Project Manager Training

Project Management Tiers:

How PM Evolves in Organizations

By Dick Billows

Funny how organizations start off doing projects pretty well and then get progressively worse. We see five tiers of project management development, driven by:

Organizations start off doing projects with a pretty high level of success. Then things get worse as the number of projects in the organization and the proportion of people working on each project increase. During this downward spiral, the "Mother of all Battles" between cross-functional projects and functional silos takes place. When executive pain over repeated project failure becomes excruciating, the organization acts to accommodate cross-functional projects in the hierarchy.

In more detail, the tiers we have identified are:

In the Alpha organization, projects are novel and sheer enthusiasm often overcomes woeful project management techniques and the total absence of an organizational protocol for project management. What makes things work is that there are only a few projects and relatively few people are working on multiple projects. This combination keeps enthusiasm high and resource contention low. But this success soon moves the organization up to the Beta tier.

Beta Organizations

Project member, "What's more important, these high-priority projects or my real job?"

Executive, "This is a high priority project and so is that one!"

In the Beta organization, the density of projects has increased and the lack of an organizational protocol for project management begins to cause problems. Projects are not explicitly approved or budgeted and resource contention begins. Also, unclear accountability and authority relationships now adversely affect project performance. We see the opening skirmish between cross-functional projects and departmental "silos." The silos win in a bloodbath of failed projects and confused employees.

Omega Organizations

Project team member, "Oh #?$#%, another project, now I have three full-time jobs."

Executive, "Great another 78 page project plan that will delight the customers and make us a world-class something or other!"

The Omega organization has a high project density with many people working on multiple projects. There is now a project approval and funding mechanism, but executives have little ability to actually uncover what each particular project will yield. Budgets and completion dates mean nothing as they are set by politics and yelling rather than by data-based decision-making. Micro-management becomes a religion as executives and PMs confuse highly detailed plans with good control. The result is that people engage in a mountain of activity and achieve very little. The "Mother of all Battles" between departmental silos and cross-functional projects continues, with the silos sucking in new functions so they encompass entire projects. Meanwhile, project size and duration expand to the point where they become departments.

Theta Organizations

Project team member, "I'm working 67 hours a week for the privilege of spending 3 hours in weekly status meetings, listening to people I dislike try to decide what this project is all about."

Executive, "Stop whining about resources, budgets and lack of cooperation. It'll be your job if this isn't done by November 30 (and maybe mine too)."

The Theta organization is in crisis, projects are not reliable vehicles for meeting competitive threats or improving performance. Here is where we see the same massive project started again and again. When we suggest that less than a third of the projects produce a strategically significant result, no one disagrees. People learn to keep their heads down and do only what they are told to do. In the cross-functional project versus silo battle, the exhausted combatants take only occasional pot shots at each other because no one cares anymore.

Delta Organizations

Project team member, "What's my job, title and department, you ask? Actually, it's easier to tell you about the achievements I'm aiming for-- that's what people around here care about."

Executive, "Okay, I understand the trade-offs.  Two months sooner will cost me either $675,000 more or an 8% smaller increase in market share."

The Delta organization's executives manage portfolios of projects like they were investments. They judge performance against objectively measured outcomes (MOST or measures of success), and they control the trade-offs between a project's MOST, budget, duration and risk using data, not mushy opinions. Executives hold PMs accountable for the MOST. As a result, people at each level in a project's hierarchy are accountable and rewarded for their individual measured achievement; and they have the authority to assign measured achievements to those under them.

Conclusion

Knowing where you are in these tiers of project management development is helpful. Doing something about it is, however, not easy. Implementing a PM protocol that makes project management a predictably successful tool for the organization requires enforcement of standards. The organization needs to strategically conceive projects, enforce a hard-edged approval process and commit to consistent tracking and reporting. These standards sound good, but require stepping on a lot of well-shined toes.