All of a sudden, nearly overnight, huge swaths of the world’s workforce was asked to work from home. Instead of face-to-face meetings, they now had to figure out how to do all that work remotely, over online meetings. For Project and Programme Managers one of the biggest questions became: “How to lead productive online meetings?”
Challenges to overcome
Of course, we’ve all adapted, and are trying to do our best in work circumstances that may be less than ideal. Some of us had many challenges to overcome. For example:
Some may not have dedicated office space.
Some may be trying to balance a lot of family demands.
Some have children who are at home without daycare or school age children who are doing virtual learning.
Some have life partners who are also working from home.
Some have pets who may cause interruptions, or are barking in the background.
That means productivity during work time has gotten a lot trickier than it used to be. So how do you figure out what to do to move forward, to stay productive and to keep meeting attendants engaged? One good place to focus is technology. What can you put in place to strengthen this and other issues?
Kathryn Casna is a digital marketing and travel writer from San Diego, California. Customer-facing retail, hospitality, and event production make up her professional roots. Today, she runs her own writing business from whatever new locale she happens to be exploring.
When you come from a traditional project management background to Agile, there are a few guidelines for becoming a successful Agile Project Leader. Enjoy the tips in the video below.
The purpose of this article is to give you a summary of the changes in The Scrum Guide 2020 that was released on 18 November 2020 by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. These changes were made with input from the community of Scrum users around the globe. This updated version helps bring Scrum to all industries and organizations. The 2020 Scrum Guide also includes updates to several major elements of the Scrum framework.
What hasn’t changed
Scrum is still a lightweight framework to solve complex problems and deliver value. Scrum is still about a cross-functional team of people collaborating closely with one another and their stakeholders. as a team, they create valuable and useful increments every sprint.
What has changed
There are a number of changes in the Scrum Guide.
It’s less prescriptive, simpler language is used and software-specific terminology has been removed
changes to some definitions, e.g., scrum definition, empiricism, product backlog, sprint goal, sprint backlog, increment, definition of done
elements added or their relationships clarified, e.g., the “commitments” product goal (new), sprint goal and definition of done
the concept of a development team within a scrum team was removed to reduce the potential for dysfunctions between the product owner and the development team (“us vs. them”) and focus the entire scrum team on the same objective
a scrum team now consists of the product owner, developers, and the scrum master. the people doing the work of creating a usable increment are called developers
the “entire scrum team is accountable for creating a valuable, useful increment every sprint. The developers are accountable for all aspects of creating the usable increment
the terms “accountable” and “responsible” are used more consistently, and “roles” is replaced by “accountabilities”
the scrum guide now uses the terms “self-managing” and “self-management” to emphasize that scrum teams choose “who, how and what to work on” whereas the scrum guide 2017 used the terms “self-organizing” and “self-organization” to describe that development teams chose “who and how to do work”
the term servant-leader was removed, and scrum masters are now described as “true leaders who serve the scrum team and the larger organization”
sprint planning now has three topics: “why is this sprint valuable?”, is the new first topic
the purpose of events is clarified and the description how to conduct them is less prescriptive
a “product goal” is introduced, serving as a target and describing a future state of the product
it is clarified that multiple increments can be delivered within a sprint, even prior to the end of a sprint. sprint review is not a gate to releasing value.
Get your copy today
To download the latest copy of the Scrum Guide 2020, click here. You will also find a series of articles, blogs, videos and more that pertain to the 2020 version of the Scrum Guide released on November 18, 2020.
Recently I was involved with setting up the Governance guidelines for our Agile Delivery Framework at work. I realized that many Agile Project Leaders would benefit from a break-down of the what, the why and the how of governance on Agile projects, especially in an enterprise organization.
Definition of Governance
There are a few good definitions for governance in an agile context. I liked the following ones.
“Governance is the alignment of an initiative (project, programme or product development) with organisational goals to create value. Governance defines how the initiative is set up, managed and controlled. Agile governance is the application of Lean-Agile values, principles and practices to the task of governance.”
Disciplined Agile (DA)
“Agile governance is a process that projects or programs apply to ensure that projects are aligned with the needs or expectations of their stakeholders as well as ensuring that delivery of such projects while adhering to the existing protocols consisting of lean-based agile principles and practices that are applicable in agile-focused projects or programs.”
“Governance establishes chains of responsibility, authority and communication in support of the overall enterprise’s goals and strategy. It also establishes measurements, policies, standards and control mechanisms to enable people to carry out their roles and responsibilities effectively.”
The following principles are recommended by Disciplined Agile for effective governance in agile:
Collaboration with delivery teams is more effective than trying to force them to conform. IT professionals are intellectual workers, the type of people whom are more likely to do what you want when you work with them to do so rather than tell them to do so.
Enabling teams to do the “right thing” is more effective than trying to inspect it in. One examples would be when you want developers to follow common coding conventions. Instead of doing code inspections, it would be easier to adopt a code analysis tool such as CheckStyle and include it in your continuous integration (CI) strategy.
Continuous monitoring provides more timely insight than quality gate reviews. Team dashboards that use business intelligence (BI) technology to display real-time measures generated by the use of your development tools have become very common in the past few years. This enables both the team and their stakeholders to monitor the team’s progress in a continuous real-time manner. This is much more effective than traditional “quality gate” reviews of artifacts because the information displayed on the dashboards is automatically generated.
