My Kinda Guy
Some of you may know that I started my work life trying to be a peacemaker. I worked in international training as a contractor for USAID and then went to get my master’s in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. I dabbled in international peacekeeping researching ways the spread of positive information about peacekeepers among local populations could protect both the troops and the mission. And to some extent, I’ve always been the kid who didn’t want to fight, but wanted to find out why you wanted to fight and talk you out of it. Yeah, I did that – talked people out of fighting with me, even in the 5th grade, and got them on my good side. In high school, even, I was the kid who stood behind the big fight scene and prayed for the kids to stop fighting and for nobody to get hurt. I probably care too much about my projects and the people working on them, put up with people’s stuff for too long, and have even suffered incompetence in my staff in exchange for patiently waiting for people to grow.
So yes, I’m a touchy-feely tree-hugging sap. But I tell you this as backdrop to the unsolicited feedback I received from a client last week. He writes:
“I can’t tell you how much we’ve appreciated your hard work and effortsto first get the [our] project back on track. Your Program Management experience were a great asset to the project and I feel we would not have had such great success without your tremendous work and efforts. It brings a great deal of confidence to us knowing that you’re heavily involved in the project and further releases. Again, I cannot thank you enough for your leadership and experience!!”
Reading this, I sat back in my chair just completely stunned. Stunned because on this program I have made every effort to practice project and program management to the letter and have really pushed my staff for elaboration, discussion, collaboration and finally discipline to the methods we choose to implement. I’ve gained a reputation as a process hard nose and I’ve already blogged about what the developers think of me. For my team, every day is a review of proximity to standards – whether that be PMBoK, BABoK, CMMI, or ITIL,and we employ all.
It’s been tough to stick to it. Just last week, one of the newer PMs got completely reemed out by the executive sponsor in a team meeting because I advised her it was time to let him know that stuck processes in his department were now a risk to the completion of the project. He didn’t want to hear that, and he didn’t want to hear it in front of his staff….but it had to be said, because it was true and because she cared about delivering a great product. Communicating risk was personally risky to her, but since we are serious about following the PMBoK, she did. Long story short, the sponsor made adjustments and the project is now actually delivering earlier than expected. Better yet, she has gained a new level of credibility with the client as a courageous PM who takes personal risk for the sake of the project.
Even the guy who sent me the letter – I remember how great the lack of trust was between our teams when I first joined the project. It was hard to get us all in the same room and they would ask me why we had to meet weekly, why we had to discuss risks, why we had to follow a change management process and I kept saying ‘industry best practices’. It was (and still is) risk registers, schedules, written agendas, Change Control Boards..all the things that my professed methodology, PMI, tells me to do. I just kept plugging along and bringing everybody with me, sometimes kicking and screaming.
And…it worked! Not only for me, but for all the human beings on the team as well.
It’s the pure appreciation in this letter that really got me thinking about the deeper ramifications that we as project managers bring to our workplaces. I don’t know about you but I’ve been in highly divisive, silo’d, inconsistent workplaces where people talk past each other, process is non-existent and projects spin their wheels indefinitely and that is complete hell. What a good PM brings into an environment is:
• clarity • organization • honesty • a steady pace forward • milestones • recognition of good progress • completion
Sometimes PMs are just BORE-ing (get it;> )
Just reading those words on paper can bring a sense of calm. The world is thirsting for people who can do this; people who can create peace out of chaos, people who have a plan. It’s not really about which methodology you use, it’s about the fact that you have one, and that you follow it and because you do, you keep up a forward momentum; you’re the forward scout, the general and the head of the Calvary all in one. You calm the fears, you set the pace, you instill the confidence…and people calm down.
BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front – my favorite Army acronym): Good Project Managers are Peacemakers.
I think that’s why, as a bona fine tree hugger I have found so much life enrichment and enjoyment in my profession.
Out of the detritus of the day to day
We gather our toolkit and best practices and methodically push forward
Like a huge tunnel drilling machine
Focused more on the rock ahead of us
Not the forever changed mountain we are plugging through
Nor the previously impervious barrier we have removed
until one day….
We break through to the other side.
