Busn 101:
Project management is not about anger management, it's about accountability, timelines, and accomplishment. Project management is about team. It's about coordinating efforts and moving successfully together as a group towards a common goal. Project management is about clarifying roles at the outset of the project. Project management is when everybody on the team has a clear-cut idea of what they need to do to help the group reach the goal. It's about maximizing resources and minimizing despair. Project management is about making people want to give 110% because they believe the rest of the team wants to do so as well. Project management is a mindset, a discipline, an understanding, a strategy, a structure, and a goal. Project management is all about establishing the goal and detailing what each individual's contribution toward that goal will be. That's all there is to project management. A common goal and everybody working together to achieve that goal. ************************ This is the fourth in a four-part series addressing issues related to the business of technology. Series articles include: * 100% of Nothing vs. 10% of Something * Project Management This final article is intended to round out the discussion of the business of technology. As opposed to the first three articles, however, it is not based on an interview with a specific individual. It is instead a thought piece based on my own impressions of how a young engineer learns to proactively participate on a project team, and therefore learns to proactively manage a project team when the opportunity finally arrives. ************************ It's a misconception that a young engineer straight out of school is powerless. The urban legend would have you believe that the new employee is at the mercy of the employer as far as project assignments, levels of autonomy on a project, and the quality of the project management that must be endured over the first few years on the job. I would argue this is very far from the truth. Yes, project assignments come at the whim of the organization, but a new employee can be proactive in structuring a role on the project team and, even more importantly, a young engineer has enormous options with regards to quality of the project management that constitutes the chain of command up the organization. This power arises from within the engineer, and it cannot be taken away except with the tacit approval of the young employee. The quicker the new employee learns this, the quicker their career will actually get underway. The process is simple and has two steps. First – from the very moment the project team is underway, the young engineer needs to set out and clearly articulate to the project managers the expectations the young engineer believes are on the table with regards to performance, deliverables, and deadlines. Second, and of even greater importance, the young engineer needs to carefully and completely – albeit courteously – establish accountability on the part of the project manager, again from the very first moment the project is underway. These expectations are also related to performance, deliverables, and deadlines. To put it simply – an engineer has the right, and the duty, to place as many expectations on their project managers as the project managers are placing on the young engineer. This accountability may seem counter-intuitive to the idea of a hierarchical organization in which the new employee is but a servile pawn, but this pushing back on management is absolutely crucial – and not just to the success of the young employee. Ultimately, the success of the team, the success of the development effort, and the success of the project managers themselves requires this accountability be enforced by the lowest employee in the hierarchy. If managers are not held accountable by their employees – particularly the beginner – no one will succeed. The reality is that the young engineer who holds project management accountable actually has a material impact on the career of that management. The sooner the new employee realizes this, the sooner things will be set right for everyone on the team. Now I'll acknowledge that the engineering curriculum at colleges and universities is often seen as a filter and/or damper for personnel skills more often associated with Communications majors or English majors. But an engineer cannot hide behind these perceptions. An engineer must be able to communicate from the very first day on the job, and I'm not talking about making pleasantries in the break room. I'm talking about the absolute necessity for young engineers to carefully articulate their understanding of the contributions that will be expected of them on their first team project. And I'm talking about the absolute necessity for a young engineer to confirm with project management exactly what the young engineer will be needing from them to complete their first tasks on their first team on their first job. In fact, there is never another opportunity like this first opportunity. The entire career of the young engineer hinges on this premier voyage of self-discovery within the organization. And a young engineer always needs to be mindful of their career! Be there 10 employees or a 1000 at the first place of employment, a new engineer needs to remember that ultimately they're in business for themselves. Their learning opportunities, their technical growth, and ultimately their career hinges on grasping these concepts on the very first day on the job. If a young engineer learns how to hold their managers as accountable as the managers will surely hold them, the young engineer is well on their way to crafting a successful and productive career. So to every entry-level engineer, I say: If you want to learn to manage, learn to be managed. Take that moment when you're the youngest, newest, least experienced and seemingly completely without power and re-evaluate. You may be the youngest, the newest, and the least experienced – but you have a great deal of power. Exercise it! ************************ So having hammered home this point repeatedly, what are some specific things a young engineer can and should do. 1. You have a right to see a project schedule. Is there a project schedule? If not, the manager needs to create one. 2. How detailed is the schedule. Can you see where your expected deliverables and deadlines fit within that schedule? If not, the manager needs to enter your deliverables and deadline immediately. How else will you know what your personal schedule looks like? 3. Do you know enough as yet to be able to produce your deliverables and meet your deadlines? If not, insist – albeit courteously – that extra time for training be introduced into the schedule. You have the right and the duty to do so. Your manger must accommodate. 