Transparency into teams provides better insight than status reports. Through application of strategies such as information radiators, team dashboards and active stakeholder participation, the work of a disciplined agile delivery team is effectively transparent.
Axelos.com also provides four guiding principles to enable successful governance of Agile delivery
Governance should mirror the Agile manifesto principles, particularly the art of simplicity – maximizing the work not done is essential
Agile delivery teams decide on the empirical performance metrics they will use and self-monitor. Teams quantify their performance and use the data to improve. Teams display progress status information visually, updating it frequently. This makes progress transparent to everyone including senior management.
Collaboration is an essential change in mindset. As drivers of strategy and direction, senior leadership champion the implementation of an agile culture for the whole organization. A transparent culture surfaces issues or blockers without fear of blame. Good agile governance and by extension successful organizations share knowledge, collaborate and remove barriers that foster organizational silos. Delivery teams are therefore given an environment, workspace and tools to collaborate, self-organize and deliver.
Independent reviews of Agile delivery should focus on the teams’ behaviours and practices and not just processes and documentation. When using Agile, the mindset for the organization is to adapt the governance, assurance and approval processes, and to consider different indicators of success. The usual principles of assurance remain but assessment relies more on observation and engagement with the delivery team and stakeholders, rather than reporting and information reviews.
In conclusion Axelos is saying that agile governance is about defining the fastest route that brings the most value.
Why Agile Delivery Governance?
A good agile delivery governance strategy will enable and motivate IT delivery teams to do the following.
Fulfill your organization’s strategies and objectives
Regularly and consistently create real business value
Provide appropriate return on investment (ROI)
Deliver consumable solutions in a timely and relevant manner
Work effectively with their project stakeholders
Adopt processes and organizational structure that encourage successful IT solution delivery
Present accurate and timely information to project stakeholders
Mitigate the risks they face.
How Disciplined Agile Teams Are Governed
DA recommends strategies that enable delivery governance. These strategies are: (my summarized view)
Enterprise awareness. Agile teams need to realize that they work within your organization’s enterprise ecosystem, as do all other teams. There are often existing systems in production that should not be negatively impacted by the release of the solution they are working on. They will work with other teams in parallel, striving to leverage each other’s work. They will work towards your organization’s business and technical visions. Enterprise awareness is the underpinning of effective governance.
Release planning. High-level release planning happens early on when you identify and think through any dependencies on other teams and try to identify a reasonable cost and time estimate for the current release that they are working on. The high-level plan is kept up-to-date as development progresses, and shared with stakeholders. Release planning enables the team to answer critical governance questions regarding projected schedule and cost.
Team dashboard. The tools used by your team should be instrumented to record important events when they occur. For example, your team management tool could record when a work item is defined, when work begins on it, when the work is validated (if appropriate), and when it is marked done. This sort of information can be recorded in a data warehouse and later reported on using business intelligence (BI) tooling via a project or portfolio dashboard. The real-time, accurate information radiated by a team dashboard enables the team to make better decisions and provides better transparency to stakeholders (including governance people).
Information radiators. An information radiator is a visible display that shows something of interest to a team or their stakeholders like a whiteboard with an architecture sketch on it, or a wall-mounted monitor showing the team’s dashboard. Information radiators enable better governance by increasing transparency.
Active stakeholder participation. Active stakeholder participation is the practice of having on-site access to stakeholders, or at least their proxies (i.e. Product Owners). Active stakeholders have the authority and ability to provide information and make timely decisions regarding the prioritization and scope of requirements. This enables more effective governance through improving the team’s access to decision makers.
Demos. Typically, at the end of each iteration, teams which follow Scrum, will demonstrate the solution to key stakeholders and invite feedback. This practice is also called stakeholder demonstration or sprint demonstration. This enables effective governance by increasing transparency and providing better opportunities for stakeholders to steer the team.
Coordination meetings. The team meets daily, to coordinate their activities. This practice is often called a scrum meeting or daily stand up meeting. This enables tactical governance within the team itself through increasing internal transparency and reducing the feedback cycle within the team.
Light-weight, risk-based milestones. Effective reviews are as simple and short as possible. A small co-located team will spend an hour walking the PO and business stakeholders through whatever is to be reviewed. For larger efforts this could be up to half a day in regulatory environments more time and effort need to be invested, particularly around creation and baselining of artifacts to be reviewed and recording of action items from the review.
Retrospectives. A retrospective is a facilitated reflection meeting performed by the team, with the goal of identifying potential areas of improvement, supporting your overall governance goal of continuous improvement.
These strategies support a light weight approach to governance while improving the overall effectiveness of the team.
Governance Practices and Principles
Finally, an International Journal article published in sciencedirect.com summarised Agile practices and principles to be followed for Governance as follows.
Ensure value driven delivery – use end solution orientation
Ensure stakeholder engagement
Boost team performance practices
Establish a transparent collaborative work environment
Utilise adaptive planning
Welcome changes throughout the project
Employ problem detection and resolution
Employ continuous improvements in products, people and processes
Conduct Value Measurements by considering strategic objectives, metrics, targets and savings.
