A Step Ahead

This week’s problem card asks, “we’re dealing with so many external influences demanding quick successes — how do you avoid jumping to implement in a way that drives success but doesn’t forget that you’re working on a project?” This week on the show, Connie Plowman joins Pete Wright to take on this issue with tips on planning, strategy, and nimble project management that allows you to be responsive to organizational demands without taking unnecessary risks.

This week’s problem card focuses on the busy executive that, for whatever reason, is not making tough decisions quickly and is beginning to impact the smooth march forward of the project. This week on the show, Connie Plowman joins Pete Wright to walk through the roadblocks to executive decision making, and outlines key steps you can take to make sure your leadership team is equipped with the right data to make the right decisions for your project. In this episode, we make reference to the Cadence Problem Solving tool, which you can download from our forms and templates library.

Former Cadence COO Connie Plowman returns to Ask Cadence to discuss portability of the project management skill set in her new role. This week on the show, John Patton and Pete Wright talk with Connie as she shares the value of the project management domain in organizational leadership.

This week’s project challenge comes from a recent attendee dealing with the loss of a critical team resource — a team member recently suffering a stroke. This sort of shock affects teams on many levels, from the deeply personal, to the profoundly professional. This week on the show, John Patton joins Pete Wright to take on this sort of devastating loss and discuss the recovery process ahead.

Each PMI Global Congress, we like to sit down with Cadence representatives and do a brief recap of lessons learned. This year’s Global Congress in Dublin gave us an excellent opportunity to visit trends in complexity and program management, as captured by some of the top thinkers in our field. This week on the show, John Patton joins Pete Wright for a discussion of highlights, and a sneak peak into terrific new work on complexity from PMI.

Cadence President and CEO joined colleages from around the world for the Project Management Institute’s Global Congress EMEA in Dublin, Ireland. As the event came to a close, John sent the following report.

To project managers, colleagues, and friends of Cadence! It has been a joy to represent Cadence at this year’s PMI Global Congress EMEA here in Dublin. These have been long days, but there is such great value in reconnecting with peers face-to-face; as usual, the calibre of discussion has been exceptionally high.

I’ll continue to percolate on this Congress over the coming weeks, and we will undoubtedly have our usual podcast wrap-up when I return to the United States in a few weeks. For now, I want to share three of my own observations of Congress this year that have struck me as important.

1. Program Management
   Program management is the administrative vehicle to deliver change—a complex set of changes over time. Projects are the way that those changes are delivered. The administrative vehicle, program management, targets, plans and tracks the delivery of the benefits.

   Just as there is Earned Value Method in project management, we are on the leading edge of defining Earned Benefit Method as a tracking vehicle for on time, on cost and on benefit delivery during the project. This is a fascinating area in development and I am coming back from this Congress with a starting formula. Count on more discussion of EVM/EBM in Congresses to come.

2. Change Management
   Change management is accomplished by addressing a motivation gap, a competence gap, or both in the organization where change is to be made. There is a proven methodology for change management and as a best practice it should be a (scaled) discipline on any project.

   The research has shown that it can cause the successful delivery rate to go from as low as 30% to as high as 80% successful delivery of the portfolio.

3. Complexity Management
   On a more personal note, I’m deeply gratified to see the “Coming Soon” activity surrounding the book I’ve been involved with as co-author/editor. While the book itself is not yet on shelves, there has been terrific discussion on the topic of project complexity at this Congress led by many authors/editors involved in the project including (though certainly not limited to) lead author Drs. Terry Cooke-Davies and Terry Williams.
   I will be working to integrate many of the concepts around complexity from the book and this Congress into a 1-2 hour presentation which I look forward to sharing with the community. I am very passionate about our own OPM series as a solution to complexity, where the process of getting the project done is secondary to actually getting it done successfully. That passion has absolutely been reinforced at this Congress.

Beyond these broader project management themes, I was gratified to be recognized for both personal and company contributions to the PMI Education Foundation, on whose Board I continue to serve as a Director.

As ever, the PMI Global Congresses serve our growing and vibrant project management community. If I can offer any advice from my now decades-long participation with this organization, it would be this: prioritize attendance in a Congress that supports your particular part of the world—your participation will serve your career, your organization, and our field!

The Project Management Institute’s Education Foundation is a foundation for spearheading the kinds of projects that support building best-in-class project managers for the future. This week on the show, John Patton and Pete Wright review the role of this important part of our project management ecosystem and cover how the foundation drives project management education around the world.

Organizations that invest in developing their project management initiatives quickly recognize the complexity that comes with newfound sophistication. To tackle broader and more robust initiatives, portfolio and program management offer a new basket of tools and skills for medium and large organizations to apply. This week on the show, John Patton and Pete Wright discuss the organizational impact of a portfolio and program management initiative and offer ideas on how you can begin to drive toward these new tools in your own project management environment.

There is a fear and misconception that project managers without technical or engineering skill will put the projects they manage at risk. Further, that organizations that adopt project management across the company, the only kind of project manager that surfaces will be the non-technical sort. This week on the show, John Patton and Pete Wright take on the fear, not to defend the non-technical project manager, but to give you ideas on how to best integrate the non-technical project manager into a smart, technically-focused project organization.

For 28 years, John Patton has been serving and supporting the Project Management Institute, both as President and CEO of Cadence Management Corporation, and as a professional project manager and researcher of the field. This week on the show, join Patton and Pete Wright as they reflect on the history of PMI and the role of the organization in the life and work of project managers around the world.