Harold Kerzner

Innovation Project Management

By Harold Kerzner, Ph.D. | Senior Executive Director, International Institute for Learning (IIL)

We are excited to bring you this blog post on Innovation Project Management, which is adapted from Dr. Harold Kerzner’s new book of the same title. Below, he explains why this topic is so important, the types of challenges that innovation project managers face, and much more. Get your copy today! Use code KERZNERBLOG for $20 off. Order on the IIL website.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) has recently celebrated 50 years of providing the world with project management competencies. In the early years, a large portion of the competencies were established to support the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) requirements placed upon their contractors. Most of these projects were engineering oriented and headed up by project managers with engineering backgrounds. Project sponsors were assigned to make many of the business-related decisions whereas project managers focused heavily upon the technical decisions. In many instances, contractors were opposed to the acceptance of project management practices. They would accept them after the DoD made project management a requirement to be awarded a contract.

As seen by the contractors, the bulk of the contracts were traditional or operational activities with well-defined statements of work, minimal risks, and an agreed upon budget and schedule. Executives placed limited trust in the hands of the project managers for fear that project managers may end up making decisions that were reserved for the senior levels of management. To limit the decisions that project managers could make, senior management created a singular project management approach (a one-size-fits-all methodology) that all PMs had to follow. The singular methodology was based upon rigid policies and procedures. The evaluation of project management performance was based upon how well the PMs followed the methodology. In many companies, project management was not seen as a career path slot but was instead treated as a part-time activity one had to perform in addition to one’s normal duties.

Projects related to strategic planning or strategy development were placed in the hands of functional managers because executives trusted the functional managers more so than they trusted the project managers. Functional managers were given the freedom to use whatever approaches they wish on the strategic projects and most frequently did not follow traditional project management guidelines.

By the turn of the century, companies began to reevaluate whether functional managers were the right people to manage strategic projects, especially those involving innovation. The critical issue was with bonuses. Functional managers were receiving year-end bonuses based upon the firm’s profitability over a 12-month period. As such, functional managers were using their best resources on the short-term projects that would maximize their year-end bonuses and the long-term strategic projects that would provide the firm with a sustainable competitive advantage began to suffer due to staffing deficiencies. Short-term profits became more important than long-term growth.

Competitive factors were now forcing companies to realize that survival was predicated upon growth and innovation was a critical component. All companies desire growth. But without some innovations, the opportunities may be limited. And even if the firm does have a few successful innovations, failure can still occur if the company focuses on past successes without developing a culture for continuous and sustainable innovations. Today’s industry leaders can become tomorrow’s failures without constantly challenging results.

Recognizing the need for some changes in the way that strategic projects, especially those involving innovation, were being managed, the focus naturally turned to project management applications. But there was the critical issue as to whether the core competencies used by PMs for the management of traditional or operational projects would be applicable to innovation projects. Competencies for managing traditional or operational projects are reasonably well-defined in documents such as PMI’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK^®Guide) and IPMA’s Competency Baseline, Version 3.0. However, for innovation projects, there is no universal agreement on the content of the competencies. Many of the traditional project management competencies are also components of innovation project management competencies, but there are others related to the types of decisions that must be made based upon the company’s core competencies for managing operational work and the type of innovation project at hand.

Over the past two decades, there has been a great deal of literature published on innovation and innovation management. Converting a creative idea into reality requires projects and some form of project management. Unfortunately, innovation projects may not be able to be managed using the traditional project management philosophy we teach in our project management courses. Innovation varies from industry to industry and even companies within the same industry cannot come to an agreement on how innovation management should work. This is the reason why project management and innovation are often not discussed in the same sentence.

Some of the challenges facing innovation project managers include:

Inability to predict exactly when an innovation will occur
Inability to identify what the cost of innovation will be
Inability to predict how the enterprise environmental factors will change over the life of the project
Working with just an idea or goal rather than a formal statement of work
Working with strategic/business objectives rather than operational/traditional objectives
Inability to predict changes in consumer tastes, needs and behaviors
Inability to deal with extremely high levels of risk, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity and variability
Having to use a new flexible methodology or framework based upon investment life cycle phases rather than traditional waterfall life cycle phases
A focus on metrics related to business benefits and value rather than the traditional time, cost and scope metrics

There are many more challenges that could have been included in this list, but it does show that what we traditionally teach as competencies in our project management courses must be revised when considering innovation projects.

Competencies are the roles, knowledge, skills, personal characteristics and attributes that someone must have to fulfill a position. Most companies, especially large firms, have operational core competencies used by PMs when managing traditional projects that are burdened with formal procedures that often make it difficult to react quickly to take advantage of opportunities that can lead to a sustainable competitive advantage. These companies are generally risk averse and perform as market followers rather than leaders.

If a company wants an entrepreneurial environment, then there must exist some degree of autonomy and flexibility in the operational core competencies that impact innovation activities for both product and process improvements. Typical core competencies for an entrepreneurial environment include:

Inventiveness
Understanding business strategy
Understanding value propositions
Having a business orientation
Having knowledge about markets and customer behavior
Working with high degrees of risk, uncertainty and complexity
Managing diverse cross-functional teams
Team building skills
Coordination and control over activities
Design thinking
Emotional intelligence
Brainstorming
Rapid prototype development
Innovation leadership

Some of these competencies may apply to both innovation and traditional projects. Competencies can vary from company to company in the way that the characteristics of the competencies are integrated together and the relationship to the firm’s business model. Competencies are also dependent on the type of projects and corporate leadership.

Unlike traditional leadership, innovation leadership must include allowing for autonomy accompanied by the acceptance and support of risky ventures often in reaction to technological changes in the marketplace. Autonomy is usually measured by the speed by which the firm’s cross-functional activities are integrated to take advantage of opportunities for delivering innovative products. For entrepreneurship to work, there must be a corporate culture that supports risk-taking and experimentation without fear of reprisal if the results are not what was expected.

The success of an innovation corporate culture is measured by:

The number of new products created
The number of new products created that were first to market
The speed by which commercialization took place

If continuous and sustainable innovation is to occur, then innovation leadership and traditional project management must be married together and with a clear understanding of each other’s roles. Innovation defines what we would like to do, and project management determines if it can be done. The marriage also may require that both parties learn new skills and create a corporate culture that supports idea management practices.

Understanding each other’s roles is the first step in making a company more innovative. This requires that the project managers and other innovation personnel understand what they do not do now but must do for long-term successful innovation. This also includes understanding the interfacing with marketing personnel and customers.

Innovation project management is now a strategic competency necessary for the growth, and possibly survival, of the firm. Properly trained innovation project managers can be expected to make presentations to those people that reside on the top floor of the building as well as members of the board of directors.

The Innovation Project Management book was written with the intent of providing project personnel with the additional competencies needed to manage innovation projects. The book also discusses the corporate governance needed to create the appropriate culture for innovation to occur.

Get your copy today! Use code KERZNERBLOG for $20 off. Order on the IIL website.

The book is broken down as follows:

Chapter 1: Discusses why innovation and project management are often not discussed together and some of the links that are needed to bridge innovation, project management and business strategy.
Chapter 2: Discusses the different types of innovation. This is essential because each type of innovation may require a different form of project management.
Chapter 3: Discusses how business strategy may determine the type of innovation required and links together project management with the different types of innovation.
Chapter 4: Discusses the new tools that traditional project managers need to learn in order to manage innovation projects. Many of these tools are not discussed in traditional project management programs.
Chapter 5: Discusses why some of the processes used in traditional project management activities may not work within innovation projects without some degree of modification.
Chapter 6: Discusses the growth in innovation management software that project managers are now using in the front end of projects for idea management, alternative analyses and decision making.
Chapter 7: Discusses the new metrics, such as benefits realization and value metrics, that project managers and innovation personnel are using for the monitoring and controlling of innovation projects.
Chapter 8: Discusses innovations related to business models rather than products and services.
Chapter 9: Discussed how disruptive innovation requirements may need a completely new form of project management and the need to interface closely with the consumer marketplace.
Chapter 10: Discusses the roadblocks affecting the working relationship between project management and innovation.
Chapter 11: Discusses how some projects, including innovation activities, have degrees of success and failure rather than complete success and failure as defined by the triple constraints.
Chapter 12: Discusses the innovation culture that several companies have developed as well as the functional units they created to support innovation creation.
Chapter 13: Case studies that discuss issues with innovation.