Agree Agile metrics to be used on Portfolio level as well as on Program and Team level
The focus is on delivering outputs and results, rather than tasks and milestones. Strive for simplicity – bring just enough process and documentation, while keeping a constant balance between rigidity and responsiveness of methods, processes and tools.
In conclusion it seems that agile teams are significantly easier to govern than traditional teams as a result of greater transparency and accurate and timely development data.
Most project management professionals are aware of the project management trend of the accelerated shift from Waterfall to Agile Project Management as the only way to deliver on benefits in a dynamic and complex environment in order to learn and adapt quickly.
When project managers find themselves moving into agile due to this shift, what does it mean for the careers of these professionals?
For one thing, project managers will have to transition from following the typical traditional life cycle on projects to an agile approach like Scrum as an example of one of the most popular approaches.
Furthermore, on agile project the triple constraint changes from having a fixed scope with time or cost being variable/ negotiable, to scope/feature being the variable part that will be negotiated, based on the needs of the customer.
Daunting Journey
This can be quite a daunting journey and puzzling to highly experienced project professionals to position themselves as an Agile Project Manager or an Agile Project Leader. There are a multitude of agile frameworks in the new paradigm to increase organsiations’ agility. Most project management professionals will find it challenging to get into that space where people can follow your lead, like they have been for years.
Quite often people will feel like they are starting from scratch. There is this long journey of having to adopt an Agile mindset, to go for Agile training and possibly become certified in a new role, and then to become completely familiar and competent with the Agile principles and practices that need to be followed daily.
How the Project Manager role is changing
Project Managers need a different mindset and be practicing the values and principles of agile. PM’s need a working knowledge of agile frameworks and how to best apply them in your organisational context. They need to apply new tools and techniques and let go of being centre of coordination.
As a facilitator and coach they need to build collaborative decision-making environment. And in the Leadership space, they should focus on people rather than process.
Challenges during the transition
As part of the change there are things that we need to stop doing and start doing. Both are equally hard to do.
Agile is fast paced, disciplined and demanding. In high-change projects, there’s more complexity than one person can manage. Instead, cross-functional teams coordinate their own work and collaborate with the business representative PO. PM are accustomed to being at the centre of coordination for a project, while tracking and representing a project’s status to the rest of the organization. This will need to shift from being the center to serving the team and management.
As agile project leaders there is a change in emphasis to coaching people who want help, to foster greater collaboration on team, and to encourage improved team performance due to the inspect and adapt approach.
The agile project leader needs to align stakeholder needs. Ensure appropriate engagement of all stakeholders, as the Product Owner (PO) is not always correctly positioned or skilled to do so. It’s really important to be very effective in stakeholder engagement to remain valuable. It doesn’t matter what you are called as long as you are clear about how you fit into the totality of project responsibilities.
Focus on the outcome (rather than output) and on what needs to be done to achieve client acceptance. Use judgment in aligning your approaches to the demands of the project. It undoubtedly means that project managers, must adapt our roles to the context.
Other Research Perspectives
Based on agile guidance from the Project Management Institute (PMI), it is said that each project is unique and that project success is based on adapting to the unique context of the project. Determine the most appropriate method to produce the desired outcomes.
Tailoring the approach is iterative and it will be a constant process throughout the project lifecycle. Depending on the project, objectives and stakeholders, use just enough process to achieve the desired outcome, while maximising value, managing costs and enhancing the speed. Tailor with a holistic perspective of the business environment, the team size, the degree of uncertainty and the complexity of the project. Then discuss and agree as a team on the best delivery approach and resources required.
Furthermore, it is good to remember that a Certified Project Manager (PMP) or other qualified project management professional is one of the most highly trained and skilled knowledge workers in the organization. Reducing the available pool of knowledge workers as an asset is highly questionable. Smart organizational leaders find ways to include everyone who can contribute to the overall success of developing products and services that meet customer demands.
Trained Project Management professionals are equipped with key characteristics:
Leadership,
Influencing
Team building
Motivation
Communication
Facilitation
Decision making
Political and cultural awareness
Negotiation
Trust building
Conflict management
Coaching
You can be confident about what it is that you bring to the table with your skills and experience.
Options in Agile
There are multiple agile frameworks to choose from, but one of the most popular is the Scrum approach and in an enterprise organization, it will need to be scaled.
Scrum has very defined roles like the Product Owner (PO) and Scrum Master (SM). You will find an overlap between PO and PM:
Both concerned about projects meeting their objectives
Negotiating work with teams
Managing scope, time and budget
Managing stakeholder communications
Similarly, there is an overlap between the roles of the SM and the PM, namely:
Leadership
Excellent communicator, facilitator
Conflict Manager
Analyst & lateral thinker
Content knowledge
People’s person
Enabler
In the corporate enterprise environment where all three roles are often present on strategic Programmes, you’ll see a distinct difference in terms of the focus areas and responsibilities.
A Product Owner
The PO is concerned about the overall scope and he’s responsible for the product backlog prioritization
The PO is responsible for the quality of delivery from a User Story acceptance, Definition of Done (DoD), sprint and release perspective.
The PO needs to know about the Release status and is involved with Scrum events like backlog refinement, end-of-sprint review and demo as well as sprint planning (what is required).
From a financial perspective, the PO is part of the Cost management and responsible for benefit realization.
