Project Management Velocity

Though not always the case, tech projects and initiatives tend to be professionally managed or in some other way led by a project manager, product manager, initiative leader, workstream lead, or feature team lead. Even self-managed teams still need to organize their work and execute in ways that lead to outcomes. And surely everyone needs to give some thought to how to achieve expected outcomes more quickly.

As we view PMI’s knowledge areas, performance domains, and guiding principles through the lens of velocity, it is important to reflect on our Design Thinking Cycle for Progress covered in Hour 1 (see Figure 24.1). Consider how the cycle starts with understanding the situation, followed by diagnosing the problem, selecting and executing Design Thinking techniques and exercises, selecting follow-on techniques and exercises as needed, solving the problem in whole or in part, looping back to learn, and realizing value as we iterate. This entire process can be applied to each PMI project management knowledge area, performance domain, and guiding principle.

Using the Design Thinking Cycle for Progress, project and initiative leaders can think about how they might use specific techniques or exercises to augment how they already operate when it comes to managing risks, communications, stakeholders, and so on. Figure 24.2 helps us visualize PMI’s knowledge areas (outlined in the sixth version of the popular Project Management Body of Knowledge, or PMBOK) in this context.

Turning to a set of Design Thinking–inspired exercises and techniques can help us move with greater speed—or make progress again—when the traditional methods and approaches fail us. In this way, value may be delivered with greater velocity.

Similarly, we can apply the Design Thinking Cycle for Progress to the performance domains and principles shared in PMI’s more recent guidance, the seventh edition of the PMBOK Guide. Note the similarities between legacy PMI guidance reflected in Figure 24.2 and PMI’s newer guidance in Figure 24.3.

For the remainder of this hour, we have organized a set of Design Thinking techniques around an amalgamation of project management Principles, Performance Domains, and Knowledge Areas spanning PMI’s guidance over the last decade:

• Leadership and Governance

• Stakeholders and Expectations

• Development Approach

• Risk Management

• Schedule Management

• Managing Scope

• Delivery and Quality

• Communications and Collaboration

Each area is covered next through the lens of pursuing, maintaining, or increasing velocity. Remember that beyond these eight amalgamations, quite a few other project management principles, domains, and knowledge areas were covered in detail throughout previous hours!

Leadership and Governance

To be effective, leadership must be visible and visual. Leaders must show up and lead from the front—be seen and be heard—and demonstrate the kind of empathetic leadership necessary for change and progress (Tyler, 2019). For many years, the Project Management Institute has shared guidance and a set of traditional techniques for leading and managing resources. More recently, PMI has shared its thoughts on leadership styles and behaviors including how such styles and behaviors may be tailored for specific situations. A subset of these foundational techniques that help us move with velocity includes the following:

• Coaching and exercising specific leadership styles based on situations, choices, and actions to drive outcomes

• Evolving leadership through competence and commitment

• Using video conferencing in lieu of face-to-face meetings

• Developing virtual teams spanning remote and geographic boundaries

• Solving problems through brainstorming and other fundamental ideation techniques

If we seek to lead and govern our projects and initiatives more effectively and with greater speed, we can also turn to Design Thinking methods, including

• Simple Rules and Guiding Principles to establish clarity among our teams in terms of what we do, when we do it, and how we execute (Hour 4)

• Stakeholder+ and Stakeholder Sentiment Mapping for understanding and tracking key relationships (Hour 7)

• The Power/Interest Grid for prioritizing key relationships (Hour 7)

• Framing Governance for collaborating and driving key stakeholder connections with clarity and regularity (Hour 15)

From a team leadership perspective, use the following techniques and exercises to build relationships and shared understanding faster, all of which lead to greater velocity long term:

• Diversity by Design to build high-performing connected teams capable of ideating more creatively (Hour 4)

• Mesh Networking for connecting and preserving the health of our islands of remote workers and avoiding the Archipelago Effect (Hour 4)

• AntiFragile Validation for verifying that our individuals and teams are growing stronger even in the wake of hardship (Hour 22)

• Growth Mindset for learning and teaming by creating learn-it-all work climates and extending grace to one another in the face of inevitable failures (Hour 4)

• Visual Thinking for more quickly creating a shared understanding (Hour 5)

• Analogy and Metaphor Thinking for team alignment and for simplifying the complex (Hour 11)

• Creating a Shared Identity to connect our people with one another, with other teams, and with our user communities (Hour 15)

• Storytelling for sharing and reinforcing the organization’s vision (Hour 15)

Surely there are many more techniques and exercises to help us lead more effectively, but the preceding list serves as a solid Design Thinking–inspired foundation for achieving and maintaining velocity. Let’s turn our attention now to techniques and exercises for engaging stakeholders and managing their expectations.