About the Author
Harold Kerzner is Senior Executive Director with International Institute for Learning (IIL). He has an MS and Ph.D. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from the University of Illinois and an MBA from Utah State University. He is a prior Air Force Officer and spent several years at Morton-Thiokol in project management. He taught engineering at the University of Illinois and business administration at Utah State University, and for 38 years taught project management at Baldwin-Wallace University.

He has published or presented numerous engineering and business papers in addition to more than 80 college textbooks/workbooks on project management, including later editions. His latest book is Innovation Project Management: Methods, Case Studies and Tools for Managing Innovation Projects (Wiley, 2019).

Contact IIL to find out how we can support your individual, team, or organizational Learning & Development needs in 2020 and beyond. Email learning@iil.com, call +1-212-758-0177 or request a free consultation on our website.

PMBOK is a registered mark of Project Management Institute, Inc.

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Dr. Harold Kerzner's Project Management Predictions for 2020

By Harold Kerzner, Ph.D. | Senior Executive Director, International Institute for Learning (IIL)

The landscape for project management changes almost every year. Some changes are relatively small or incremental, whereas other changes can be significant. Major changes to project management will occur in 2020 due to much of the new material that the Project Management Institute (PMI) has published and will be testing on in the new version of the Project Management Professional (PMP)^® exam beginning in June 2020.

Most of the critical changes that I see happening in 2020 can be clustered into the six pillars of project management. These six pillars could very well change the face of project management for at least a decade rather than just for 2020.

Pillar #1: Project managers will be expected to manage strategic projects rather than just traditional or operational projects.

For several decades, project managers were only responsible for traditional or operational projects that:

Had a well-defined statement of work
Used the traditional “waterfall” methodology that was often based upon a one-size-fits-all approach
Relied upon earned value status reporting that focused mainly upon the time, cost and scope constraints

Strategic projects were assigned to functional managers whom executives trusted more than project managers. Functional managers were permitted to use whatever approaches they believed would work on their projects, and often without any of the processes, tools or techniques used in traditional project management practices.

Today, more and more companies believe that they are managing their business as though it is a series of projects. As executives begin to recognize the benefits of utilizing effective project management practices, and more trust is placed in the hands of the project managers, project managers are being asked to manage strategic projects as well as traditional or operational projects.

But as will be seen in some of the pillars that follow, many new techniques are accompanied by significant changes in the way that work is executed, e.g. new methodologies, new status reporting processes and new tools and techniques. Strategic projects (such as those involving innovation, R&D and entrepreneurship) may require different skills, a greater understanding of risk management (especially business risk management), and the use business metrics in addition to the traditional time, cost and scope metrics.

Pillar #2: Project management is now recognized as a strategic competency rather than just another career path position.

In Pillar #1, it was stated that project managers are now managing strategic as well as operational or traditional projects. Executive management now appears to recognize and appreciate the contributions that the PMs are making to the growth of the business.

Many companies will conduct a study every year or two to identify the four or five strategic career paths that must be cultivated in the company so that the growth of the firm is sustainable. Project management makes the short list of these four or five career path slots. As such, project management is now treated as a “strategic competency” rather just another career path position for the workers.

How do we know this? Partly, by considering the fact that many project managers now present and report project status to senior management. Historically, PMs conducted briefings for the project sponsors, and only occasionally for senior management. Now, with the responsibility to manage strategic projects that may impact the future of the firm, project managers may be conducting briefings for all senior management and even the board of directors.

Pillar #3: There will be a significant change in the skill set that some project managers may need.

When there exists some commonality among the projects in a firm such that a one-size-fits-all approach can be used during project execution, the skill set for the project managers may be known with some degree of certainty. But referring to Pillar #1, where project managers are now responsible for managing strategic projects, new skills may be necessary.

Strategic projects will vary from company to company, and even in the same company there can be a multitude of different types of strategic projects included in innovation, R&D, entrepreneurship and new product development. The skills needed can vary based upon the type of strategic project. As an example, different skills may be needed whether we are discussing innovation projects that are radical rather than incremental. Some of the new skills needed for strategic projects include design thinking, rapid prototype development, crowdstorming, market research, brainstorming and change management. For project managers involved in multinational strategic projects, the list of skills might also include an understanding of local cultures, religions and politics.

Pillar #4: There will be a significant change in how we define the success (and failure) of a project.

For years, the definition of project success was the creation of project deliverables within the constraints of time, cost and scope. While this definition seemed relatively easy to use, it created several headaches:

First, companies can always create deliverables within time, cost and scope, but there is no guarantee that customers would purchase the end results. Second, everyone seemed to agree that there should be a “business” component to project success, but they were unable to identify how to do it because of the lack of project-related business metrics. Third, this definition of project success was restricted to traditional or operational projects. Functional managers that were responsible for strategic projects were utilizing their own definitions of project success, and many of these strategic projects were being executed under the radar screen because of the competition in the company for funding for strategic projects.

Today, companies believe they are managing their business as a stream of projects, including both strategic and traditional projects. As such, there must exist a definition that satisfies all types of projects. The three components of success today are:

The project must provide or at least identify business benefits
The project’s benefits must be harvested such that they can be converted into sustainable business value that can be expressed quantitatively
The project must be aligned to strategic business objectives

With these three components as part of the project’s success criteria, companies must ask themselves when creating a portfolio of strategic projects, “Why expend resources and work on this project if the intent is not to create sustainable business value?” These three components can also be used to create failure criteria as to when to pull the plug and stop working on a project. Since these three components are discussed in current PMI literature, it is expected that these three components will appear in the new version of the PMP^® exam, beginning in June 2020.

Pillar #5: There will be a significant growth in the number of metrics, especially business-related metrics, to be used on projects.

The four pillars discussed previously made it clear that the business side of projects will need to be understood much better than in the past. This will require significantly more metrics than just time, cost and scope.

Companies will need to create metrics that can track benefits realization, value created from the benefits and how each project is aligned to strategic business objectives. To do this may require the creation of 20-30 new metrics. This will undoubtedly lead to major changes in the earned value measurement systems (EVMS) currently being used.

The new project business metrics must be able to be combined to answer questions that executives have concerning business and portfolio health. The list below identifies metrics that executives need for business decision-making and strategic planning.

Business profitability
Portfolio health
Portfolio benefits realization
Portfolio value achieved
Portfolio mix of projects
Resource availability
Capacity utilization
Strategic alignment of projects
Overall business performance

Exhibit 1 shows typical categories of metrics and that new versions of project management (i.e. PM 1.0 – PM 5.0) may appear in the literature. The growth in metrics is due to the growth in measurement techniques. Today, we believe that we can measure anything.

Exhibit 1. Growth in Metrics

Pillar #6: There will be a growth in flexible project management frameworks or methodologies that are capable of measuring benefits and business value as the project progresses and after the deliverables have been created.

The traditional “waterfall” approach to project management implementation has successfully been used for years, but this approach has the limitation that value is measurable primarily at the end of the project. Companies want to have value and benefits metrics reported throughout the project so that they can cancel or redirect non-performing projects.

Techniques such as Agile and Scrum appear to do a better job of measuring and reporting value created through the project, than other approaches. In the future, we can expect more flexible project management approaches such as Agile and Scrum to appear.

Conclusions:

It is unrealistic to think that these six pillars will be the only changes that will occur in 2020. There will be other changes, but perhaps not as significant as these six pillars. The implementation of these six pillars requires that companies try to envision the future and plan for it. For companies that believe in “business as usual” or “let’s leave well enough alone,” these changes will not be implemented. Those companies that believe in “doing things the same old way” will most likely struggle to stay in existence.

Project Management Professional and PMP are registered marks of Project Management Institute, Inc.

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From Traditional to Non-Traditional Projects

By Harold Kerzner, Ph.D. | Senior Executive Director for Project Management, IIL

Background

For almost four decades, companies on a worldwide basis struggled with the creation of a singular methodology that could be used to manage all their projects. The singular methodology was a necessity for senior management that was reluctant to surrender their “command and control” posture over the project management community. The methodologies were designed so that senior management could retain some degree of standardization and control from the top down through the hierarchy and that project teams would not be allowed to make decisions that were reserved for the senior levels of management. Executives, marketing and sales personnel were fearful of what power and authority project managers might obtain.

Today’s project managers do not realize the degrees of mistrust that some of us had to endure as project managers years ago. At that time, if the choice were up to executives in the contractors’ organizations, project managers would not exist, and all projects would be managed by functional management, marketing or sales personnel. But the clients and stakeholders preferred to talk directly to the project managers (rather than communications with just sales and marketing personnel) and encouraged the contractors to recognize the need for creating project management positions.