Scrum Master
The SM’s concerns are the sprint goal and sprint backlog, as well as sprint prioritization.
The SM looks at the velocity of the team, driving delivery.
The SM is responsible for scrum events like the Daily standup, sprint planning and retrospective.
For status the SM looks at daily status (updates on tool), sprint status
Risks and issues management from the perspective of helping to remove impediments, blockers.
Project Manager
The PM will look at the overall agile project life cycle and is responsible for compiling a Conceptual Sprint Plan (CSP) view of the project.
The PM will look at Release planning and integration aspects within the project, as well as with external projects and vendors or stakeholders.
PM is still involved in many meetings like Steercom, Scrum of Scrum (SoS) and Change Control
The PM is concerned about overall status feedback to the Steercom and the Project Management Office (PMO).
The PM is responsible for risk and issue management and escalations.
The PM does Cost management – planned/forecasts and actuals.
Project Manager & SM combined
Another option is where people have combined the role of a PM with that of a SM in the context of a consulting company serving customers, while fulfilling both roles on some projects or just the PM role on other projects.
Source: Shama Bole – plastergroup.com
Project Manager in SAFe
Based on another source: PMI Conference Paper by D Cornelius, PMI Global Congress, Oct 2014, the Paper evaluated the PM role using the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) practice. Since SAFe includes portfolio, program, and project levels, it provides the best opportunity for the PM to use the skills obtained from PM training. It will fulfill the role as Release Train Engineer (RTE). In this context the PM is also seen as a coach and facilitator.
The same Paper describes a trend where the PM practice is accepted as a key desired management skill and it moves project leadership from a specialized role back to the functional managers responsible for day-to-day operations. Project management is also one of the key courses required of students in MBA programs to ensure future business leaders obtain the knowledge to plan and execute projects. The elevation of project management as a key knowledge area for business leaders also will play a role in the reduction of the PM a specialized role.
The Paper concluded that the certified PM is a highly skilled knowledge worker that is capable of adding value in a lean and agile world, some-one who will participate effectively in enterprise agile organizations.
When a PM is deployed in a Scrum-only environment it limits the PM’s choices to participate as the Product Owner, a Scrum Master or a Scrum of Scrum Master (scaled).
The SAFe landscape provides the best opportunity for the professional PM to use their skills obtained from PM training. In Scrum @Scale, there is a Scrum of Scrum Master which could also be a good match for PM skills.
The PM is expected to lead by influence without authority. In the lean and agile world, the PM must become a servant leader which is only difficult when previous experience has been a command-and-control model, but In my opinion not so much if your leadership style was more facilitative and adaptive based on the context of the project. An agile PM provides a value that enables continual learning and improvement to members in the organization.
What Agile Project Leaders need for success
You need to work on growing skillsets beyond your area of expertise.
You need to tailor delivery approach based on the context.
It will be very valuable if you can coordinate between different systems, methodologies while coaching the teams in a singular direction.
You need to delegate control of detailed product planning and delivery to the team.
Focus on building a collaborative decision-making environment.
Ensure teams have the ability to respond to changes.
In an adaptive environment, you will use adaptive planning.
High emotional Intelligence with a focus on people rather than process.
Stakeholder engagement continuously and appropriately for the project needs.
Changed Leadership styles calling for situational and servant leadership.
You can transform yourself to become an agile project leader by knowing what your options are and by deciding where is the best fit based on your strengths, experience and value-add. Commit to continuous learning.
You will enjoy a stimulating work environment while your needs for variety, being autonomous and a change-maker are met.
Let us know what you think about the transitioning of project managers to agile?
Most Project Managers will testify that their work can be tough. No two projects or teams are the same. One of the most challenging aspects for project management practitioners is the amount of training needed to stay up-to-date in the face of changing practices.
Fortunately, training is easier now than ever before, thanks to online courses for project managers. The e-learning market has become large enough to provide a slew of materials for your professional improvement. It’s projected to reach $325 billion according to Mark in Style.co.uk by 2021.
Top Online Courses
But which courses are worth your time? There are plenty of them out there, but you can’t take them all. Should you take a free or a paid course? Another question that is often asked when looking for good online courses is:
“What are the top 5 online courses for project managers?”
So, here’s a list of online courses guaranteed to bring value to you and your company.
Let’s take a closer look at what each course has to offer.
1. Alison Diploma in Project Management
If you’re looking for a course that suits both those with experience in project management and those without, Alison’s course is a great choice. Alison is a platform for free learning with over a thousand online courses. From diploma courses to certificate courses, it’s excellent for online learning.
The course contains 27 modules, and it takes anywhere between six and ten hours to complete it. It teaches you about various useful facets of project management. These include methodologies like Agile and Scrum, working with PERT and Gantt charts, using the project life cycle, planning, evaluation, and analysis, in addition to electronic, specialist user documentation, and more.
A completion rate of 80% or more on every module is enough to earn the course diploma. While you can get certificates from Alison’s shop, you can also opt to have one in electronic form.
2. Coursera’s Project Management: The Basics for Success
Project Management: The Basics for Success is a great solution for learners looking for knowledge on a budget. You can complete it without paying a dime, although you will miss out on getting the final grade or the actual certificate.