Stakeholders and Expectations

As outlined in Hour 7, sometime after publishing the sixth edition of the PMBOK (2017), the Project Management Institute changed its stance on stakeholders from managing them to engaging them and managing their expectations. Traditional techniques for “managing stakeholders” or their expectations include stakeholder analysis, classic stakeholder mapping, prioritizing and ranking techniques, the engagement assessment matrix, conflict management skills, and team skills for improving political and cultural awareness.

When the traditional methods are incomplete or simply insufficient, turn to the Design Thinking techniques and exercises outlined here for creating a better understanding, connecting with stakeholders while better engaging them, and managing their expectations:

• Big Picture Understanding for insights into an organization’s broader industry and ecosystem (Hour 6)

• The Culture Snail and Culture Cube for exploring an organization’s recent journey and current state (Hour 6)

• Recognizing and Validating Bias (Hour 6)

• Stakeholder+ Mapping for understanding hierarchies and monitoring key relationships (Hour 7)

• Stakeholder Sentiment Mapping for tracking stakeholder satisfaction over time (Hour 7)

• Power/Interest Grid for understanding priority relationships (Hour 7)

• Empathy Mapping for empathizing and connecting most effectively with others in light of the different types of empathy (Hour 8)

• Inclusive and Concentric Communications, Storytelling, Structured Text, and other communications techniques (Hour 15)

• Creating a Shared Identity to create a single virtual team regardless of the number of physical teams involved (Hour 15)

• Various visualization techniques for connecting more deeply and arriving at a shared understanding more quickly (Hours 5 and 12)

• The Waterfall Analogy and Analogy and Metaphor Thinking for simplifying the complex (Hours 4 and 11)

With leadership, governance, and stakeholders accounted for, let’s take a look at how a chosen development approach may be further influenced through a set of Design Thinking techniques and exercises.

Development Approach

In the world of tech deployment and software development projects, the notion of a development approach often boils down to two polar opposites: an adaptive or Agile approach on one end, and a more sequential Waterfall approach on the other. Truth be told, nearly all organizations operate somewhere in between, borrowing what’s needed from each extreme to move as quickly and responsibly as they believe they can.

A chosen development approach can vary too, based on the phase or needs of a project or initiative. Adaptive approaches may vary in terms of iterative or incremental development. External realities, including the need for regulatory audits or governance gates, also may influence the approach.

Regardless of the specific development approach, though, a set of Design Thinking–influenced exercises and techniques can oftentimes help organizations think, test, and move a bit faster:

• Building to Think to get started and learn faster (Hour 16)

• Rough and Ready Prototyping to obtain early feedback (including mockups, wireframes, and other methods outlined in Hour 16)

• Process Flows for driving clarity (Hour 16)

• Aligning Strategy to Time Horizons for smart release and sprint planning (Hour 13)

• Time Boxing, Pacing, and the Inverse Power Law for planning, organizing, and executing work (Hour 16)

• Shortcut and Wormhole Thinking for changing the landscape to increase velocity (Hour 18)

• Smart IP Reuse to get started faster (Hour 18)

• Modular Thinking to build smarter and faster (Hours 3 and 11)

• MVPs, POCs, and Pilots for meaningful user community feedback (Hour 17)

• Automating for Regression Velocity to manage changes faster (Hour 19)

Let’s turn our attention next to what many consider the most important project management knowledge area or performance domain: managing risk.

Risk Management

Risk management is arguably second only to communications when it comes to the job of project and initiative leaders. A mature discipline, even risk management benefits strongly from a set of Design Thinking exercises and techniques that fundamentally improve how we identify potential risks, bake them into our Risk Register, and manage and mitigate risks over the lifecycle of a project or initiative.

