Skills to Look for in Project Managers

Today I read a brief article describing the eight skills to look for when hiring an IT project manager. The headlines caught my attention and I'm sure this was the purpose. While the eight skills (conflict management, technical knowledge, business awareness, communication skills, management skills, risk assessment, ability to speak technology, and global experience) are all important skills this list is certainly a narrow view of the criteria to use when hiring a project manager.

A more complete view of project management skills should be taken from the Project Management Institute's Project Manager Competency Development (PMCD) framework (I also have my own conceptualization here). While not specific to individual skills, the PMCD framework better outlines all of the areas of proficiency an effective project manager should posses. From this framework, a set of skills can be derived and prioritized.

The skills mentioned in the article mostly describe the industry-specific expertise used to complement the basic PMCD framework but, other than risk management, the skills were limited to the Professional competencies of the PMCD. In addition to omitting professional competencies of leadership, cognitive ability, effectiveness, and professionalism, the list also did not include most areas of project performance competency and the entire set of Knolwedge competencies. The list also left off the Organizational expertise competency but, since this was a list for hiring a project manager, it can be assumed that this competency would not be expected of any new hire. Keep in mind that this required competency may be reason to consider hiring from within.

While the article certainly missed many of the competencies needed for an effective project manager, it did touch on several critical skills. The main point of the article is that we should not just focus on knowledge of project management processes when hiring a project manager; other skills are needed beyond process knowledge. The inclusion of several soft skills help make this point.

CIO Reporting

During my MBA last semester we discussed the reporting structure for the Chief Information Officer (CIO). This topic of reporting structure typically emergeges during our IT alignment discussions where I argue the importance of reporting structure on alignment. In this discussion I posit that the CIO should report to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) rather than the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Chief Operations Officer (COO), or another C-suite executive. When I make this case I am often asked how frequently CIOs report to the CEO and I'm unable to give estimates. However, after today, I am now able to respond to this question.

During the third quarter of 2014 CIO Magazine conducted a survey and one of the questions posed related to the executive reporting structure of the CIO. The results published this month indicated that 44% of CIO report directly to the CEO. The results also indicated rather than reporting directly to the CEO, 20% of CIOs report to the CFO, 13% report to the COO, and 23% reported to some other position. The results indicate that the most common structure is the CIO reporting directly to the CEO.

Now, back to structure and alignment. A direct reporting relationship between the CIO and the CEO encourages participation of the CIO in strategic planning. Involvement of CIO in the strategic planning ensures proper IT support of business strategies as well as developing new business strategies based on IT opportunities. The alignment of business and IT allows the organization to realize new opportunities provided by corporate information and information systems and to ensure the information and corresponding systems are available to support any new strategic initiatives.

It is good to see so many CIOs reporting directly to the CEO. The reporting structure supports alignment. Now can let's hope CEOs are listening to the CIO describe new opportunities IT can provide.

Lessons in IT Alignment

In my MBA class we begin with a discussion of a model called the Strategy Triangle. This model illustrates the formation of an organization's strategy through the convergence of a business strategy, organization strategy, and information strategy. The point of this model is that strategy is not simply developed from the business strategy but rather it must be developed using opportunities and limitations of the organizational strategy (people, structures, and processes) and the information strategy (data, information, and supporting systems).

Today I read a great article describing the turmoil at J.C. Penny's and the toll taken on their information technology projects. Reading this article from an IT leader's perspective and using the lens of the Strategy Triangle model it is easy to see, in hindsight, that this turmoil was bound to happen. I see two main issues: frequent changes in leadership and the inability to collaborate to develop a cohesive strategy.

First of all there were frequent changes. The CEO was replaced by a new CEO who lead the firm for 17 months only to be replaced by the previous CEO on an interim bases until the next CEO can start next August. Wow! That is overwhelming change! In addition to this, and perhaps as a result of these changes, there have been three CIOs and three e-commerce leaders transitioning in and out of the organization. Each of these changes represent new directions in IT projects, cancellation of projects, and restarting projects that were placed on hold. The unfortunate IT department had no clear direction and, as a result, was not able to successfully accomplish their strategic objectives.

Secondly, the CEO that was brought in to make changes was very aggressive but appeared to try to drive through his vision rather than observe and listen to find out how to best fit his plan into the organization. The article provided a great example of this. The CEO wanted to rip-out the check out stations and replace these with employees roaming the store equipped with iPods and iPads. These employees would checkout customers using RFID tags attached to the clothing items. It may have been a sound idea but the CEO failed to understand the organizational strategy of the checkout processes where the roaming staff would not be able to remove the RFID tags since they were not able to carry the tools to remove the tags. The CEO was focused so much on the business strategy that he failed to acknowledge the organizational strategy of the checkout processes.

This case further proves the value of the Strategy Triangle. Organizations must understand the opportunities and limitations of the people, structure, processes, and information when developing a strategy. The alignment of business, organization, and information must take place to not only identify the best strategy but to also ensure the strategy can be realized.

Project Management Presentation

Next week I'm giving a presentation titled "The Value of Project Management" for the Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce. This presentation is open to the public and is aimed at individuals and organizations who wish to become more familiar with project management and want to introduce a project management practice scaled to fit their needs. Here is a brief description of the presentation:

Any industry and every organization experiencing change has a need for projects. Projects are used to drive change and innovation initiatives in an organization. Over the years, practices for leading these projects have evolved into an increasingly mature field of project management. In this workshop the purpose and value of project management is discussed and common project management practices are reviewed. Based on an understanding of modern project management practices a plan to introduce more formalized project management practices is developed.

