CHAPTER 14
Applying Complexity Thinking to High-Visibility Strategic Projects
| Project Profile | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Complexity Dimensions | Independent | Moderately Complex | Highly Complex |
| Strategic Importance, Political Implications, Multiple Stakeholders |
|
|
|
Complex projects include highly visible, strategic projects that affect the core mission of the organization, have major political implications, involve multiple stakeholders with conflicting expectations, and require strong executive support. In this chapter we recommend management techniques for you to consider in managing the complexities of these types of high-visibility projects.
WHAT MAKES HIGH-VISIBILITY STRATEGIC PROJECTS COMPLEX?
“Politics is more difficult than physics.”
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
Strategic projects are by their very nature politically sensitive. Highly visible projects involve the most powerful and influential people, creating complex organizational and interpersonal situations.
POLITICAL MANEUVERS AND POWER STRUGGLES
Major change almost always destabilizes the existing power structure, prompting unpredictable behaviors at senior levels of the organization. Moreover, every organization has undefined political processes and ever-present power struggles. Political maneuvers can be stifling and overwhelming to a project—if not managed, they can lead to project failure. To survive, much less succeed, project managers and leaders must be aware of and adapt to political events as they occur.
CHANGING STRATEGIES AND EXPECTATIONS
Strategies can shift, causing virtually every aspect of a complex project to change. Project stakeholders often have changing expectations. Executive stakeholder interrelationships create complexity, as do hidden management expectations.
CASE STUDY: HIGHLY VISIBLE STRATEGIC PROJECT
Retail Food and Drug Reengineering Project
During the 1980s and early 1990s, the chairman of a major player in the food and drug industry acquired many regionally owned food and drug stores. He then launched the largest reengineering project in the U.S. retail industry to bring all the regional companies onto one IT system with common business practices. About 100 of the best and brightest young managers were brought together to serve as the reengineering team. An IT staff of about 150 was recruited. A consulting firm was hired to facilitate sessions to determine the future state of the business practices. The same consulting firm committed to modifying its current supply-chain IT system to scale it up for volume and to ensure it met the requirements generated by the reengineering team. The plan was for all the regional companies to become one company and thereby leverage their purchasing power.
The project was visible at the highest levels of the organization: It was about their future. The CFO reported progress to Wall Street on a quarterly basis. The business case was considered sound and promised to return huge profits. Five years into the project, the company was bought out by a competitor. Hundreds of millions of dollars had been spent and nothing was implemented. In addition to the high visibility and strategic nature of the project, many other complexity dimensions contributed to the failure:
- It was too big and took too long.
- The teams were large and geographically dispersed; roles and responsibilities were unclear and volatile.
- The program management team comprised retail executives, not program managers; as a result, issues and risks were raised but not addressed.
- High expectations were publicly announced.
- The “big bang” implementation approach rather than an incremental methodology was followed.
- The project scope was huge and continued to grow.
- The IT solution was selected before the basic requirements were understood.
HOW TO MANAGE HIGH-VISIBILITY STRATEGIC PROJECTS
Managing high-visibility strategic projects effectively involves securing executive support, developing a political management plan, and managing stakeholders.
EXECUTIVE SUPPORT
Strong executive support is crucial to the success of complex projects, particularly if those projects are highly visible. To secure and maintain executive-level support:
Enlist the support of a strong executive sponsor- Establish a steering committee
- Focus on business benefits.
Enlist the Support of a Strong Executive Sponsor
Highly visible, strategic projects are likely to have multiple sponsors—the executives whose business units are undergoing transformation, the CIO, and even the CEO. Build a trusting, collaborative relationship with the sponsor(s), seeking mentoring, coaching, and collaboration throughout the project. Begin building a relationship with your project sponsor by discussing the nature and frequency of project communications you will require of each other. By doing so, you will not only build personal rapport but also let your sponsor know that you expect him or her to stay actively engaged in the project.1
Establish a Steering Committee
Establish a governance committee consisting of the project sponsor and key members of management who are affected by the project. Build a framework for effective decision-making and project oversight. Consistently focus decision-making on the end goal: realizing the project benefits and achieving strategic goals.
RECIPE FOR PROJECT SUCCESS: THE CHAOS TEN
The Standish Group International, Inc. 2001
#1: Executive Sponsor
Executive support influences the process and progress of a project; lack of executive input can put a project at a severe disadvantage. Current thinking on this topic suggests that the project manager:2
- Have a clear vision for the project that is easily understood
- Get executive commitment
- Make fast decisions
- Have a decision pipeline
- Focus on executive sponsor process education
- Use measurements
- Understand how and why you need to negotiate
- Have a well-thought-out plan to convince the executive sponsor you are on target and gain his or her support
- Understand the benefits of a kill switch and why every project should have one
- Appreciate the merits of celebration—and never take it lightly.