The Growth of Nontraditional Projects

Singular methodologies provided the executives with the command and control they desired but there were some risks. Executives tried to enforce the belief that the singular methodology was the solution to their project management concerns and that one-size-fits-all, which meant that every project in the company would be required to use the same, singular approach. Unfortunately, executive soon began to realize that not all projects can use the one-size-fits-all methodology. Operational or traditional projects may be able to follow a singular methodology, but strategic and other forms of nontraditional projects may have to be managed differently.

The approach that companies then undertook was to have strategic and nontraditional projects managed by functional managers that were then allowed a great deal of freedom in how they chose to manage the projects. Executives trusted functional managers more so than project managers and were not perceived as a threat to senior management.

By the turn of the century, the number of nontraditional projects was growing. More trust was being placed in the hands of the project managers and companies began recognizing that the one-size-fits-all approach needed to be modified or replaced with flexible methodologies or frameworks, such as agile or Scrum, which provided more freedom and authority to the project managers.

The Impact of the Growth in Nontraditional Projects

In some companies, the number of nontraditional projects was perhaps 200% more than traditional projects as seen in the center of Exhibit 1 below. As the need for more flexibility in project management took hold, changes began to appear in the way that some of the traditional processes were being used.

Exhibit 1. Changes in Our View of Project Management Processes

The Hexagon of Excellence

The hexagon of excellence identifies some of the changes that companies made as they began to use project management on the nontraditional projects:

Integrated processes: Project managers were now expected to make business-based decisions as well as the traditional technical or project-based decisions. As such, business processes were now integrated with project management processes in flexible project management approaches.
Culture: Project management was now recognized as processes that can and will affect the entire company rather than just specific functional areas. As such, a project management culture that supports company-wide cooperation must be developed and enforced by senior management.
Management Support: Management support is essential. Senior management must realize that they must actively function as project sponsors and serve on governance committees. They must also realize project governance is NOT the same as functional governance and must be willing to understand and accept new levels of authority, responsibility and decision making.
Training and Education: Providing training to just the project managers no longer works. If a corporate-wide project management culture is to be created, then it is possible that the entire organization may need to undergo some training.
Informal Project Management: Part of the training must promote informal project management practices that are predicated upon people working together and without being forced to rely upon the use of superior-subordinate relationships. Titles and levels of authority should not be critical when working on project teams.
Behavioral Excellence: Human resource management courses will grow. Rather than emphasize the traditional behavioral theories, the focus will be on communication, cooperation, teamwork, and trust, with trust perhaps being the most important item.

Capturing Best Practices

For decades, we relied entirely upon capturing best practices, but just those related to project management. Today, we believe that, if you are managing a project, you are managing part of a business and are expected to make business decisions as well as project decisions. Therefore, we are now capturing best practices in all parts of the business rather than in just project management. What we discover as part of our findings are now part of an information warehouse rather than just a best practices library. As seen in Exhibit 1, we are now developing a structured process by which all forms of best practices can be discovered.

Project Management Maturity Models

Typical project management maturity models, as shown in Exhibit 1 still apply, but more models are entering the marketplace. In Exhibit 1, Level 3 may be replaced with flexible methodologies rather than a singular approach. Level 4 is expected to grow significantly as companies realize that benchmarking against companies that are world class leaders in project management may give better results than just benchmarking against companies in their own industry. In Level 5, companies are demonstrating a greater willingness to implement changes in the best interest of the company rather than worrying about their own power base and authority.

Networked PMOs

Companies have recognized the need for PMOs for more than three decades. However, there were significant power struggles for which executive would maintain control of the PMO. There was a belief that “information is power” and whichever executive would control the PMO would become more powerful than his/her contemporaries.

As nontraditional projects grew, there was an apparent need for multiple PMOs. The situation becomes more complex as companies began expanding globally and recognized the need for geographically dispersed PMOs. But some executive still felt threatened by the PMO concept and opted for the creation of “master” and “subordinate” PMOs. Today, this concept seems to have diminished as companies have recognized the importance of networking their PMOs as shown in Exhibit 1.

Conclusion

There is significantly more information we could have discussed related to each component in Exhibit 1 resulting from the growth of nontraditional projects. But what appears obvious is that change is happening and appears to be for the betterment of the project management community. Where project management will take us, we do not know. But what is certain is that there is a growth in the use of nontraditional projects and the accompanying project management processes.

Have a question for Dr. Kerzner? Leave your comment below.

About the Author
Harold Kerzner (M.S., Ph.D., Engineering, and M.B.A) is IIL's Senior Executive Director for Project Management. He is a globally recognized expert on project management and strategic planning, and the author of many best-selling textbooks including Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling and Project Management 2.0. Dr. Kerzner has previously taught project management and business administration at Baldwin-Wallace University, engineering at the University of Illinois and business administration at Utah State University. He obtained his industrial experience at Thiokol Corporation where he held both program management and project engineering responsibilities on a variety of NASA, Air Force, Army, Navy, and internal R&D programs.

PMBOK and PMI are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

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Can the Words "Innovation" and "Project Management" Be Used In The Same Sentence?

By Harold Kerzner, Ph.D. | Senior Executive Director for Project Management, IIL

INTRODUCTION

Companies need growth for survival.

Companies cannot grow simply through cost reduction and reengineering efforts.

Companies are recognizing that brand loyalty accompanied by a higher level of quality does not always equate to customer retention unless supported by some innovations.

According to management guru Peter Drucker, there are only two sources for growth: marketing and innovation [Drucker, 2008]. Innovation is often viewed as the Holy Grail of business and the primary driver for growth. Innovation forces companies to adapt to an ever-changing environment and to be able to take advantage of opportunities as they arise.

Companies are also aware that their competitors will eventually come to market with new products and services that will make some existing products and services obsolete, causing the competitive environment to change. Continuous innovation is needed, regardless of current economic conditions, to provide a firm with a sustainable competitive advantage and to differentiate themselves from their competitors. The question, of course, is “How do we manage innovation needs?”

INNOVATION AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT

For years, there has been a debate as to whether the words “innovation” and “project management” should be used in the same sentence. Some researchers argue that project management and innovation management should be treated as separate disciplines.

Innovation requires:

An acceptance of significant risk, more so than in traditional project management
A great deal of uncertainty
A focus on strategic goals and possibly no business case exists
Unknown constraints and assumptions that continuously change
Decision making in an unfamiliar landscape
A creative mindset
Collaboration across all enterprise organizational boundaries
Significant interfacing with customers in every market segment
A different leadership style than with traditional project management
A set of tools different than what is being taught in traditional project management courses

Some tools typically used when managing innovation include:

Design thinking
Storytelling
Decision-making flow charts
Value proposition
Business model thinking
Wall of ideas with post-it notes
Ideation
Prototyping, perhaps continuously

Innovation management, in its purest form, is a combination of the management of innovation processes and change management. It refers to products, services, business processes, and accompanying transformational needs, whereby the organization must change the way they conduct their business. The change can be incremental or radical.

Project management practices generally follow the processes and domain areas identified in the Project Management Institute (PMI)^® A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK^® Guide). Strategic innovation follows other processes such as strategizing, entrepreneurship, changing and investing [de Witt & Meyer, 2014].

But now, companies are realizing that innovation strategy is implemented through projects. Simply stated, we are managing our business as though it is a series of projects. Project management has become the delivery system for innovation activities, but the integration is complex and varies with the type of innovation project.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT IS A BUSINESS DELIVERY SYSTEM

Today’s project managers are seen more so as managing part of a business than managing just a project. Project managers are now treated as market problem-solvers and expected to be involved in business decisions as well as project decisions. End-to-end project management is now coming of age. In the past, project managers were actively involved mainly in just project execution with the responsibility of providing a deliverable or an outcome. Today, with end-to-end project management, the project manager is actively involved in all life-cycle phases including idea generation and product commercialization.

For decades, most project managers were trained in traditional project management practices and were ill-equipped to manage innovation projects. Today, attempts are being made to integrate all of this into a single profession, namely innovation project management (IPM).

PROJECT MANAGEMENT LITERATURE

There exists a plethora of literature on project management. Unfortunately, most of the literature focuses on linear project management models with the assumption that “one size fits all.” While this may hold true in some industries and for some projects, the concept of “one size fits all” does not apply to projects involving innovation. Innovation varies from industry to industry, and even companies within the same industry cannot come to an agreement on how innovation management should work.

