The Future of Project Controls
April 29th, 2003 by HalI'm somewhat hesitant to write about this. This morning I received an email newsletter that included advice on How to give negative feedback properly. I can't say that John Reh's ten recommendations are either good or bad advice. Take a look…decide for yourself.
Let's look more closely at what is meant by "negative feedback". When we say "I have negative feedback" what does that mean? It might mean "I don't like you and I'm gonna tell you why." It could mean "I have seen negative consequences and I attribute them to your actions." This might be getting closer. At the heart of it negative feedback is about failing to meet a standard of performance. That standard could be stated or only implied. When we announce we have negative feedback we create a break in the conversation and the relationship. It's an unusual or extraordinary event.
My favorite management author is Ken Blanchard author of The One Minute Manager and dozens of other books. (Anyone who has a best-selling book — over 10 million copies — for over 21 years has to know something about what he's talking.) Blanchard implores people to focus on positive feedback. In his book Whale Done! he goes into how trainers never use negative feedback when working with dangerous animals. If killer whales can be trained to do the spectacular things that they do with only positive feedback, then why would we want to use negative feedback with the even more dangerous human beings? [smirk] Another way of saying that is be unconditionally constructive in all our conversations. Blanchard recognizes that sometimes we are not satisfied with a particular behavior or performance. In those cases he instructs us to redirect the action.
So let's put this in the context of the project setting. Projects are one-of-a-kind endeavors always involving people. The project setting by definition entails novelty. Projects often end "before we know it." For many participants that newness and speed calls on them to learn so that they can perform. Learning fast, making mistakes, discovering what works or doesn't work, are part of the usualness of projects. Of course individuals will at some moment fall short of standards. That is what it means to be a learner.
So what are we to do in projects? Am I saying there are no situations for giving negative feedback? Maybe. The most important step to take is to create a space and practices on the project for the free expression of opinion (assessments). Everyone who signs on for (owns) the mission of the project cares about how well we are doing collectively. Are we on track, or not? Are we learning what we need to learn, or not? Are there unexplored opportunities and risks? Each question is answered with assessments, both positive and negative. Some people will tell you to grant permission for speaking our assessments. NO! Granting permission doesn't go nearly far enough. We must create a responsibility for speaking our opinions…in a timely manner…in helpful ways…positive…with openness to modify the assessment based on what others say.
Timely (in the moment) assessments are the mechanisms for adjustment keeping individuals and teams moving in concert with each other in fulfillment of the project mission. New and revised actions follow assessments. The wonderful aspect about this is with everyone on the project making and sharing assessments we create a guidance system that goes orders of magnitude beyond what anyone in a project controls role could accomplish.
Making assessments — powerful assessments — is one of two foundational skills for functioning in the project setting. The other skill is making and securing reliable promises. Negative feedback is old school. Continuous practices of assessment is the future of project control.
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April 30th, 2003 at 9:48 am
On your paragraph about ‘negative feedback’. Seen in the light of assessments: all feedback is an assessment, could be right, could be wrong. Once the assessor takes time to ground his assessments the assessee can learn from him, and between them they can work out where the problem lies. This is where the link to promises is found. Core of a promise is the set of ‘conditions of satisfaction’. A grounding for negative feedback should either show a condition of satisfaction not being met or not being understood properly by the customer and the performer. In which case they move back to the negotiation phase of the loop.
When taking negative feedback (any feedback) in this perspective I find it easy to detach the person from the feedback and focus on the faults in the process.
Just my 2 pennies on this subject. Let me know what your ideas are around this matter.
–Hubert
April 30th, 2003 at 4:27 pm
I’ve received a number of email comments from readers that I need to comment on here. (When I shared my hesitancy to write on this topic I was anticipating I wasn’t quite ready and wouldn’t be clear. Oh well…)
While I am saying there’s not much of a place for ‘negative feedback’ in the project setting, the more important point is to make ‘assessing’ part of the everyday practices and reponsibilities of all team members. The sharing and exploring of assessments about the project provides the means for guiding and redirecting the project. The more people involved the better.
The usual understanding of project controls, as separted from the functions of planning and execution, is to provide a ‘truing’ function to keep a project on plan. I suggest this detached after-the-fact approach doesn’t work. And we still need to keep our attention on the goal/promise of the project.
The future of project controls is to place the responsibility for gauging where we are and how we are doing at every moment with the people who are executing the project. No separation of execution and control. (for that matter, no separation with planning either) Control happens in recurrent practices of assessing the project. On Scrum projects team members do their assessing in the daily scrum and in their pair programming sessions. On Last Planner projects the assessing happens in the weekly planning conversations with work group leaders. It takes acts of design by the leader and the team to establish and then conduct themselves in this manner.
There’s no arguing with results on this one. Both Scrum and Last Planner projects show good results and participants report they enjoy working in this manner.