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The Most Important Thing in a Troubled Project

April 7, 2010 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Best Practices

The Most Important Thing in a Troubled Project
By Barry Otterholt

If you had the right answers the project wouldn’t be in trouble, right? Maybe. But that’s not the heart of the problem. The real problem is not having the right questions.

“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.” -Francis Bacon

One of the hallmarks of an effective project manager is curiosity. An effective project manager has an insatiable appetite for truth, and is always in search of it. If they only wanted answers, they would be pacified with sweeping generalizations, such as:

  • I feel confident we are on schedule.
  • I’m 80% done.
  • Sure we’re a little behind schedule, but doing it right will save us time in the next phase.
  • My project management tool shows we’re in good shape.

A high-performance team generally welcomes critical thinking about what they’re doing and how it impacts the overarching project objectives. However, they are in the thick of things. They can easily lose objectivity or lose sight of the bigger picture. The project manager is in a unique position to challenge them on the quality and priority of their work. To be sure, the project manager must earn the right to engage staff at this level of candor.

I often think of Bruce Tuckman’s model of team development, where teams go through evolutionary phases of forming, storming, norming and performing. Some teams never make it out of the earlier stages, which are marked with differences of opinion and defensiveness. However the effective project manager evangelizes the higher vision of the project and passionately moves the team to the performing stage. They become highly synergistic, with a shared sense of purpose. In this phase, they trust their project manager, are fulfilled by their accomplishments, and acknowledge their accomplishments are in part due to the critical thinking of those around them.

Asking the right questions will reveal issues before they become problems. And they will reveal opportunities for improvement that may have been missed otherwise.

A trusted colleague once advised me to ask the question “Why?” three times for anything that matters. She suggested that only after the third “Why?” would truth be revealed. I don’t know if this can be classified as a universal truth, but in general I’ve found she was right and have enjoyed the results this simple tip has brought.

So, if you’re not getting the right answers, ask the right questions. Probe. Seek truth.

Barry Otterholt, CMC, PMP

Barry Otterholt has been a project management specialist and coach for the past 30 years. He is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) and a Project Management Professional (PMP). He works with both public and private sector companies in the USA, Europe and Scandinavia. Mr. Otterholt was a Director with Microsoft, a senior consultant with Deloitte Consulting, and a COO with a nationwide consumer electronics enterprise. In 1988 he founded Public Knowledge, LLC to provide independent management and operational support to the public sector. More recently, he founded Stouffer & Company, LLC to provide as-needed project management services to fill an obvious skills gap in both private and public sectors.

Mr. Otterholt is an adjunct professor teaching project management at Northwest University. His essays on project management have been published in PMI newsletters. His runs a blog, Project Management Essays, where he muses about various project management topics.

Mr. Otterholt is a member of the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC) and the Project Management Institute (PMI). He has a BA in Accounting and Computer Science and an MBA in Business Administration. He lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 and is filed under Project Management Best Practices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 person has left a comment

This is a classic truism, not just in project management, but in every field. Thanks for the reminder!

One other issue that arises on the question side is not asking the hard ones. We might know them, but either through fear or politics (or fear of politics..), they don’t get raised. This is probably a whole separate blog topic/discussion. ;>)

Bob Light wrote on April 7, 2010 - 8:25 am | Visit Link

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