The situation gets even worse when companies try to use traditional project management for business processes such as business model innovation, where you have the greatest degree of risk and uncertainty, where traditional risk management planning will not work, and where a great deal of flexibility is needed for decision making. Different project management approaches, many requiring a higher level of flexibility, will be dictated by the level of technology, the amount of product versus product changes, and whether the impact is expected to disrupt the markets.

Project managers need flexibility in their ability to select the appropriate tools for their projects and customize the processes to fit the needs of the projects. This holds true even for those projects that do not require innovation. The future will be flexible project management models such as those used in Agile and Scrum projects.

“Managers need to recognize the type of project at the start, resist institutional pressure to adapt traditional ‘rational’ approaches to all projects and apply an appropriate approach – one tailored for the type of project” [Lenfle & Loch, 2010]. Traditional project management does not distinguish between types of projects. Articles are appearing in literature that propose a methodology to classify projects to guide the design of a suitable project management model [Geraldi et al., 2011].

We have learned from Agile and Scrum that flexible project management approaches are necessary for many projects. This same thinking will be required for innovation projects. We will need different tools and different skill sets than most project managers currently use.

Have a question for Dr. Kerzner? Leave your comment below.

REFERENCES

Drucker, P. F. (2008). The Essential Drucker. Reissue Edition, Harper Business, New York.

Witt, B. de, & Meyer, R. (2014). Strategy: An international perspective, Cengage Learning EMEA, Andover.

Lenfle, M. & Loch, C. (2010). Lost roots: How project management came to emphasize control over flexibility novelty, California Management Review, 53 (1), 32 - 55.

Geraldi, J. G., Maylor, H. & Williams, T. (2011). Now, let’s make it really complex (complicated): A systematic review of the complexities of projects. International

Journal of Operations & Production Management, 31 (9), 966 - 990.

PMBOK and PMI are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

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Dr. Harold Kerzner Q&A: How Changes in Project Management Are Supporting Agile and Scrum

This past November as part of IIL's IPM Day online conference, Dr. Harold Kerzner delivered a keynote on "How Changes in Project Management Are Supporting Agile and Scrum."

The keynote discussed how, over the years, project management has undergone continuous improvement efforts by extracting best practices from other management practices such as Six Sigma. Now, the reverse is happening: other techniques are extracting some of the best practices from project management for their own continuous improvement efforts. This appears to be true for continuous improvements in Agile and Scrum activities. The landscape in project management is continuously changing for the better!

Following Dr. Kerzner's keynote, we received hundreds of questions for his live Q&A portion (so many that they couldn't be addressed in the allotted 15 minutes!) and we are excited to share highlights here, organized in the following categories:

Agile and Scrum
Project Managers of the Future
Reporting and Metrics
Portfolio Management
Public Sector
Challenges
Cultural Differences
Project Failure and Success
Benefit Harvesting
Miscellaneous

Content has been edited and condensed for clarity.

AGILE AND SCRUM

Can the traditional PM role still exist in an Agile world?

Yes, because some projects can be handled better using traditional project management.

How do we plan effective scheduling using framework, v. traditional and agile?

In traditional project management, everything is linear and we try to lay out a complete schedule at the initiation of the project. With flexible frameworks such as Agile and Scrum, we work with smaller units of time that allow us more flexibility in the adjustment of scope to fit a schedule. In Agile, we tend to fix time and cost, and allow scope to change as needed. With traditional project management, scope is fixed and we tend to allow cost and schedule to change as needed.

How can Scrum or Kanban (agile methodologies in general) methods fit the existing PMI^® framework (i.e. PMBOK^® Guide)?

My personal belief is that they do not fit, at least well, if you believe that all processes and activities identified in the PMBOK^® Guide must appear in each methodology. The future will be flexible approaches that are customized to each user or client. PMs may discover that only 20% of the PMBOK^® Guide is needed, as an example.

Is there a way to transition from waterfall to Agile or is it "all in"? Do we have to go to an agile framework and shed all waterfall oriented controls?

My experience has been that you will have a great deal of difficulty going straight to Agile without first adopting some form of project management. Then, it is up to the company, based upon their types of projects, to decide how many of the tools and practices of traditional project management should be carried over. There are some practices that are common to both.

Agile always offers stakeholders the upper hand in modifying the scope after each sprint. As a project manager, how can we limit the change so that we don't want the team to modify the code after every demo?

I understand your concern, but what are the alternatives especially if you might want repeat business from this client? My personal feeling is that I can live with frequent scope modification as opposed to continuously explaining cost overruns and schedule slippages.

What is the best approach to managing Domain name projects? Would it be better to follow the waterfall traditional project management approach or the Agile/Scrum method?

This is a tough question to answer because it depends on the type of project, size, nature of the project, how many people, whether it will involve change management, etc…

Does the Agile & Scrum framework reduce/omit the requirement of a traditional PM in the IT Industry?

I have to be non-committal, but I believe that each company must make their own decision on this. Regardless of the industry, there are always going be projects that work well using traditional project management practices.

Thank you for explaining the difference between Benefits and Values. This is expected by the executives. What are your recommendations for being certified in Agile and Scrum and is it value added for project managers or the leadership managing project managers as well? If so, which designation do you recommend? Thanks.

Being an educator for five decades, I am a believer in life-long learning. Having said that, I recommend obtaining the additional certifications as long as they will benefit your career goals.

PROJECT MANAGERS OF THE FUTURE

Should a company have a methodology or is it better to allow project managers to manage as they want?

Great question! I believe in the future that methodologies will be eliminated and replaced with tools such as forms, guidelines, templates and checklists. I have one client that has 50++ tools. At the beginning of a project, the PM and some team members select the tools needed and then create a customized methodology or flexible methodology or framework that best fits the client’s needs.

I just got my PMP^®. Given the future you are envisioning what do you recommend I begin with?

What I normally tell my students is to work for a small company where, as a project manager, you manage everything and really get to understand project management. Working in a large company, you might manage only a small part of a project and never see the big picture of project management. Start small and then climb the ladder.

What can older project managers do to extend their careers? Are there other fields (e.g. training) that can be pursued?

If you are set in your ways and refuse to be removed from your comfort zone, you have a problem. If you are willing to change, then education is the start.

What are the top 3 skills that define the project manager of the future? How should new professionals seek to gain these skills. Thanks!

For more than 40 years of teaching project management, I have emphasized that the single most important skill is the ability of the PM to manage pressure and stress, not only what is placed upon them, but also what is placed upon the team. As for 2nd and 3rd place, I would pick team building skills and decision-making skills.

How will AI/machine learning affect the role of a project manager and skill sets needed?

I wrote a blog last year on AI and Project Management.

How do you see Project Management and Organizational Change Management working together in the future to achieve benefits and value in projects?

I see project managers staying on board the project and becoming the change agent. They will then be responsible for implementing the changes needed to extract the benefits.

REPORTING AND METRICS

Tools such as EVM (Earned Value Management) provide a metric for schedule and budget. What type of metrics are you seeing as proven practices for measuring benefits and value?

There is no single metric for either benefits or value. Value metrics are made up of attributes or components. For example, I saw an IT company use a value metric that had 5 components: time, cost, functionality, safety protocols, and quality of design. Each component had a weighting factor assigned to it and the totals were rolled up and reported in one dashboard metric.

Executives are interested in KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) which can be loaded. What is your advice in linking dashboards, metrics and KPIs?

I agree that a linkage is necessary. However, I also believe that you should give executives dashboards that provide them with the information they need rather than the information they want. If you have a metric library that has 50 metrics, I would not create dashboards to display all 50 metrics. I would instead ask the executives, “What decisions do you expect to make, and what metrics do you need to help you make those decisions?” Providing executives with too much information is an invitation for executive micromanagement.

Dr. Kerzner said that teams are now allowed to use multiple tools. How then do you balance this with the need to maintain standards so you can successfully create consolidated dashboards?

There will be standards for each tool used. The standards for dashboards involve space, colors, images, aesthetics, etc… but not specifically the information displayed, specifically the metrics. This will be customized for each client.

My understanding is that a dashboard is operational in nature to track the progress of project throughout its lifecycle while a project scorecard will address the need to link up the project objectives, benefits and values to the strategic objectives of the organization?

You are correct. This is how I teach it as well.

PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

Lots of times decisions on portfolio made on projects, e.g. with NPV which is purely financial measures and when one looks at more attributes (value creation) upfront, it is likely possible that the optimized portfolio may spit out potentially different set of projects to execute on. This is optimization exercise and companies struggle. Your guidance to us on how to overcome this situation?