Use the steering committee to address risks, manage change, and set and continually clarify expectations. When bringing issues or risks to the steering committee for resolution, always conduct analyses of options with your core leadership team and be prepared to recommend a solution. Share the options considered, the team’s analysis of the feasibility and likelihood of success for each option, and the rationale for your recommendation with the committee. In addition, inform the committee who was involved in the analysis and recommendation effort.
Focus on Business Benefits
Always present your project as central to, and important for, organizational success through the realization of strategic goals. Continually assess the value and organizational impact of the expected project benefits. Ensure that those benefits are achievable, specific, measurable, agreed to, realistic, and time-bound, and document them in the business case. Make certain the project has a business sponsor who is responsible and accountable for the benefits expected from the project. Move from a cost to a revenue focus; concentrate on value, innovation, and risk reduction.
POLITICAL MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
In today’s politically charged business environment, project leaders across the globe are beginning to understand the value of assessing the political landscape and establishing a political management strategy. We suggest the following approach:
- Create a political management plan
- Promote yourself and your project
- Leverage the formal authority of functional managers.
Create a Political Management Plan
Every organization operates in a political environment. Individuals engage in political behaviors to acquire or maintain power and influence, resolve conflicts, and achieve organizational or personal objectives. The ability to understand and manage the political environment in organizations is a necessary and vital skill for leaders of complex projects.
To create a political management plan, identify key stakeholder groups and individuals, internal or external to the project. Conduct an analysis to determine who can influence the project and whether they feel positively or negatively about the project. Determine the goals of each key stakeholder. Assess the political environment. Conduct an analysis to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) affecting your project. Define problems, solutions, and action plans to take advantage of positive influences and to neutralize negative ones. Ask your core team members to do the same. Analyze the results in a collaborative team forum3 using a stakeholder analysis worksheet (see Table 14-1 for an example).
TABLE 14-1. Stakeholder Analysis Worksheet
| Stakeholders (Individuals or Groups) | Involvement/Role | Priorities/Concerns | Level of Support Needed 1 = their support is not necessary now 2 = helpful to have their support 3 = critically important to have their support |
Existing support + = actively supports the project 0 = neutral to the project - = opposes the project and may work against it ? = level of support unknown |
influence strategy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Client #1 | Major client | Quality CM Discipline On-time delivery |
3 Need to fully understand requirements and expectations |
+ | We have established a positive collaborative relationship with the new program manager. We constantly strive to be easy to work with and provide high quality at low cost. |
Promote Yourself and Your Project
A project manager’s power usually derives more from positive relationships than from a formal position of authority in the organizational hierarchy. In essence, the more highly you are regarded, the more personal power you have. People who are held in high regard are those who are considered to be experts in the business domain, possess current and relevant information, are well connected, and are viewed as indispensable.
Find ways to promote yourself and your project. To do so, you must be genuine, competent, and credible. Become visible; do not spend the bulk of your day behind your desk. Make your contributions and efforts across the stakeholder community visible. Invisible efforts and contributions carry no political value.4
Leverage the Formal Authority of Functional Managers
Meet often with the functional managers of your project team members and get their approval to provide input to the team members’ performance reviews. Also meet with each team member and his or her manager to agree on the amount of time the team member will devote to your project. You may want to leave this meeting with a written agreement between you, the team member, and the manager.5
STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT
“Life is largely a matter of expectations.”
—HORACE (65-8 BC)
Managing the multiple stakeholders involved in a strategic project can be daunting. After identifying key stakeholders and creating your political management plan, be sure to:
- Establish positive relationships with key stakeholders
- Involve customers and users in every aspect of the project
- Establish and manage virtual alliances
- Establish and manage expectations.
Establish Positive Relationships with Key Stakeholders
Consider the following stakeholder management strategies presented by Brian Irwin in his book, Managing Politics and Conflict in Projects.6
- Call (do not email) the most critical stakeholders who are allies for your project. Discuss the project with them, asking them how they prefer to be kept informed and how often. Document their responses and schedule stakeholder check-in dates on your calendar.
- Record the names of the people you come into contact with during a typical day or week. Note their personal work styles and how they interact with each other. At the end of each week, review these notes. The next time you interact with each person, recall their personal work style and try to adopt and match it as closely as possible. If you experience or witness a poor relationship within your team, engage the individuals and discuss the situation openly. But remember that you cannot enhance a relationship if one is not yet built or if the existing relationship is damaged.
