a ball into the audience. The person who caught it threw it on, and so on, until about 11 people had touched the ball. This took 43 seconds. Steve then asked them to do the same thing, but faster. They repeated the sequence in about 20 seconds. He said that another group who had done the same exercise had completed it in 2 seconds. Now that’s a challenge.

The people in the audience all came out to the front and stood in a line. They passed the ball down the line but they couldn’t break 4 seconds. When they stood in a circle, all poised and ready to touch the ball when it was their turn, they managed it in 2 seconds. The improvements came through understanding the rules (the requirement was to ‘touch’ not ‘hold’ or ‘pass’) and taking out the unnecessary lag time, such as having the ball in the air.

R-L: Chris Field (PMI UK Chapter President), David Hillson and Ricardo Vargas

David Hillson collected the PMI Eric Jennet Project Management Excellence Award for his work in project and risk management over the years. His award looked like it was made of chocolate, and a bit like a wizard’s hat. I’m sure he’ll find a home for it.

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Today is International Project Management Day. Project management is a series of small (and sometimes big) decisions so today I wanted to talk about that.

At work recently I had cause to question one of my decisions. I had made a decision that affected other people (as most decisions do). I communicated the decision, replanned accordingly and updated my risk log. Then I got some more information.

It wasn’t information that fundamentally made my decision wrong. However, it did make it slightly less black and white. I started to question whether I had done the right thing.

An older (and wiser) colleague told me something that made me realise I had absolutely made the right choice. “There’s no such thing as a bad decision,” he said.

That sounded rather flippant to me, so we discussed it further.

If you make a good decision, all is well.

If you make a ‘bad’ decision, you learn from it.

Say that you decide to hold negotiations with one supplier. You plan to visit their offices and attend a presentation for their services but later you realise you don’t want to use them after all. It’s too late to back out of their presentation so you maintain the meeting and attend their pitch anyway. Is that a bad decision?

Your time would be better spent in the procurement process for another vendor. However, by attending the presentation you get to learn about that vendor that you don’t want to use, which could be interesting. You get to visit some other offices. It’s always nice to nose around where someone else works – every cloud has a silver lining and all that.

Even a ‘bad’ decision stops inertia and moves things forward. You can always revise your decision later.

So, all decisions are good. Or, if you can’t subscribe to the ‘all decisions are good’ philosophy, all decisions have elements of goodness in them.

What is bad is making no decision. This leaves the project team in limbo. They don’t know what is going on or what direction they should be going in. Inertia sets in. Nothing is clear and the project cannot move forward.

Putting world politics and economic policy aside, in project management terms I’m convinced that there is no such thing as a bad decision. Today, on International Project Management Day, what decision are you going to make?

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Chris Field

Tomorrow is International Project Management Day, and the UK’s big event to celebrate is Synergy. Over 1000 project managers are due to converge on the O2 arena in London. I spoke to Chris Field, who is the UK PMI Chapter President and one of the organisers. When there is so much doom and gloom, and unemployment figures are so high, is project management a good career choice for young people? This is what he had to say.

Chris, are many young people choosing to become project managers?

I am in no doubt that lots of young people are entering the profession in some cases by design and in others by accident when their boss throws them the ball, and they have no choice but to catch! We could do a lot more to promote the profession to those considering their future. Project management is a diverse, exciting career with no end of prospects and we need to raise awareness of this at all ages, but in particular with young professionals.

You’re President of the UK Chapter of PMI. What is PMI doing to encourage young people into project management?

PMI has some exciting initiatives aimed specifically at younger people. For instance the CAPM accreditation is aimed directly at those in the early stages of their project management career hence it’s a particularly exciting qualification as it arms those entering the profession with the tools necessary to manage projects successfully.

In addition, the Project Management Institute Educational Foundation (PMIEF) also supports a number of projects that introduce even younger individuals to project management and the UK has been fortunate enough to have been awarded one of these grants which is currently funding the work we are doing in a Hampshire school to introduce children to Project Management for the first time.

I’ve written before about the work that PMIEF does in schools, but I hadn’t realised there were initiatives going on in the UK. That’s good news, both because it helps school-aged children organise themselves effectively to complete their education projects, and because it exposes them to the possibility of project management as a career choice. What about young adults?

PMI has the Global Accreditation Centre (GAC) for Project Management Education Programmes which accredits degree programmes at the bachelors, masters and doctorate levels in the field of project management that are offered within accredited institutions of higher education worldwide. This programme is a great way to engage with universities and here in the UK we plan to place much more emphasis on reaching out to students and their teachers during the course of 2012. Students are the next generation of project managers and I am very keen that they are given every opportunity to understand how rewarding a career in project management can be.

That might get you some new members! How many members under 30 does the UK Chapter have?

A recent survey suggests that approximately 20% of our members are under the age of 35 so we have some way to go in attracting the younger members of the profession.

I hope more people choose actively to pursue project management as a career, as I certainly enjoy it and think it has a lot to offer. Why do you think project management is good career choice?

I don’t know of any other a career like it. Not only does it provide the opportunity to work with a whole host of people from a variety of backgrounds but you can work across multiple-industries, even countries – particularly in the case of PMI, which is a global organisation.

As a project manager you also see some fantastic results as it’s at the heart of delivering some of the world’s most complex endeavours, be they major construction projects or the development of a major new IT system.

Thanks, Chris!

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Coffee breaks, chats and lunches can be work if you set them up to be

In my last post about project management in a matrix structure I shared 4 challenges of that environment. This week I want to talk about how we can overcome these.

