What’s Up with PMI?
September 29th, 2005 by Hal
hat a great start! PMI is writing about the "soft side" of project management. Sarah Fister Gale, writing for PM Network, PMI's monthly magazine for their members, calls for Clear Channels (of communication). Her summary:
"Bold, confident project managers who speak up for their team and offer clear, concise directives build loyalty and support from below and above."
She offers one anecdote after another to make her case that project managers fundamentally get their job done in conversations with others. Those project managers who ignore or are blind to that suffer unnecessarily with poor performing projects. One study she quotes attributes bad communication between relevant parties as responsible for 57% of project failures.
Ms. Gale highlighted "Three Quick Steps" for making changes in communication practices:
- Give team members clear unambiguous performance expectations
- Give regular performance feedback
- Make sure people have the tools to do their jobs and remove any barriers that block their ability to perform
She adds that project managers must be promoting their projects and staying in conversation with executives and project sponsors to get outstanding results.
There's no mention or suggestion that Ms. Gale or her interviewees understand communication is the mechanism that produces the network of commitment for the project. Maybe that's the article I'm supposed to write.
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September 30th, 2005 at 8:17 am
PMI’s focus on the human side of project management ebbs and flows, but it never seems to become more than subtext. To treat communication as a centel process to create a network of committment would force PMI to rethink it heavy emphasis on process rather than people Robert J. Graham focused on people and relationships in the early 90’s in his classic book, Project Management As If People Mattered, but it was alwas treated as a minor theme. Even at this time research clearly showed that the human factors were the most important for project success.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:54 am
Hal,
I think a lot about the benefits of producing a “network of commitment” for a project. One of these days I hope we’ll see you as guest speaker for our local PMI chapter…
September 30th, 2005 at 10:19 am
Hal, It’s nice to see PMI finally talking about the really important aspect of communications. It appears though that the focus stays on the project manager as giver of all key information and protector of the project. As long as PMs are continually told that they could 1) have all of the relevant information and 2) be individually responsible for each person doing their job, it won’t do much to improve the state of affairs.
When PMI, (or wait, we could each do this ourselves), starts talking about the PM as the person who is responsible for creating situations where the really important conversations take place, real agreements (promises) are negotiated, and a robust network of communication filled relationships are nurtured, then I’ll feel like there has been a revolution that make the difference that will make a real difference.
Thank goodness we don’t have to wait for PMI for us to shift our projects ourselves.
September 30th, 2005 at 1:49 pm
Great points Amy. Recently I’ve been encouraged by the reaction the construction community has to the understanding of project as a network of commitments. There were numerous references to it throughout the presentations last week at the LCI Congress along with good audience comments about it.
September 30th, 2005 at 8:17 pm
Hal,
PMI seem to have finally cottoned on to the fact that the PMBoK, by itself, is just a book - but applying what is written in the book is more than just, well, applying what is in the book. My research over the past ten years has shown that to apply the lessons of the PMBoK means taking on a whole new order of skills and knowledge, all of which center on the common denominators of communications and interrelationships.
My research continues to show that we’re entering a new order of project management. For over three thousand years, up until the 90s, we had plenty of communicating but little by way of common methodology. Throughout the 90s we had plenty of methodology but little communicating. Now we’re learning that putting the two together is the only way in which real project success can be achieved.
Phil Rutherford
Assessment and Certifications Manager
AIPM
October 5th, 2005 at 5:28 pm
In most IT organizations, if the PM speaks up for his or her team, they better have their resume updated and ready to distribute.
July 22nd, 2006 at 7:05 am
Unfortunately, PMI’s “methodology” (they claim is is not one, despite all the incomprehensible flow charts) is nearly worthless the way they have it set up. In trying to be “all things to all sectors” they have lost all the niggly little details that make any methodology work. For years I have railed against the compromises PMI made by eliminating safety, health and the environment from the processes.
If you get the chance, check out the work of John Sterman, over at MIT’s Sloan School or check out the Santa Fe Institute www.santafeinstitute.edu. Another important source of “reforming” project management, Google on “soft systems engineering”, or visit the International Council of Systems Engineering website www.incose.org.
In a recent ENR article, they highlighted the future modeling will play using 3D Cad and simulation, and I honestly believe that will be the way of the very near future. And what better way to facilitate communications than by doing something in a simulator before actually doing it real time?
BR
Paul D. Giammalvo, Jakarta, INDONESIA