The University of California is in charge of this course, so you’ll be in safe hands throughout the whole thing. You’ll need somewhere around seven hours to complete it, and you’ll have flexibility regarding deadlines.
That said, the course has a live instructor, meaning that you can’t log in and start learning whenever you want. Instead, you’ll need to wait for when it’s available.
That inconvenience aside, you’ll learn plenty of things during this course. You’ll gain an understanding of the project life cycle, the work breakdown structure (WBS), as well as how to deal with different kinds of people in your team, among other things. For a free course, that’s more than enough.
3. Master of Project Academy: Bundled Course
Master of Project Academy is a pretty large e-learning platform, having around 500,000 enrollments around the globe. Its course bundle gives you a wide range of relevant course materials for already skilled and inexperienced project managers. Keep in mind that it’s designed for more skilled project managers than for novices.
If you need to know more about Microsoft Project, Agile and Scrum, PMP,and other topics, Master of Project Academy: Bundled Course will be perfect for you. Additionally, you’ll find courses that cover ITIL and CAPM, too.
The bundle features tons of content, so you can choose to pay for the parts you’re interested in. It’s also self-paced so that you can take your time. You can also take advantage of moderated forums, round-the-clock assistance, and comprehensive guidance for your PMP exam.
It will likely take you some 35 hours to complete the courses. You can choose to pay for them in three ways. There’s the $37 per month option, but you can also get it for $185 per year or $370 for lifetime access.
4. The Complete Agile Project Manager (From the Project Management Institute)
Those who aspire to gain invaluable insight into the Agile methodology can benefit from PMI’s Agile course. It’s especially beneficial if you’re already a PMI member since you’ll be entitled to pretty great discounts. In that case, the course costs $243, while it costs $372 for non-members.
This course comprises nine sections. It covers Agile project management and the implementation of Agile methodologies in a very comprehensive way.If you’ve just started leading an Agile team or your company is moving toward that work method, this course could be a lifesaver.
It should take you around 17 hours to complete it if you have a good knowledge base. It covers a whole slew of topics, from scheduling and planning all the way to leading an Agile team and engaging stakeholders.
The course gives you a detailed project management overview, even fundamentals about project closing, project initiation, among other subjects. There are eight different course modules available. They discuss defining, planning, executing, controlling, monitoring, and closing projects, in addition to other key issues.
The entire course lasts six months, and it contains as many as nine hundred practice exam questions. The whole package can be yours for $500.
Make the best choice for your needs
Hopefully, this information will help you to make a more informed decision and to choose the online course that will meet your needs.
As the project management profession matured over the years, there has been a growing emphasis on developing leadership skills in order to become a better project leader.
In the words of the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) President and CEO, Sunil Prashara:
“Not only do today’s project leaders need a strong understanding of technology, the ability to determine the best project management methodology for projects, AND the new “power skills” like empathy, creativity and inspirational leadership, they must also have an understanding of the major business, technological, economic and geopolitical trends shaping the world.”
Sunil Prashara, President of PMI
To help prepare project professionals for this, the PMI has conducted research (interviews with project professionals; analyzed information extracted from political, economic, scientific and demographic databases) on the most pressing, long-term trends around the globe. The purpose is to gain a greater understanding of where these critical areas are heading and how industry project leaders can prepare.
With the speed of transformation and operating in a complex world, it will help to gain an understanding of these changes in order to thrive and make an impact where you are.
Signposts Report
The findings have been published in the PMI 2020 Signposts Report. In summary, the Report consist of the following Insights:
Insight 1: Africa and most of the developing world will be home to a new generation of talent ready to tackle a new generation of projects.
Insight 2: Climate change ranks as one of the biggest existential threats to civilization, but project professionals can play a pivotal role in avoiding the point of no return.
Insight 3: As artificial intelligence truly moves into the mainstream, it brings harsh realities—and immense opportunities for project leaders with the right blend of people and tech skills.
Insight 4: Rampant protectionism is forcing a rethink of the once unstoppable force of globalization. But for many project teams, it’s cross-border business as usual (with a few tweaks).
Insight 5: The global infrastructure gap between needs and investment is wide. To close it, project leaders are relying on data-driven innovation—and good old-fashioned people skills.
Insight 6: Keeping information safe requires a united front, backed by a cross-disciplinary, enterprise-wide cybersecurity culture.
The Report makes for a fascinating read about climate change, artificial intelligence, globalization, the infrastructure gap, cybersecurity and shifting demographics.
There are complex issues to be solved which require a new way of thinking and to reimagine the way work gets done. The PMI advocates that organisations need project leaders who bring holistic perspectives, a deep curiosity and broad skill sets to the work at hand who are capable of embracing new ways of working, leading diverse teams and exploring innovative solutions. We need to get ourselves ready.
In light of this crisis, some of the best things a Project Leader can do, is to arm yourself with information and to be a pillar of strength for your project team(s).
By now we all know that the Coronavirus, known as the COVID-19 pandemic, has serious implications for economies all over the world and is causing a huge business impact in every country where it is spreading. Countries, organizations, and individuals are faced with extremely serious risks, uncertainties, challenges, questions, and decisions—in many cases existential in nature. It is important to arm yourself with accurate, comprehensive information to manage your organization and teams through this crisis by making informed, thoughtful decisions.
Let’s look with a broader lens before we try to understand the impact on project teams.