Great question. There are financial values and nonfinancial values that need to be considered. Unfortunately, as I see it, perhaps the weakest part of project selection is in the criteria we use which appears to still be financial. As part of business case development, we are now stressing that organizations learn how to prepare a benefits realization plan as part of the business case. Once this happens, we should have a much clearer picture of the realistic benefits and value possible. But how long this will take for companies to learn, I do not know.

We are a Marketing Services Provider whose clients include many large retailers and financial institutions. Of course, we are always working with limited resources. What is your take on portfolio management for a consulting company like ours?

Portfolio management begins with identification of your largest or most critical clients and what projects need to be undertaken to maintain their business. Using techniques like Kaplan and Norton’s Balance Scorecard is a great start at doing this.

PUBLIC SECTOR

I work for the Public sector in Cape Verde, a small African County in the west African coast. Considering the projects complexity in the public sector, involving many stakeholders, changing scope and short cycles, what would be your thoughts on a better approach to use Project Management methodologies in this area and how agile practices can help? Thank you Dr. Kerzner.

Methodologies are not necessarily the solution to your problems. With traditional project management, sad to say, we often try to stay as far away as possible from stakeholders and clients during project execution for fear of scope changes they may request and stakeholder meddling. With techniques such as Agile, we welcome client/stakeholder involvement and expect these people to have at least a cursory understanding of project management and Agile practices. In other words, it appears that in Agile and Scrum clients and stakeholders appear to have a much better understanding of their roles and responsibilities on the project. This should make life better for the PMs.

What is your experience or best practice in managing projects in the public sector in relation to Benefits and Value management?

Public sector projects do not have profit motives, and this changes the picture a bit. But there are other challenges in the public sector that impact benefits and value. I recommend you get a book entitled Public Sector Project Management by Wirick. It is a John Wiley publication and a good book.

How to benchmark business in government monopoly?

David Wirick wrote a book entitled Public Sector Project Management. The book is published by John Wiley. It shows the differences between public and private sectors, and you can easily then see the benchmarking issues.

CHALLENGES

What to do when we start a project in a company that does not have basic ideas about projects?

This is an invitation for disaster. My recommendation is education, and this includes senior management.

How to "sell" to upper management the need for training in PM for the executives?

My experience is that people external to the organization, such as consultants, have an easier time convincing them of the need for training. Executives may fear that internal people promoting training are trying in some way to “feather their own bed” so to speak.

What to do when Executive-Level management doesn't want to attend education rollout strategies?

You need to find at least one executive champion to help you convince other executives of the importance of this. If all of the executives are in agreement that education at their level is not needed, I would update my resume.

What if your PMO refuses to adjust its methodology for business needs and only looks at itself first? How does an individual PM drive that change?

You may need to have a champion at the executive levels to assist you. All you need to find is just one executive to champion your cause. Otherwise, you will have difficulty.

What is the biggest challenge in project management?

The biggest challenge is overcoming the belief that companies have that one-size-fits-all with regard to a PM methodology. In the future, methodologies must be customized for each client. PMs need flexibility.

Do you have any recommendations for managing (and motivating) IT employees (technology or app dev folks) that are resistant to the change that digital transformation requires?

The architects of the corporate culture are the people that reside on the top floor of the building. If workers are afraid or being removed from their comfort zone, then there is a point where senior management must step in and “force” the changes to take place.

If the Sponsor refuses to attend or be a part of the project, should the PM propose for project cancellation rather than making decisions on behalf of the Sponsor, when he/she is not authorized?

I have lived through this scenario in a multitude of companies. What I tell PMs to do, is to make the decision yourself, and then e-mail the sponsor with your decision asking if they agree or disagree with your decision. This basically forces them to act because there is now a paper trail.

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

Dr. Kerzner - thanks for the presentation. When you speak to the politics/religion/culture gaps - how did your daughter bridge the gaps between cultures? What other suggestions do you have to overcome these in short order if thrown into a global program?

My daughter learned from her global team members. They provided her with some educational insights. She wasn’t embarrassed to ask her global team members for advice and recommendations.

I've worked with multi-cultural teams and hit roadblocks due to how decisions are made. How do you suggest consensus be achieved across teams?

Believing that consensus can be achieved is probably wishful thinking. At the onset of a project, you must get the team to understand that you do not expect consensus on every challenge and that the team must go along with the vote or any other process you use. People must be prepared early on for disagreements and how decisions will be made.

How to measure whether a Project Manager has enquired sufficient Politics, Religion and Cultural skills?

At present, I do not see any measurements being made. However, in the future I expect to see metrics on projects measuring political exposure, religious exposure and cultural sensitivity. These metrics would be reported on dashboards along with other metrics such as time, cost and scope.

How to prioritize when there is a clash between benefits vs. politics and culture?

This is why we have project sponsors and governance committees to assist in the prioritization of constraints and sometimes alternatives.

PROJECT FAILURE AND SUCCESS

You mentioned that you must have a failure mark for a project...what if failure is not an option?

If failure is not an option, then you must carefully look at the tradeoffs and alternatives. This is a common occurrence on projects that must abide by regulations such as projects for OSHA, EPA, Health and Safety, etc…

RE: Project Health Checks - What is an example of establishing a Failure Criteria, versus establishing a Success Criteria?

You are creating a new product for marketing and the sales force. The exit criteria might be to stop working on the project when the expected sales price reaches a certain value. There are degrees of success based upon the profits expected. The success criteria, which could be a mere image of the exit criteria, could be to develop a product than can sell for less than a certain dollar value.

Often, we set up the success factors for the finished project. By going agile it will be so very important to break down those success factors into smaller ones and going into a stepwise approach. How shall I connect these to stakeholders?

Every project can have a different definition of success. When working with stakeholders, step #1 is having an agreed upon definition of success. Step #2 is then working with the stakeholders to decide upon the metrics and critical success factors you will use to confirm throughout the project that success is achievable. This should be done at the beginning of the project and reported on dashboards periodically.

BENEFIT HARVESTING

What's the benefit of doing benefit harvesting? What's the value to the company?

The results of a project are deliverables and outcomes. These, by themselves, have very limited value unless someone can harvest the benefits expected from them.

Dr. Kerzner, can you recommend any resources (authors, journals, etc.) to help educate PMs on the topic of Benefit Harvesting?

There are some books on Change Management that include benefits harvesting. I wrote a white paper for IIL on Benefits Realization and Value Management.

If benefit harvesting is part of project management then don't you think it is taking a big piece of program management?

Yes, it is a massive piece of project management but many people haven’t realized it as yet.

Who exactly is harvesting benefits from the project in business environment? If the successful project outcome is then transferred to operations, it seems that operations colleagues are those that are harvesting benefits from the successful project.

Sales and marketing may be responsible for harvesting the benefits of new products created through projects. IT may be responsible for harvesting the benefits of new software to be used. Other projects that lead to change management initiatives may be transferred to specific groups in operations.

Hi Harold – great Keynote! Within organizations that commit to having project teams involved in benefit harvesting and value extraction, is there evidence that the number of projects delivered within that organization is reduced? If so, does the value delivered with this expanded focus outweigh what could be achieved by delivering more projects?

When companies learn how to create metrics to measure and report benefits and value, it will become easier to establish a portfolio of projects that maximizes the expected benefits and value to the firm. In this regard, the high value or high benefits projects will be prioritized. We will also then eliminate the “pet” projects of senior management that may or may not produce benefits. I would expect the number or projects to be reduced.

Dr. Kerzner, shouldn't benefit harvesting be done before the project even begins, to identify the benefits and value the project will provide? Or, is benefit harvesting different from the process of Cost/Benefit Analysis, finding the ROI etc.? Thank you!

Benefits harvesting cannot be done until there are outcomes and deliverables; i.e. completed projects. Also, cost/benefit analysis is based upon a “guess” as to what the benefits will be, and usually the benefits are explained qualitatively, not quantitatively. The true C/B ratio and ROI cannot be determined accurately until after benefits harvesting.

Do we need to wait till we complete the project and realise the deliverable, then work on harvesting the benefits and then sustaining the values? Is it a linear relationship between those three elements of deliverables, benefits and values?

Very good question. I explained it as though it is linear. Actually, it is nonlinear if we work on projects where we can establish metrics for benefits and value and perform the measurements throughout the project. Unfortunately, most companies are not that mature yet and tend to perform benefits realization and value management after the project delivers an outcome. Agile and Scrum projects are an exception.

Great presentation, thank you. What do you see as the differences, if any, between change management and benefits harvesting?

