94 • Creative, Ecient, and Eective Project Management
Getting Started Checklist
Question Yes No
• Seek outside perspectives.
• Other(s):
Faster, Better, Cheaper Philosophy:
• Emphasize the importance of addressing the cause and not the
symptoms of a problem or issue.
• Encourage team members to consult peers on key issues, concerns,
and problems.
• Implement change management.
• Take time to dene problems prior to developing solutions.
• Other(s):
Stretching Resources Too in:
• Apply resource leveling to have more ecient and eective usage.
• Determine priorities.
• Encourage sharing of knowledge, experience, and expertise.
• Other(s):
Silos:
• Address conict early on and directly.
• Communicate continuously with stakeholders.
• Encourage greater integration and interdependence among key
stakeholders.
• Other(s):
Focus on the Past or Present, Not the Future:
• Conduct planning with team members.
• Perform contingency planning with team members.
• Perform risk management with team members.
• Perform visioning with team members.
• Other(s):
Lack of Sharing:
• Build a common data repository.
• Encourage sharing of data, information, knowledge, and experiences.
• Provide a common set of tools.
• Use media, such as le shares and email, to share data, information,
knowledge, and experiences.
• Other(s):
Compliant Workforce:
• Allow for exibility when applying standards, procedures, and
techniques.
• Encourage team members to think outside the box.
Challenges and Constraints • 95
Getting Started Checklist
Question Yes No
• Recognize and reward people who initiate taking risks, regardless of
outcome.
• Select a diverse team of people, from personality to experience.
• Other(s):
Hierarchy:
• Allow some team members to assume project management
responsibilities.
• Apply job enlargement for team members.
• Have project manager and leads assume some of the responsibilities
that other team members have.
• Increase span of control for project manager and leads.
• Provide opportunities for cross-training.
• Other(s):
Not Listening to Inner Voice:
• Bring on board a mix of le- and right-brain thinkers.
• Encourage greater use of right-brain thinking on problems, issues,
and so on.
• Encourage the solicitation of feedback involving both logic and
feelings of team members.
• Other(s):
Taking on Only What Is Known:
• Encourage people to take on problems, issues, and so on with little
available information.
• Encourage team members to embrace ambiguity.
• Perform benchmarking to obtain new ideas.
• Recognize and reward risk taking.
• Visit other projects and organizations to learn new ideas and processes.
• Other(s):
Management’s Lack of Responsiveness:
• Communicate continuously about the project to key members of
management.
• Invite key members of management to attend team meetings.
• Invite key members of management to participate in important
decisions.
• Other(s):
Success:
• Bring on board team members who question the status quo.
• Encourage team members to embrace ambiguity by tackling tasks
with little or no data or information.
(Continued)
96 • Creative, Ecient, and Eective Project Management
Getting Started Checklist
Question Yes No
• Pollinate the team from time to time with new team members with
dierent knowledge and experience.
• Recognize and reward failure as well as success.
• Other(s):
Too Many Positive and Negative Incentives:
• Develop clear standards of performance.
• Provide an equitable distribution of awards, balancing individual and
group ones.
• Other(s):
Team Composition Imbalance:
• Bring on board a diverse group of people varying in skills, knowledge,
experience, and personality.
• Provide training that focuses on improving the skills and knowledge
that individuals lack.
• Solicit input from outside experts, either from other projects or
outside the organization.
• Other(s):
Dominance of Brain inking
• Assign a devil’s advocate.
• Bring on board a diverse group of people, varying in personality (e.g.,
thinking styles).
• Hire contractors and consultants from time to time to shake up
thinking and oer dierent perspectives.
• Provide a personality assessment of existing team members so they
can determine similarities and dierences in thinking styles.
• Other(s):
Inghting:
• Assign tasks that require team members to work jointly.
• Confront negative dierences up front in a project’s life cycle.
• Clearly dene roles, responsibilities, and authorities.
• Encourage people to share data, information, and insights.
• Establish a conict resolution process.
• Provide a personality assessment of team members.
• Other(s):
ENDNOTES
1. William Sonnenschein, e Diversity Toolkit (Lincoln Wood, IL: Contemporary
Books, 1999).
2. Eugene Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? (New York: Perigee Books, 1981), p. 61.
Challenges and Constraints • 97
3. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 61.
4. Roger von Oech, A Whack on the Side of the Head (New York: Warner Books, Inc.,
1990), p. 10.
5. Sonnenschein, e Diversity Toolkit, p. 35.
6. Dave Allan et al., What If? (Oxford: Capstone Publishing Limited, 1999), 56.
7. von Oech, A Whack on the Side of the Head, p. 170.
8. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 50.
9. Allan et al., What If?, p. 210.
10. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 49.
11. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 94.
12. Brown, Inventors at Work (Redmond, WA: Tempus Books, 1988), p. 343.
13. Allan et al., What If? p. 142.
14. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 74.
15. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 74.
16. von Oech, A Whack on the Side of the Head, p. 11.
17. omas S. Kuhn, e Structure of Scientic Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University
of Chicago, 1970), p. 24.
18. Allan et al., What If? p. 12.
19. James L. Adams, Conceptual Blockbusting, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1979), p. 81.
20. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 71.
21. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 96.
22. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 71.
23. Allan et al., What If? p. 55.
24. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 90.
25. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? pp. 88–89.
26. von Oech, A Whack on the Side of the Head, p. 10.
27. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 82.
28. Peter Senge et al., e Dance of Change (New York: Currency, 1999), p. 16.
29. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? pp. 83–84.
30. Allan et al., What If? p. 26.
31. Kuhn, e Structure of Scientic Revolutions, p. 68.
32. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 75.
33. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 95.
34. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 26.
35. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 77.
36. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 92.
37. Allan et al., What If? p. 40.
38. Allan et al., What If? p. 224.
39. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 49.
40. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 52.
41. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 26.
42. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 81.
43. Allan et al., What If? p. 137
44. Sonnenschein, e Diversity Toolkit, p. 122.
45. Raudsepp, How Creative Are You? p. 92.
46. Sonnenschein, e Diversity Toolkit, p. 122.
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