Based on the rapid, exponential spread of COVID-19 across the world over the past month, McKinsey has revised its Scenario Analysis (as shared in the previous article) to include 9 potential scenarios. These scenarios capture outcomes related to GDP impact, public health response, and economic policies.
Stages of Recovery
Different countries have had different levels of success in handling this crisis, therefore McKinsey is proposing 4 stages of recovery readiness.
Overview of the 4 Stages of Recovery
To understand what state of readiness a country is in, the 9 scenarios are mapped to the 4 stages of readiness. The best prepared areas are in the upper right box.
For every country and territory, there is a path to recovery—before parts of the economy can be restarted, you must first slow the spread of the virus. If you prematurely restart the economy prior to truly containing the spread, you risk re-starting the spread. Most countries expect to experience significant decline in GDP in Q2 of 2020, which would be the first time since WWII. In fact, GDP drops to its lowest point globally in Q2.
COVID-19 Scenarios Overview
Based on the COVID-19 scenarios, here are the proposed paths to recovery.
If you examine the Stage 2 scenario: A3-Virus is contained, which captures the situation where the virus is contained by mid-Q2, it is expected that public health containment and mitigation efforts, along with a seasonal decline, leads to a reduction in case load.
The result is that by the end of 2020, beginning of 2021, GDP will have recovered to the pre-pandemic levels for most countries.
Under the A1 scenario (medium virus spread), we endure a slow, global recovery—there is severe and large-scale human and economic impact. Most countries will take over 2+ years to recover to the pre-pandemic GDP levels. In this scenario, the GDP shows a gradual U-shape recovery stretching multiple years.
Implication for Companies and Projects
If the Stage 2 scenario (A3-virus is contained) materializes in your country, you have the possibility that the economy should return to normal within a year, with little impact on larger projects and programmes that were able to continue, despite wide-scale lock-down measures in many countries. Of course many small projects would have been put on hold, postponed, or cancelled altogether due to the economic downturn.
However, in the event of a possible A1 scenario in your country, the slow economic recovery, may cause many planned projects to be postponed and multiple cost-saving measures are expected to be implemented by stable companies who will try to survice over the 2+ years that it will take the economy to recover to pre-pandemic GDP levels.
Our response
There is no point in panicking about the situation we as project practitioners are finding ourselves in. Rather prepare for the eventuality that uncertainty, challenges and difficult decisions are lying ahead for most companies.
In another McKinsey article: “Saving our livelihoods from COVID-19: Toward an economic recovery“, they state:
The pandemic could give rise to a new era of human development
McKinsey, April 2020
Recognise the impact of COVID-19 on people’s livelihoods. There will be an increase in unemployment and poverty. This means that some of your team members are experiencing a decline in household income that could last months. This will have a demoralizing effect on families and on teams we lead. We need to raise our awareness and focus on providing emotional safety to our teams. When people feel safe (a basic need) and still secure in their jobs, they will stay committed and motivated to work productively.
It will be the government’s responsibility to help companies to safeguard employment. People will be allowed to return to work under strict health protocols. We need to support those protocols in order to contain the virus and still stay economically active.We can expect that companies will make structural changes during the economic recovery period like leaner operations, digital and industrial reconversions, the introduction of new channels, agile organizational structures, digital innovation and innovative learning techniques. These changes will certainly have an impact on how projects are prioritized and executed in future. As project professionals we need to position ourselves to have market related skills to fill the demands of the recovering economy.
We need to work on being more resilient in these difficult time and keep developing our leadership skills. This is why I’m reading a book called: “Prosper!: How to Prepare for the Future and Create a World Worth Inheriting” by Chris Martenson and Adam Taggart. It gives specific, attainable steps you can take today that can limit your vulnerability and help you to live your life with greater purpose.
Keep yourself informed, be realistic, but stay positive while leading your teams as best as you can through these uncertain times. As long as value is delivered by projects and the outcomes serve companies and their customers, you will stay in high demand.
Please comment and let us know how you are dealing with the pandemic crisis. How are you supporting your teams through this? Share anything that will help others who are in the same predicament.
Many people like to dream. Some people manage to make dreams come true by launching a change that brings about success.
Today you will find inspiration from well-known founders and CEO’s who have all dreamed big, people who didn’t let fear hold them back to pursue the big ideas and turn them into reality.
Infographic brought to you by Wrike project management web based software.
When you find yourself leading a virtual team, you will often need to take on the role as team coach to facilitate optimum performance. In order to do so properly, a good place to start, is with your understanding of what a team really is.
Much about teams and team performance can be learnt from the authors Katzenbach and Smith. No wonder that their definition of Teams became an industry standard over the years:
“A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.”
Katzenbach and Smith
In an article: “Organisational Culture” published in the Harvard Business Review, Katzenbach and Smith stated that teamwork represents a set of values that encourage listening and responding constructively to views expressed by others, giving others the benefit of the doubt, providing support, and recognizing the interests and achievements of others. They explain further that teams require both individual and mutual accountability. Teams rely on group discussion, debate, and decision, sharing information and best practice performance standards. Teams produce work-products through the joint contributions of their members. This is what makes possible performance levels greater than the sum of all the individual members, also stated as a team is more than the sum of its parts.