Change management includes all of the activities that may have to be done at project completion to harvest the benefits.

MISCELLANEOUS

Great information. The only one I wasn't too clear on is the Impact of Mergers & Acquisitions on Project Management. Can you briefly summarize that one?

Whenever there are M&A activities, there will be a landlord and a tenant. Believing that there will be equal partners is not going to happen. The problem is when the landlord dictates to the tenant how project management should work even though the tenant has a superior approach to project management. Developing an agreed-upon approach that both parties will accept will take time.

If it takes years to realize benefits, how can executives decide if the exit criteria are applicable?

The exit criteria identify when to pull the plug on the project. The exit criteria on the project must be monitored throughout the life of the project, not only to see if it is still valid, but to see if it needs to be updated or changed.

I don't think it depends on culture. I think it’s understanding the way people solve problems. Bridging adaptive and innovative problem-solving styles trumps culture.

I agree with you. There are books being written on a topic called “Design Thinking” which relates to innovation project management. Design thinking requires a total acceptance by the culture of a firm and may cause a new culture to be created that focuses on collaboration and decision-making. I am researching this topic now.

Have a question for Dr. Kerzner? Leave your comment below.

Harold Kerzner (M.S., Ph.D., Engineering, and M.B.A) is IIL's Senior Executive Director for Project Management. He is a globally recognized expert on project management and strategic planning, and the author of many best-selling textbooks including Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling and Project Management 2.0. Dr. Kerzner has previously taught project management and business administration at Baldwin-Wallace University, engineering at the University of Illinois and business administration at Utah State University. He obtained his industrial experience at Thiokol Corporation where he held both program management and project engineering responsibilities on a variety of NASA, Air Force, Army, Navy and internal R&D programs.

PMI, PMBOK, and PMP are marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

by admin

A New Way to Recognize the Achievements of Project Managers

By Harold Kerzner, Ph.D.
Senior Executive Director for Project Management, IIL

Introduction:

The 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang are well underway, with athletes from all over the world being awarded medals for their achievements. Military personnel, police departments, and other professional organizations also recognize the achievements of their labor force through medals and ribbons. So, why shouldn’t we do the same thing for project managers? This could be significantly more important to a worker or project manager than a simple handshake.

We begin our projects with the greatest of intentions. Some people view project management as a series of contests or challenges beginning with a well thought out plan that everyone agrees with. When projects do not necessarily go according to plan, we may end up with rigorous confrontations that can lead to skirmishes and even battles with stakeholders. Some battles on projects are so intense that we consider them as all-out wars.

Years ago, many aerospace and defense industry projects were managed using war rooms. There was a reason why we called them war rooms. These were rooms with one door and no windows. On the walls were scope, scheduling, and financial information as well as other key metrics. It was called a war room because this is where the battles between project teams, executives, stakeholders, clients, and contractors took place. The concept of project war rooms still exists today.

If we look at the literal definition of war, we can see the comparison to the project management environment. This appears in Exhibit 1.

Dictionary Definition of War	Project Management Interpretation
An often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties	Disagreements between the project manager, client, contractors, stakeholders and governance groups, lasting possibly for the duration of the project
A concerted effort or campaign to combat or put an end to something considered injurious	Each of the disagreements can be viewed as injurious as seen through the eyes of each involved party; interpretation of changes in the enterprise environmental factors is an example
An intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities, and therefore is defined as a form of political violence or intervention	Everyone has personal and/or political values which can be the source of the war; the personal values can become more important that the project's values
An armed conflict or a state of armed hostility	Weapons of war are more than words; they include schedules, budgets, specifications, requirements and other competing constraints as well as the organizational process assets
A condition of active antagonism or contention	A war of words, a war of how to interpret the requirements or a contract price war

Exhibit 1 A Project Management Interpretation of War

Both victors and losers in war are often given ribbons and medals to commemorate their heroism in the face of adversity or simply to show their participation in a military campaign. This should be done for project managers and team members. The PM's battles can exist on several fronts: battles with the client, the stakeholders, the project team, the governance group, and even with your own senior management. Each battle can be a different type of combat and they can all be taking place concurrently. This is one of the reasons why most PMs have good health insurance plans.

If each project is viewed as a military campaign or even a war, then what would life be like if we were to award ribbons and medals to project managers the same way we do it for military personnel? There are numerous challenges in project management and people should be recognized for overcoming these challenges. Of course, this will probably never happen, but it is still something worth considering.

The Competing Constraints Ribbon:

For more than 40 years we defined project success using the triple constraints of time, cost, and scope. But today, we have competing constraints which go well beyond just time, cost and scope. Other constraints, which are often not listed in the project’s requirements, but may be important include:

Using the client's name as a reference after project completion
Probability of obtaining follow-on work
Financial success (i.e. profit maximization)
Achieving technical superiority (i.e. competitive advantage)
Aesthetic value and usability
Alignment with strategic planning objectives
Meeting regulatory agency relationships
Abiding by health and safety laws
Maintaining environmental protection standards
Enhancing the corporate reputation and image
Meeting the personal needs of the employees (opportunities for advancement)
Supporting and maintaining ethical conduct (Sarbanes-Oxley Law)
Hoping for a better assignment on the next project

Today, our projects are becoming more complex. We realize that meeting all of the constraints may be too challenging and even impossible on some projects. The solution may be to prioritize the constraints and hope that we can perform at a minimum within all of the high priority constraints. It is entirely possible that performance within all of the constraints may be more wishful thinking than reality.

For those project managers that perform within all of the competing constraints, they may receive the Competing Constraints Ribbon shown in Exhibit 2. Since the color green is often used to portray success, it is only fitting that the colors on the ribbon be various shades of green. The star in the ribbon can be a variety of colors signifying the number of projects that were successfully managed within all of the competing constraints.

Exhibit 2: Recognition for Meeting All of the Competing Constraints

The Pain and Suffering Endurance Ribbon:

When projects get out of control, whether it is the result of changes in the enterprise environmental factors or the personal whims of stakeholders, project managers end up taking the brunt of all of the pain. The pain can come from physical, verbal or emotional abuse. Some projects are completed without pain and suffering, but these are usually in the minority. Unfortunately, projects will get into trouble. When this happens, not all project managers know how to perform under this type of pressure or stress.

The criteria for this award is based upon:

Number of trips to the emergency room over the duration of the project
Number of bones broken or mutilated over the life of the project
Number of stitches received within a given time frame
Criteria does NOT include issues at home (although maybe it should)

Exhibit 3 shows the Pain and Suffering Endurance Ribbon. Since the color blue seems to be the most commonly used color in the medical profession, it is only fitting that the award be various shades of blue. The symbol in the medal is a common symbol used in the medical profession. The alternate choice for colors in this ribbon would be black and blue, and I am sure we all know why, and no further explanation is necessary.

Exhibit 3: The Pain and Suffering Endurance Ribbon

The Project Recovery Ribbon:

We know that projects have a tendency to get into trouble, yet not all project managers possess the necessary skills to recover a failing project. Sometimes people with special expertise are brought in to take over the possibly failing projects. These people may have the title of recovery project managers and wear armor and a bullet-proof vest.

The ribbon for successfully recovering a failing project is shown in Exhibit 4. The colors in the ribbon identify the direction in which the project must go, namely red (in trouble), yellow (there's hope) and green (out of trouble). Recovery project managers may also be awarded the Pain and Suffering Endurance Ribbon.

The Global Project Manager Ribbon:

Some project managers become very good at managing internal projects and may receive numerous Competing Constraints Ribbons. Yet the same project managers may become failures at managing global projects because of their inability to deal with cultural differences, politics, power struggles, and rapidly changing enterprise environmental factors based upon who is in power in the host government at that time.

Exhibit 5 shows the ribbon awarded for successfully managing global projects. The seven colors in the ribbon represent the seven continents. People that are awarded the Global Project Manager Ribbon may also be awarded the Pain and Suffering Endurance Ribbon. It is unlikely that they will also receive the Competing Constraints Ribbon.

The Professional Responsibility Ribbon:

The project management environment offers numerous ways for project managers to get into trouble. Typical ways include:

Inappropriately giving or receiving gifts
Failing to report violations
Getting involved in bribes for giving or receiving contracts
Insider trading due to privileged information
Untruthful reporting of information

The Project Management Institute (PMI)^® Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct should be adhered to and people that abide by the code should be identified and rewarded. Exhibit 6 shows a typical ribbon and/or medal for such people. People that fail to abide by the PMI^® Code of Ethics Professional Conduct could end up with prison sentences and voluntary admission to the witness protection program.