4. Does the schedule indicate the deliverables and the deadlines that your manager's working to? If not, your manager needs to enter those items into the schedule immediately. How else will you know that the manager has acknowledged ahead of the game that they have concrete responsibilities to the team and the project as well? 5. Do you have detailed specs on your deliverables? If not, how will you know when you're done with each phase of your part of the project? You need to know what it is you're expected to produce. That's the manager's job. Make them do it. 6. Do you have detailed specs on your manager's deliverables? If not, how will you know when your manager is done with their part of the project? You need to know what the manager is expected to produce. It's your job to understand what they think they need to do, and by when. This is how you succeed in making the manager accountable. 7. What will happen if your manager, or one of your team members, is unable to produce a required deliverable by a deadline specified on the schedule? Don't pretend this isn't going to happen, because it will. What will the manager do at that point? How will the manager deal with your inability to do your part of the project because you don't have access to the manager's deliverable or other team members' deliverables at the specific moment when you need it to do your job? Get this conversation out on the table now. Later is just too late. Set the rules now. Don't allow the rules to be set later. That simply won't work. 8. How often will the team meet? If that's not on the schedule, make the manager put it there. Face-to-face status meetings are crucial. Don't let the manager tell you that meetings will happen as needed. Put the meetings on the schedule and hold the manager responsible for making sure those meetings happen, no matter what! 9. Who is your manager's manager and are they being held accountable by your manager to meet their deadlines for their deliverables? You may feel uncomfortable asking your manger about their manager. But don't! Your manager is going to be no more successful than their manager allows them to be. If the manager's manager is not meeting their deadlines and producing their deliverables, your manager will be scrambling to cover for them. And your manager's scrambling will quickly become your scrambling. You do not have to tolerate that! Let me says it again – you do not have to tolerate that! You do not have to let your manager's manager's inability to work to a schedule impact your success. Establish that fact at the very beginning of the project – albeit courteously – but do it! Ask your manager to put the deadlines and deliverables for their manager into the schedule. 10. Say thank you. Say thank you as often as possible to as many people as possible throughout the entire project from beginning to end. And not just to your project manager, or your project manager's manager. Say thank you to the other team members as well. If you can't or won't express your gratitude – you'll have very little success in making items 1 through 9 happen at all. "Thank you" means that you recognize you're part of a team. You may be in business for yourself, but keep that to yourself. In the eyes of the organization, you're part of the organization. Act like it and the organization will work harder to guarantee your success. 11. Once the project is underway be firm and unyielding. A) Meetings on the schedule must happen as planned. Be courteous about this. But be firm and unyielding. You will not be able to do your job unless everybody else does theirs. Don't accommodate. Don't cover for others. The only way you're going to meet the expectations placed on you for deliverables and deadlines is if every single other member on the team is held to that same high standard of performance. You have the right and the obligation to ask that of them. You're asking no more of them than you're asking of yourself, or they're asking of you. 12. When the project is complete – and it will be on time and of superior quality because of you – look to number 10 again. Say thank you. Say thank you to your team members and the project manager and the project manager's manager, and mean it. Be grateful and mean it. Be modest and mean it. Then ask for a post mortum. Ask the project manager to orchestrate a meeting where the team can share ideas for improving the process. It's important for you to know how others felt about the project, and for the manager to learn more as well. 13. Never forget that you are as much a reason for the success of the project as anyone else involved. It's the truth and everyone knows it. 14. Accept the fact the project manager is going to take all of the credit nonetheless. You cannot change this. It's human nature. Forget about it. Move on. The next project is at hand. ************************ Go through the whole disciplined, carefully choreographed, well scheduled and documented process yet again. Again, the project will succeed. The team will succeed. The project manager and the manager's manager will succeed. And so will you. And it will be noticed. And you will progress. You will be given more responsibility, more opportunities, more rewards. The next thing you know – you'll be a project manager. You will take the lessons you've learned about how to be managed and you will apply them well in knowing how to manage the managed. It's that simple.
May 19, 2005 Peggy Aycinena owns and operates EDA Confidential. She can be reached at peggy@aycinena.com
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