A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. The essence of a team is common commitment towards a purpose in which team members can believe. The attainability of specific goals helps teams maintain their focus on getting results. The combination of purpose and specific goals is essential to performance. In essence, goals help a team keep track of progress, while a broader purpose supplies meaning and emotional energy.
In working with teams Katzenbach and Smith have found when a team shares a common purpose, goals, and approach, mutual accountability grows as a natural counterpart. When people work together toward a common objective, trust and commitment follow. Consequently, teams enjoying a strong common purpose and approach inevitably hold themselves responsible, both as individuals and as a team, for the team’s performance. This sense of mutual accountability also produces the rich rewards of mutual achievement in which all members share.
Project Lead as a Team Coach
Having the responsibility to facilitate positive change in teams you lead, whether in person or virtually, you have much neuro-science research to back you up according to the Neuro Leadership Institute. How can this help you to coach teams for optimum performance?
Well, virtual team members have differing skill sets and depending on their background also different levels of experience to consider. It is important for teams to have the right mix of skills including technical or functional expertise, problem-solving, decision-making skills and interpersonal skills. Interpersonal skills include risk taking, helpful criticism, objectivity, active listening, giving the benefit of the doubt, and recognizing the interests and achievements of others.
As a team coach it is good to be cognizant of behavioral differences in the virtual team. There are a variety of individuals with an even bigger variety of personalities. Having a basic understanding of personality types, will help you tailor your communication plans. Remember also that virtual team members may be at different levels of engagement and motivation.
Christopher Samsa from the Neuro Leadership Institute continues to explain important factors to consider as part of brain based team coaching. They are:
Collective intelligence
Collective emotion
Collective performance
Collective Intelligence
Collective intelligence is the prediction of the group’s ability to perform well. There is a correlation to how group members are social sensitive of one another, if there’s an equal distribution of conversation turn-taking and even the proportion of females in the group that can increase the collective intelligence.
As a team leader and coach you can help the team to be more meta-cognitive, to be mindful about planning out their work, tracking their progress, and assessing their own knowledge.
Collective Emotion
Collective emotion refers to the ability to empathise and to cooperate with one another. Some factors that come into play are:
Social regulation – a person’s ability to be explicit about their emotions. For example, if you join a meeting just after receiving some bad news, instead of trying to keep it to yourself, mention it and put it out in the open.
Mirror neurons – when we perceive some-one in pain, sadness, it fires the same emotions in your brain.
Social context, if are you friend or foe. A perceived similarity will help, perceived closeness will improve commitment. If one member shows progress, the whole team will feel they are making progress especially if they have a common purpose and shared goals. Work towards having positive connections and similarity in groups.
Help the team stay cool under pressure by managing expectations and helping other reappraise.
Collective Performance
Collective performance is about understanding the team behaviour at systemic and habitual level. Look at the culture of the team and figure out if they are generally positive. If they are connected to each other and are they contributing to team performance.
A common tool that many of you are familiar with, is the Tuckman model for teams. The Forming Storming Norming Performing theory is an elegant and helpful explanation of team development and behavior.
Principles for results coaching
The principles to use in order to coach for results are:
Self-directed learning – let people discover, find answers themselves, learning something new, making new connections.
Solutions focus – look forward into how to solve problems, instead of only discussing problems and issues.
Positive feedback to the team and individual members often.
Stretch – provide stretch goals that are not always easy to attain.
Structure – be consistent with the agenda and format of discussion, it will help to make people feel safe.
Model for Coaching
In their research, the Neuro Leadership Institute shares another very useful Model, called the Co-create Model. Based on this model you need to remember the following when coaching teams for optimum performance.
Source: Neuro Leadership Institute
Spend enough time in the Forming stage to establish a common purpose for the team based on the shared vision.
Agree on the performance objectives based on the common purpose; they could be business objectives or project milestones and deliverables.
Identify the gap between where the team is now, versus performance objectives and the common purpose. This is where you need to take into account the budget available, the project timeline, the team’s experience, skills and emotional status.
Explore all possible ways of bridging the gap. This is where the team can be stretched.
The Team decides on the best way forward and allocates who does what. Allow the team to discuss how they will manage progress and accountability and when they will meet next to review the actions.
The Harvard Business Review: Organisational Culture, 1993. By Jon R. Katzenbach, founder and co-leader of the Katzenbach Center at Booz & Company, which focuses on cultural and leadership joint research within client situations, author of “The Wisdom of Teams” and “Leading Outside the Lines”. And Douglas K. Smith, Chairman of the Board of ‘The Rapid Results Institute’ and author of “On Value and Values: Thinking Differently About We In An Age Of Me”.
Neuro Leadership Institute: Managing your team virtually, April 2020
While the whole world is currently dealing with the Coronavirus, and more specifically known as the COVID-19 pandemic, the project management community has a responsibility to deal with this issue on our projects in a decisive, direct manner. What are the important things to do?
When faced with such an extreme risk, uncertainty and challenge, the first thing to do, is to arm yourself with accurate, comprehensive information to best prepare to manage through this crisis by making informed, thoughtful decisions. As Project Management Professionals we need to be planning for this on our projects. Of course this will include to put it on your Risk Register, including a series of scenarios, the expected impacts and mitigation actions with risk owners.