Exhibit 6: The Professional Responsibility Ribbon

The Say "NO" Ribbon:

Perhaps the most important and rarely used word in the project manager's vocabulary is the word “NO.” No matter how well the project's requirements are thought out and the fact that everyone initially agrees on the project's requirements, changes seem to occur. While some changes are necessary, many changes are requested because of the personal whims of individuals, including senior managers and executives, and these requests may not be in the best interest of the project.

The ultimate purpose of a change control system is to prevent unnecessary changes from entering the project. Scope changes result in baseline changes with the ultimate effect of elongating the schedule and driving up the cost. Project managers must be prepared to say no. Project managers should be rewarded rather than punished when correctly saying no to the clients and stakeholders. The ribbon for this is shown in Exhibit 7 below.

The Innovation Ribbon:

Innovation is generally regarded as a new way of doing something. The new way of doing something should be substantially different from the way it was done before rather than a small incremental change such as with continuous improvement activities. The ultimate goal of innovation is to create hopefully long-lasting additional value for the company, the users, and the deliverable itself. Innovation can be viewed as the conversion of an idea into cash or a cash equivalent.

While the goal of successful innovation is to add value, the outcome can be negative or even destructive if it results in poor team morale, an unfavorable cultural change or a radical departure from existing ways of doing work. The failure of an innovation project can lead to demoralizing the organization and causing talented people to be risk-avoiders in the future rather than risk-takers.

Not all project managers are given the opportunity to manage projects that require true innovation. The criteria for the Innovation Ribbon in Exhibit 8 should be not only the creation of a unique product or service, but one that creates long-lasting value and possibly profits for the company.

The Profitability Ribbon:

Not all project managers have the opportunity to manage projects designed to create immediate profits. Some project managers do not have profit and loss (P&L) responsibility and end up managing internal projects where the measurement of actual profits may be difficult and may not occur until well into the future.

But those project managers whose efforts directly contribute to the profitability of the firm should be recognized perhaps with the ribbon shown in Exhibit 9. There's no apparent need to explain why the color green is used in the ribbon. However, there must be reasonable criteria established for what constitutes significant profitability. Also, the criteria should indicate that this is done without any sacrifice to quality.

Exhibit 9: Corporate Profitability Ribbon

The Power of Acknowledgment Ribbon:

Today, we are asking project team members at the end of a project to evaluate the performance of the project manager and whether or not they would like to work for this project manager on future projects. If the project team members feel that they were personally challenged and motivated by the project manager to the point where they ended up performing to the best of their ability, they will most certainly want to work for this project manager again.

One of the secrets to effectively motivating the team, without incurring any detrimental results, is by using the power of acknowledgment. Exhibit 10 shows the Power of Acknowledgment Ribbon. Effective acknowledgment goes from your heart to the heart of the team members. Using the proper words when acknowledging the efforts of the team will unlock their hearts and motivate them to higher levels of performance. That's why the heart appears in the medal and, of course, I assume we all understand why various shades of red are used as the colors.

Exhibit 10: The Power of Acknowledgment Ribbon

The Quality of Life Ribbon:

Having the first nine ribbons and medals pinned to your chest may have no meaning unless you have a family to share the recognitions with. All too often, project managers become so in love with their job that they forget about their family and the community.

The Quality of Life Ribbon appears in Exhibit 11. The criteria for the award should be established by the spouses of the project managers based upon criteria that might include:

How much time does the PM spend at work as compared to the time spent with the family?
Does the PM remember the names of his or her children?
How much company work is done at home?
Does the PM attend and support community events?
If you have a dog at home, does the dog recognize the PM or bark as though the PM is a stranger in the house?
If applicable, how much time does the PM spend with the children?
How much travel is required in the PM's job?

This award, in my opinion, should be presented at a public ceremony for all PMs to see. Maintaining a stream of successfully managed projects is a nice accomplishment as long as it is not done at the expense of your family.

Conclusion:

There are numerous battles that project managers must participate in to be effective. These battles can occur at any time and last for the duration of the project. In this paper, I have identified just 10 possible battles and project managers should be somehow recognized for their ability to have won these battles. We all know that there are other battles that project managers must endure, and perhaps the list may be as many as 30 to 40 battles. But at least we see the need to recognize some of the critical accomplishments made by project managers.

About the Author

Harold Kerzner, Ph.D. is IIL’s Senior Executive Director for Project Management. He is a globally recognized expert on project management and strategic planning, and the author of many best-selling textbooks, most recently Project Management 2.0.

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Predictions for Project Management in 2017

By Harold Kerzner, Ph.D.
Senior Executive Director for Project Management, IIL

Every year, there are changes that take place in project management. The predictions for 2017 relate to all levels of management in a firm. Although we have high hopes for a lot of the changes, some bad results can occur. Several of my predictions focus more so on unfortunate results from my 2016 predictions as well as some challenges for the 2017 predictions. Most of these predictions are based upon my lecture series on PM 2.0 – PM 3.0: The Future of Project Management.

Metric mania will grow.

Not all of the changes that will occur will in 2017 will be favorable. In my predictions for 2016, I stated that there would be a growth in the number of metrics needed to determine the true health of a project. For many companies, the project management community saw this as an opportunity to identify significantly more metrics than were actually needed. The result was “metric mania” where the organization is now asking the PMOs to periodically evaluate all metrics used and to recommend removal of “bad” metrics that simply create additional work and provide no informational value.

Project management is now being viewed as a strategic business process rather than merely a traditional project management process used for project execution and delivery.

Historically, project managers made only project-related decisions (usually concerning the technical aspects of the project) whereas all business decisions were in hands of the project sponsors. Now, because there is more trust in the ability of the project managers to deliver, they are allowed to make business-related as well as project-related decisions.

Project management career paths will become strategic competencies.

For decades, project management was treated more so as a part-time occupation rather than as a career path, with the exception of those firms that were project-driven organizations and were pressured by their clients to reluctantly make project management a career path position. Project management is now being treated as a career path in both project-driven and non-project-driven companies. But as companies recognize the benefits that can be achieved from project management, we will see project management maturing into a strategic competency. Each year, companies are assessing which career paths are a necessity for the firm’s critical growth over the next several years. In many firms, project management is now viewed as one of the five critical career paths and being treated as a strategic competency necessary for the firm’s future. Each year, larger portions of a company’s training dollars appears to be committed to project management education.

Each project can have a different definition of success.

For years, we allowed customers and contractors to work toward their own definitions of success. Now, as project management matures, we are asking the customer and contractor to meet at the onset of a project and come up with a mutually agreed definition of success. Each definition of success can therefore have a unique set of metrics specifically used for that project. If the customer and contractor do not have an agreed upon definition of success, the result can be Exhibit 1 below.

Exhibit 1: A Disagreement in Defining Project Success
Project governance personnel will require project management education.

In my predictions for 2016, I stated that sponsorship by a single individual would be replaced with committee sponsorship. The problem was that, because projects were becoming larger and more complex, all of the necessary decisions could not be made by a single person acting as a sponsor and committee governance would be a necessity. Unfortunately, for many firms, this has created a headache because people placed on the governance committee were poorly educated in project management and were under the impression that project governance and organizational governance are the same. Educational programs will need to be developed for committee governance personnel such that they understand their new roles, responsibilities, decision-making authority and that this can change from project to project and therefore must be a negotiated process at the start of each project so that there is no conflict over duties between the governance personnel and the project managers.
There will be a growth in the use of Portfolio PMOs.

In my 2016 predictions, I stated that the most important word in the project manager’s vocabulary will be “value.” The definition of a project will include wording on value to be expected. The definition of project success will be based upon value delivered rather than meeting the project’s constraints. Metrics will be established for measuring benefits and value throughout the life cycle of the project. What we are now realizing is that some organization within the company must take the responsibility for selecting and prioritizing the projects in the portfolio of projects such that corporate business value will be maximized. This will be accomplished by the use of a Portfolio PMO. As a side benefit, the Portfolio PMO can prevent “pet” projects from being added to the portfolio and wasting precious resources that provide little or no value.
Projects will be aligned to strategic corporate objectives.

Project value can come in many forms. One of the responsibilities of the Portfolio PMO will be to track the projects in the portfolio and measure their ability to meet strategic business objectives, thus maximizing the business value for the company. This may create conflicts if the Portfolio PMO selects and prioritizes projects for inclusion in the portfolio based upon strategic business objectives rather than functional, divisional or business unit objectives based upon limited resources.
There will be a growth in unrealistic expectations of project management.