This was a topic that Shilpa Arora, PMP, spoke about at a recent Women in Technology event. The 4 challenges she discussed were:

• Lack of authority
• Confusion and ambiguity for you and the team
• Feeling out of control
• Time pressures

Let’s look at each of those in turn.

Lack of authority

In a matrix structure the project manager doesn’t have authority over the team members. How do you deal with this?

“This is about talking to other people about your projects and telling them how important your projects are,” Shilpa said. Substitute authority with influence. “Coffees and lunches are work too if you set them up to be so.”

Build relationships with the people in the extended project team including suppliers and functional heads. ” It’s a lot of hard work,” she added. “Relationships don’t get built overnight.”

Use carrots like compensation and recognition to build influence for you and your project. A lot of project managers feel they can’t offer anything, but you can always try to find something. Try to negotiate overtime, especially for junior staff. Be known for sharing success and saying thanks.

And do favours. What goes around comes around – one day you’ll need a favour done yourself.

Confusion and ambiguity for you and the team

Matrixed environments often result in confusion for the team. Who do they work for? What are their priorities?

Clarify the roles and responsibilities of the project team members. Produce a terms of reference for the Project Board and get workstream leaders to write one for their workstream.

Clarify the paths for conflict resolution so that when something goes wrong (and it will) you know who to escalate to.

Invest time in stakeholder management as this will also help remove ambiguity. The more you know your stakeholders, the more you’ll be able to engage with them in ways that help them understand.

“Often as project managers we focus on issues,” Shilpa said. She said that we should invest time in project publicity and talk up our milestones. “Make sure that the last thing they remember is something you’ve achieved.”

Build relationships with other people in the company

Feeling out of control

Feel like it is all falling apart? Project managers in matrixed organisations can feel like they don’t have a handle on what is going on. You can deal with that.

First, appear confident, even if you aren’t. You can learn to control your nerves – I do it all the time when I’m speaking in public. I get very nervous but people tell me it doesn’t show (even when I fell off the stage).

“It doesn’t matter how difficult the problem is that you’re facing,” Shilpa said, “if you look out of control the team will as well.”

Second, talk. You do need the opportunity to vent in a safe environment. Get a coach or mentor, or talk to a trusted colleague. Preferably someone who understands your work situation, but not someone who works on the same project.

Third, ruthlessly prioritise. “Is the world going to stop if I don’t do this?” Shilpa asked. Only do what you absolutely have to until you are back on your feet.

Time pressures

Matrixed or not, projects are always under pressure to get things done in time. It can be worse in a matrix structure because of competing priorities and needing to hit deadlines with little management support. Here are some tips to cope.

We are good at challenging other people’s estimates, but pretty poor at doing that to our own. “If you tend to be ambitious and you know it,” Shilpa said, “add 10%.”

Ask for help. Shilpa talked about getting a secondee or a graduate student on the project, or an MBA student looking for a work placement for their dissertation. I think that there are overheads with this that might not help you in the short term, but it could be a strategy for some projects, especially if you have a chunk of work you could easily parcel up for someone.

All these strategies will help you manage in environments where a matrix structure is in place. The important thing is to not let the work situation get to you, regardless of how alien it feels.

“If project management feels hard in matrix organisations, it’s because it is,” Shilpa said. “Give yourself some credit.”

Related posts:

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Most projects operate in some kind of matrixed environment. Project managers rarely have direct line management responsibility for all, if any, of the people on the project team. So how can we best get things done when we don’t control the team?

In this article, I’ll explain what matrix management is and why it creates problems for project managers. I’ll also explain why it’s so great.

What is a matrix?

“A matrix is a type of organisational management where people of similar skills are pooled together for work assignments,” said Shilpa Arora, PMP, at a recent Women In Technology event. “There is no form of formal authority. You’re not doing compensation, or annual reviews but in the project structure the people are important to you.”

Taking resources from the matrix for a project team

Advantages of a matrix structure

Shilpa explained some of the benefits of working in a matrix structure.

• There is no burden on you to do line management tasks like pay reviews.
• There is a clear emphasis on the project’s objectives.
• You have a clear remit and so do the team members.
• Your authority over the project is clear.
• You can get the right people, not just the people who work directly for you, so the project is (should be) staffed by the best team.
• There is more debate and challenge which helps make good decisions.
• There is a better chance of seeing across the organisation and understanding the wider project implications.

Disadvantages of a matrix structure

There are some down-sides to working in a matrix.

• There is the risk of confusion for the team with a dual reporting structure, working at the same time for their line manager and also for you.
• Professional development is not given a priority due to time constraints of the project, so team members forgo opportunities to develop and improve.
• There is a longer lead time for decision making as there are more people involved in the process.
• There are higher management overheads due to a more complex resource structure.

In an organisation that is structured around project teams reporting directly to the project manager, projects can become little enclaves. There is no incentive to finish the work as that makes the whole team vulnerable to redundancy or dissolution.

“You create a lot of fiefdoms in a projectised organisation,” Shilpa said. “In matrixed organisations, you finish the project, it’s very visible. They go back to their functional pools and wait for the next project. That’s one of the reasons why senior managers love matrix structures.”

Challenges for the project manager

Matrix structures are beneficial to projects, but they are not without their challenges. Major challenges of working in a matrix include:

• Lack of authority
• Confusion and ambiguity for you and the team
• Feeling out of control
• Time pressures

Next time I’ll discuss how we can address these. In the meantime, what pros and cons do you see with working in a matrixed environment? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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