Take the project conversation to your Sponsor and Steering Committee to consider if the project should be put on hold or delayed. You will need signoff on decisions made.
Business Implications
According to a McKinsey article, on the COVID-19 implications for Business, published prior to the lockdown of several countries, there are 3 potential economic scenarios for the Coronavirus Disease. They are:
Quick recovery: The case count continues to grow, given the Coronavirus’s high transmissibility. However, countries are able to achieve rapid control, as seen in China and the virus is assumed to be seasonal.
Global slowdown: Most countries are unable to achieve the same rapid control that China managed. In Europe and the United States, transmission is high but remains localized, driven by strong countermeasures taken by individuals, firms, and governments, while virus is assumed seasonal.
Global recession: In this worst case scenario, the assumptions are similar to that of Global Slowdown, except the virus is not seasonal—i.e. unaffected by spring in the northern hemisphere. Infection cases grow throughout the year, resulting in healthcare systems being overwhelmed for many countries. A recovery in consumer confidence is pushed out to Quarter 3 or later.
The sectors to be most impacted by the pandemic, forecasted by McKinsey, are Aviation and Hospitality, as well as Consumers.
The immediate actions that organisations are expected to take, with application to dealing with this on your projects, are discussed in the next paragraph, based on the McKinsey recommendations.
#1 Protect Employees
Provide clear communication to employees on what to do. Companies, and specifically Project Managers, need to provide clear, simple language to local management and teams on how to deal with the Coronavirus pandemic. These recommendations should be consistent with best practices outlined World Health Organisation and other health agencies.
Secondly, provide autonomy to local managers, so they feel empowered to deal with any quickly evolving situation. With that said, corporates should also monitor and ensure guidelines are being safely followed.
The third one is very applicable to Project Managers to remember. For any crisis, telecommuting has been an important tactic for maintaining operations. Provide an infrastructure for remote work.
To this point, do the following:
Allow employees to telecommute.
Train our leaders. Leaders should be sensible and reasonable in their expectations as to when workers are available for work.
Identify employees who are most crucial to maintaining business continuity. Ensure these employees have the proper tools and infrastructure to work remotely.
Develop a disaster recovery scenario that incorporates telecommuting.
#2 Setup a cross-functional response team
We should set up a cross-functional Coronavirus response team that should include members from every function and discipline within the organization. The leader of the team should report directly to the CEO.
This response team will have several workstreams, focused on the following areas:
Center for communication and coordination
Employee protection of health, welfare and ability to perform their roles
Financials stress test and development of a contingency plan
Supply Chain Management including monitoring, response and long-term plan within the context of Business Continuity Management
Sales, Marketing and Customer engagement including responses to demand shocks.
It’s important for this team to think through different scenarios, to create a single source of truth, to provide clear policies and guidelines, to monitor issues with rapid responses, to track adherence to policies, to update demand forecasts, to support supplier stability and more as applicable to the industry or sector you are in.
#3 Ensure sufficient financial liquidity
It’s recommended to have at minimum 3 months of cash at hand, to have an adequate buffer of stock or other parts at hand, to understand how prepared key suppliers are.
#4 Stabilise the Supply Chain
The activities related to Supply Chain Management include medium-term risk management in our Supply Chain. In the aftermath, there are long-term actions to take related to Business Continuity Management (e.g. supplier regional diversification).
On projects you should consider procurement commitments, including possible delay in deliveries of materials or bringing in contracted staff. A common occurrence on projects, is where people are outsourced from national or international Agencies and you need to consider the implications for those commercial contracts too.
#5 Practice Customer centric design principles
Engage with customers and ensure transparency.
On projects you need to make communications on of your top priorities to address uncertainty, fear or possible panic. Be open with your team, stakeholders, and your sponsor. Communicate your scenarios and plans, and then update with how events are affecting your project and changes to those plans. Also plan for regular review cycles to reconsider plans and responses.
#6 Help the community
Look for ways to support the community. We should adopt strong Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices. Some important activities could include targeting nonprofits and community outreach organizations in your local area, encouraging our employees to volunteer. Let others know what your organization has done. The communication should include only the most pertinent details, including the amount of funds committed, the key beneficiaries and recipients, and what you aim to achieve with your donation.
As Project Managers we have valuable skills to offer, so it’s important to link into responses among your wider business and social communities and offer your help.
Finally, you need to consider your own role. Who will step into your role, if you are taken ill? What about work-stream leaders and other key people on your project? Convene your top team and sketch out alternates for everyone – and alternates for those, if your project is big enough. Even consider the possibility of an orderly temporary shut-down of your project.
We all know how each year can pick-up speed and we become busier than ever. For this productivity to be sustainable, we need a whole lot of motivation.
Especially in the life of a project manager, there are always many important things to do to keep projects on track. Here we think of:
being a leader who needs to motivate others
being a team builder so that your project will have a high performing team
being an excellent communicator, keeping all stakeholders informed and aligned
being a good organiser and planner
being a problem solver of all the inevitable problems that come up
being a negotiator and influencer
knowing how to keep the customers satisfied
keeping your business and industry knowledge current
To all of you who are in the trenches everyday, keeping your eyes on the goals and leading your projects to successful outcomes, I want to share this Infographic, with compliments from Wrike, to bless you with great motivation tips to get more done every day!
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