If you are interested in attending for free you can register at http://duluthmncoc.weblinkconnect.com/cwt/External/WCPages/WCEvents/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1042

Building and Managing Effective Virtual Teams

In my MBA class tonight I plan to discuss virtual teams and how information and communication technologies enable organizations to create a virtual team of people who work together on a project without working at the same location. Through the use of web conferencing, instant messaging, collaborative office automation tools (ie. Google docs), and the emergence of so many other collaborative tools or collaborative features in our tools we are now able to work as effectively as if we were co-located. Members of our teams can work in any location across the world where an Internet connection is available. We can form collaborative teams and have these teams work effectively as if they were located in the same office space.

However, just because technology has provided us with tools it doesn't mean that we are now instantly granted the ability to effectively work as virtual teams. There are many challenges in correctly applying these tools, building the trust needed to work effectively, and providing leadership for these virtual teams. While these challenges exist in co-located teams, the solution to these challenges are different in the virtual team environment.

I came across two articles (here and here) providing some simple advice for developing and managing effective virtual teams. The main point is that building and managing virtual teams is different than managing traditional teams; especially if these team members originate from different cultures. One example is the formalization of roles and processes. In the virtual team environment, the roles of each team member must clearly defined as well as the processes the team will follow. This formalization is different than the more loosely defined rolls and ad-hoc processes we can use with the traditional team. The virtual team members are not able to intuitively grasp the shifting roles or processes as if they were interacting in-person.

Since the virtual team works with more limited communication among the team members it is important to establish norms for the mode of communication, the expectations for behavior in the communications (no background noise or interruptions, etc.), the frequency and timing of communication, and the ability to have one-on-one contact with team members. Establishing these norms early on the in the team formation allows the team members to know what to expect and to figure out how the team will work together. The ability to have one-on-one interactions and spontaneous interactions will help build trust and understanding among the team members.

The commonality between these two articles is the formalization needed to support virtual teams. We need to formalize the roles of the team members, formalize how decisions are made, and formalize how and when the team interacts with each other. This formalization helps to establish the guidelines for operating as a team. Co-located teams do not require such formalization but they are offered the luxury (or disadvantage; depending how you look at it) of having immediate and frequent interactions with each other.

So, if you plan work work as a virtual team or if you plan to lead a virtual team, be sure to first spend time formalizing the guidelines which the team will operate under. This formalization helps the team become more effective by allowing them to focus on the objectives rather than figuring out how to work together.

The Human Economy?

I just finished reading a Harvard Business Review article where the author argued that, just as we previously moved from an agricultural economy to a industrial economy and from the industrial economy to the knowledge economy, we are now moving to a new type of economy. This new economy is the human economy where our own humanity is what makes workers valued. In this new economy, the ability to apply our analytical skills is no longer valued but rather value is derived from our ability to demonstrate compassion toward the stakeholders and make decisions that may contradict our typical business goals.

Valuing compassion and our ability to be connected to humanity certainly sounds noble but I don't agree that this is now the new economy. Organizations are currently focused on realizing the value of the data they collected for the past two decades (or more) and found value mining this data for valuable insight and improved decision making. We also currently value employees who are able to turn information into knowledge to improve the organization's performance. This value of the employee's knowledge attributes will remain valued. In other words, I argue the knowledge economy is not going anywhere.

Having said this, I must admit that there is some merit to the human economy the author describes. The results from our in-depth analysis of our vast amounts of data may lead to incredible insight into business patterns and give use the ability to predict future patterns. These analytics practices are intended to help us make better decisions. However, we have to acknowledge that we cannot rely solely on the results of our data analysis but rather use this data as input into our decision making. This is where the influence of the human economy may be needed. We sometimes need to make decisions that fly in the face of the data in order to make decisions that may be incorrect through short-term metrics but are the right decisions when looking at the bigger and longer-term picture.

While I appreciate the author's perspective on the importance of humanity in the future economy, I argue against any notion that we are moving out of the knowledge economy. We are simply balancing the insight our data-driven knowledge provides with our compassion and bigger-picture thinking that only humans are able to provide.

Beyond Business Process Reengineering

I'm preparing a lecture for my MBA students on information systems and the support of business processes. The purpose of this lecture is to illustrate how information systems have enabled the organization to move from siloed departmental information systems to integrated systems that support the entire business process across departments. This transformation really took hold in the 1990s and was associated with the act of business process re-engineering (BPR). This BPR effort served as a means to reconceptualize the firm from departments into processes and to recognized the value of having information stored in a single and centralized location.

I conducted a little research to support the material from the book in order to find the next step; to determine what happens when organizations no longer find ways to continue to increase efficiencies through BPR. In search of the next step I came across a Harvard Business Review article describing a potential next step for moving beyond BPR. One potential solution is the service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach. Using this approach, organizations reconceptulize the firm into a set of loosely coupled services that form the business processes. A service is a specific outcome that can be reused across the organization and, if implemented properly, can be reused by any part of the organization rather than replicated.

Rather than having a tightly integrated business process that is unique to the firm, organizations can now create more generic services that can be combined as building blocks to be used and reused as needed across the organization. These individual services can be developed internally or purchased externally. The reusability and the ease of decoupling the services and recombining them as the organizational needs change make this a much more flexible and efficient method compared to the inflexible architecture of the enterprise systems we constructed as a result of the BPR efforts.

I need to look into this further. I'm more familiar with BPR than with SOA as a means to increase organizational efficiency. This service-oriented method is intriguing but seems a little harder to grasp right now. I wonder if firms are able to quickly grasp and adopt this new method or if there are other methods emerging as the next step beyond BPR.