- Carefully observe the interactions of team members during project team meetings, particularly if you hold leadership team meetings. Undoubtedly there will be some who always speak up and others who sit quietly on the sidelines. Don’t make the mistake of believing that those speaking have more power and influence than others. Interview the team members to get a better understanding of their professional networks and how they relate to others. Individuals with a wide personal and professional network are often well connected to what’s going on in their environment and are therefore able to get things done quickly. Make note of who they are and talk to them frequently to help expand your network.
- Engage your political adversaries in discussion, however uncomfortable, to turn them into allies. If you both have positive intentions, the meeting should go a long way toward building a collaborative relationship. Focus on discovering shared objectives.
Involve Customers and Users in Every Aspect of the Project
Do not be tempted to diminish user involvement after the initial requirements elicitation activities are complete. As the project unfolds, user concerns and issues mature and change, often requiring refinements to requirements. Keep a constant pulse on user opinions and concerns. Promote opportunities for user feedback often throughout the project.
RECIPE FOR PROJECT SUCCESS: THE CHAOS TEN
The Standish Group International, Inc. 2001
#2: User Involvement
The number one contributor to project success is user involvement. Conversely, lack of user involvement is the number one reason for project failure. Even when delivered on time and on budget, a project can fail if it does not meet users’ needs or expectations. The research and thinking on this subject can be summarized as follows:7
- Correctly identify the proper user.
- Develop and maintain a quality relationship with the user and user groups.
- Create and maintain a platform for communications to establish and maintain a quality relationship with users.
- Demonstrate results and understand why it is important to do so.
- Educate users on the project management process and what their roles and responsibilities are within that process.
- Consider user feedback and consensus.
- Identify and recruit an evangelist, someone to promote your project.
- Show why and how to conduct primary research.
- Show respect for users. 10. Focus on real user needs.
Establish and Manage Virtual Alliances
Strategic projects involve alliances with suppliers, customers, key political groups, regulatory entities, and even competitors. When seeking out partners, look for the best-in-class competencies to build high-quality, specific products or services in the shortest period of time. You and your leadership team should direct considerable time and effort to fostering alliances with external partners.
Establish and Manage Expectations
In addition to meeting requirements, a successful project manager understands, sets, continually refines, and meets the expectations of stakeholders. The sources of those expectations take many forms: informal conversations, emails, requirements, political climate, cultural norms, promises and commitments you and your team members have made, and offhand remarks made at meetings or in the hallway. And then there are the unspoken expectations—those you may never discover unless you proactively instigate discussions about expectations with all key stakeholders.
According to Albert J. Cacace in his article Managing Expectations: The Missing Process, “The level of effort you put into managing each expectation should be proportional to its complexity, its visibility, the bureaucracy involved, number of stakeholders, the risks of failure, and many other considerations….”8 Expectations are compounded and made complex by the interdependencies between them. Identify expectations, recognize inter-dependencies, and clarify both early in the project. Then, devote effort to managing expectations throughout the project.
Executive support is an essential ingredient in managing complex strategic projects effectively. Without executive support, you are setting yourself up for almost certain failure. Enlist the support of an executive sponsor and work diligently to establish a strong, positive relationship with him or her. In addition, establish a project steering committee and an effective decision-making process.
The project leader should also:
- Continually focus on business benefits, and make virtually every decision based on how it will impact the value the project is expected to bring to the organization.
- Establish a political management plan to build upon the support you have and to neutralize resistance to your project success. Learn to promote yourself and your project. Build strong relationships with the functional managers of your team members and leverage their formal authority.
- Devote considerable time and effort to establishing and maintaining positive relationships with key stakeholders and understanding and managing their expectations.
Politically sensitive projects are rife with pitfalls. Use a balanced combination of adaptive and conventional management approaches to increase the likelihood of success (see Table 14-2).
TABLE 14-2. Approaches for Managing Politically Sensitive Strategic Projects
| Managing Politically sensitive strategic Projects | |
|---|---|
| Complexities | Management Approaches |
Constant change caused by:
|
Adaptive
Conventional
|
NOTES
1. Brian Irwin, Managing Politics and Conflict in Projects (Vienna, VA: Management Concepts, 2008), 13.
2. Jim Johnson, My Life is Failure: 100 Things You Should Know to be a Successful Project Leader (West Yarmouth, MA: The Standish Group International, 2006), 5.
3. Brian Irwin, Managing Politics and Conflict in Projects (Vienna, VA: Management Concepts, 2008), 160.
4. Ibid., 37.
5. Ibid., 13.
6. Ibid., 81, 143, 160.
7. Jim Johnson, My Life is Failure: 100 Things You Should Know to be a Successful Project Leader (West Yarmouth, MA: The Standish Group International, 2006), 5.
8. Albert J. Cacace, “Managing Expectations, The Missing Process,” ISSIG Review (2007), vol. 11, no. 2.