As project management grows, executives will begin working on larger and more complex projects. While this is often a necessity for growth and survival, the expectations must be realistic. For years, we encouraged project managers to address each project optimistically and with a positive attitude. Now, we will be telling project managers to “hope for the best, but plan for the worst.” Risk management practices will now take center stage and project managers may have to develop detailed contingency plans at an early stage in the project’s life cycle.
There will be a growth in internally developed dashboards.

As I stated in last year’s expectations, written reports are slowly being replaced by dashboard reporting systems. Most companies hired outside dashboard consulting companies to help create their dashboards. But as the need for more dashboards has arisen, companies will be hiring (or training some of their own people to serve as) infographics or dashboard designers. This should lower the cost to the company and get dashboards that are more closely aligned to strategic business objectives.
Project management methodologies will be replaced by frameworks.

As more trust is being placed in the hands of the project managers, rigid methodologies that are based upon policies and procedures are being replaced with flexible methodologies or frameworks that can be customized to individual projects. This is one of the concepts of Agile and Scrum.
Multinational project management will grow significantly.

As more companies seek out the opportunities to become multinational players, the need to develop multinational project management skills will increase. This will require coursework in topics such as international politics, power and religions, and how they impact the way that some projects must be managed.
The role of the change control boards (CCBs) will be modified.

Traditional, CCBs looked only at a given project when considering whether to approve or deny a scope change. As projects become larger and more complex, resources may have to be removed from ongoing projects to satisfy a scope change on the project at hand. Now, CCBs must consider how the scope change on one project may impact other projects.
The use of Certification Boards will increase.

There are numerous certification programs can an individual can attend. Most companies provide tuition assistance for these certifications. But now, it appears that, with the number of possible certifications in the marketplace and with that number expected to grow, companies are creating Certification Boards to approve the selection of certifications and to make sure that it adds value for the firm. The growth in certifications will most likely happen only for those firms that reimburse employees for the cost of certification.
Companies will perform world class benchmarking.

For years, companies believed that project management benchmarking should be done only with companies in their own industry and with similar processes. Now, companies will be performing world class benchmarking where they will measure themselves against the best project management companies in the world rather than just those in their own industry.

The above predictions are the ones that I consider critical for 2017. The introduction of PM 2.0 and PM 3.0 will bring forth additional changes. The predictions described above are part of the lectures on PM 2.0 and PM 3.0.

For those of you that are interested, IIL offers 1-hour, 3-hour, and 6-hour webinars and seminars on PM 2.0 and PM 3.0. For additional information on these webinars and seminars, contact learning@iil.com or visit www.iil.com.

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Top 10 Project Management Predictions for 2016

By Harold Kerzner, Ph.D.
Senior Executive Director for Project Management, IIL

Every year, the landscape for project management changes. Some of the changes often require considerable effort for implementation whereas other changes may be just cosmetic. But there’s one thing we can be sure about: change is inevitable. It will happen, the question being “When”?

We are in a rapidly changing evolutionary period which I refer to as “Project Management 2.0 (PM 2.0).” Even though many project management practitioners and educators have been expounding the birth and virtues of PM 2.0, sitting in the wings is PM 3.0 waiting to come on stage.

Below are the top ten predictions I am making for 2016 as a result of PM 2.0 and PM 3.0. Some of these predictions have already come true for some companies, but for the majority of firms these will happen in 2016.

Executives will place more trust in the project manager and in project management overall.

For decades, executives were afraid that project managers would be making decisions that were reserved for the executive levels of management. This limited the authority and decision-making abilities of the project managers. To make matters worse, there was a misbelief that project managers did not know enough about the business in order to participate in business decisions. In 2016, project managers will participate in both project- and business-related decisions and trust in project managers will increase.

Project managers will manage more of the strategic projects.

Historically, strategic projects were managed by functional managers because executives had limited trust and faith in the decision-making abilities of the project managers. All of this will change and project managers will assume responsibility for managing the portfolio of strategic projects.

Project sponsorship by a single individual will be replaced by committee governance.

As projects become larger and more complex, it is increasingly difficult for one person to provide all of the necessary support. Committee governance will replace traditional project sponsorship on many projects, especially those in the strategic portfolio.

Corporate resource management practices will come of age.

The biggest challenge facing most executives is that they do not know how much additional work the organization can take on without overtaxing the existing labor force. By establishing an effective capacity planning system, projects will be approved, added to the queue, and prioritized based upon resource availability. Effective resource management practices should allow us to design a portfolio of projects that will maximize the value that the company will receive.

Structured business case development will become a necessity.

All too often, projects are approved based upon an unstructured business case that is riddled with holes. Companies will develop templates for the preparation of a business case, accompanied by a benefits realization plan and a description of the value expected at project completion.

“Value” will be the most important word in the project manager’s vocabulary.

The definition of a project will include wording on value to be expected. The definition of project success will be based upon value delivered rather than meeting the project’s constraints. Metrics will be established for measuring benefits and value throughout the life cycle of the project.

The need for paperless project management will grow.

Companies will finally realize the cost of preparing useless reports and handouts that nobody wants nor reads. Paperless project management practices will be accompanied by a rapid growth in dashboard reporting of project performance. Executives can expect to see “real time” data on the dashboards rather than having to wait for months to pass by before a report is prepared. This should certainly allow for decisions to be made in a timely manner based upon evidence and facts rather than guesses.

The number of metrics to be used on a project will increase.

You cannot determine the actual performance of a project, or a project’s success, just by looking at time, cost, and scope. Let me say that again so that it sinks in: You cannot determine the actual performance of a project, or a project’s success, just by looking at time, cost, and scope. For more than five decades (that’s right, five decades) we have avoided looking at additional metrics because we did not know how to measure them. We looked at the easiest metrics to measure, namely time, cost, and scope. This is going to change. We may end up with 10-20 metrics on each project and the metrics can change in each life cycle phase.

Tracking assumptions and constraints will become a necessity.

For years, we took the easy way out during project execution and believed that the assumptions and constraints would remain fixed over the duration of the project. Now, some of the new metrics we develop will track the assumptions and constraints on projects. This will make it easier to redirect failing projects or those projects that will not provide the expected benefits and value.

Project management maturity models will account for the changes in PM 2.0 and PM 3.0.

There are several project management maturity models in the marketplace. Unfortunately, many of them have not kept up with the changes dictated by PM 2.0 and PM 3.0. All of this will change in 2016.

The above ten predictions are the ones that I consider critical for 2016. The introduction of PM 2.0 and PM 3.0 will bring forth additional changes.

[trx_infobox style=”regular” closeable=”no” icon=”icon-desktop”]Learn more about IIL’s Project Management training at www.iil.com/pm. [/trx_infobox]

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By Harold Kerzner, Ph.D. | Senior Executive Director for Project Management, IIL

By Harold Kerzner, Ph.D. | Senior Executive Director for Project Management, IIL

INTRODUCTION

INNOVATION AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT

PROJECT MANAGEMENT IS A BUSINESS DELIVERY SYSTEM

PROJECT MANAGEMENT LITERATURE

By Harold Kerzner, Ph.D. Senior Executive Director for Project Management, IIL

Metric mania will grow.

Project management is now being viewed as a strategic business process rather than merely a traditional project management process used for project execution and delivery.

Project management career paths will become strategic competencies.

Each project can have a different definition of success.

Project governance personnel will require project management education.

There will be a growth in the use of Portfolio PMOs.

Projects will be aligned to strategic corporate objectives.

There will be a growth in unrealistic expectations of project management.

There will be a growth in internally developed dashboards.

Project management methodologies will be replaced by frameworks.

Multinational project management will grow significantly.

The role of the change control boards (CCBs) will be modified.

The use of Certification Boards will increase.

Companies will perform world class benchmarking.

By Harold Kerzner, Ph.D. Senior Executive Director for Project Management, IIL

Executives will place more trust in the project manager and in project management overall.

Project managers will manage more of the strategic projects.

Project sponsorship by a single individual will be replaced by committee governance.

Corporate resource management practices will come of age.

Structured business case development will become a necessity.

“Value” will be the most important word in the project manager’s vocabulary.

The need for paperless project management will grow.

The number of metrics to be used on a project will increase.

Tracking assumptions and constraints will become a necessity.

Project management maturity models will account for the changes in PM 2.0 and PM 3.0.

By Harold Kerzner, Ph.D.
Senior Executive Director for Project Management, IIL

By Harold Kerzner, Ph.D.
Senior Executive Director for Project Management, IIL