Traditional techniques for managing project risk include these and more:

• Executing enterprise-level risk management planning

• Conducting risk breakdown exercises

• Conducting brainstorming for risk identification

• Performing contingency reserve analysis and related techniques

• Running postmortem exercises for threat planning, risk identification, and smarter risk remediation

• Performing root cause analysis (RCA) and similar data analysis techniques in the face of problems

• Performing risk reviews and other auditing and risk planning exercises to continuously refine a project’s risk profile and mitigate newly identified risks

In addition to these traditional risk management methods, we may turn to a myriad of Design Thinking exercises and techniques for planning, identifying, analyzing, mitigating, responding to, and monitoring project risks. Some of these Design Thinking-inspired methods include

• Trend Analysis for predicting risks (Hour 6)

• Divergent Thinking for identifying previously uncovered risks (Hour 10)

• Guardrails for Thinking Differently and ideating more effectively (Hour 11)

• Pattern Matching and Fractal Thinking for considering and predicting potential risks (Hour 12)

• SCAMPER, Reverse Brainstorming, and Worst and Best Ideation for innovative twists on Brainstorming to identify and mitigate risks more deeply (Hour 14)

• The Premortem for thinking ahead to mitigate and plan for possible risks (Hour 11)

• Boats and Anchors for identifying schedule risks (Hour 11)

• Inverse Power Law to avoid scheduling changes at the worst times for a particular community or team (Hour 16)

• Time Pacing to consider schedule changes in terms of task frequency and duration (Hour 16)

• Force Field Analysis to quickly consider risks for and against a proposed change (Hours 14 and 23)

• Rose, Thorn, Bud (RTB) exercises for organizing risks (Hour 13)

• Affinity Clustering to identify risk themes (Hour 13)

• Structured Usability Testing to reduce solution misses (Hour 19)

• Silent Design for uncovering user community risks associated with missed expectations (Hours 20 and 22)

We should also consider team-based Design Thinking techniques for minimizing risks and therefore preserving velocity:

• Diversity by Design to reduce the risks of homogeneous thinking (Hour 4)

• Simple Rules and Guiding Principles to avoid team misalignment (Hour 4)

• Mesh Networking to avoid the Archipelago Effect (Hour 4)

• Looking Back (includes the Retrospective, Lessons Learned, and the Postmortem) to learn and avoid repeating the same mistakes (Hour 20)

Of all the project management knowledge areas or principles, risk management arguably benefits most from a wide cross section of Design Thinking techniques and exercises.

Schedule Management

Like risk management, managing to a plan and a schedule is another staple of project management. PMI provides an abundance of guidance for schedule management. Traditional techniques include these and more:

• Precedence diagramming or sequencing tasks in light of dependencies

• Using the Critical Path Method (CPM) for determining the minimum project duration

• Resource optimization practices to balance resource availability against time

• Building leads and lags into schedules to control or manage timing

• Performing Agile release planning as we organize large bodies of work into smaller bodies such as user stories and features across a timeline

• Practicing various forms of schedule compression including fast-tracking and schedule crashing

In addition to the traditional methods, we may turn to Design Thinking techniques and exercises for planning, defining, sequencing, estimating, developing, and controlling a project schedule. Some of these methods include

• Boats and Anchors, one of the most useful exercises for considering and mitigating potential impact on our schedule (Hour 11)

• Next-Step Thinking to design an effective near-term schedule (Hour 13)

• Aligning Strategy to Time Horizons to create a longer-term roadmap (Hour 13)

• Time Boxing for creating a predictable schedule (Hour 16)

• Inverse Power Law and Time Pacing for preserving our schedule once it’s formalized (Hour 16)

• “What, So What, Now What?” for reshaping a schedule in the wake of a problem or situation (Hour 13)

• Journey Mapping to consider an underlying path or schedule (Hour 8)

• Bullseye Prioritization to prioritize and make smarter stepwise choices (Hour 13)

• Shortcuts and Wormhole Thinking to reshape or recast the landscape for speed (Hour 18)

• Smart Multitasking for avoiding unnecessary context switching (Hour 18)

• Forcing Functions for driving forward progress (Hour 16)

• Fractal Thinking and Pattern Matching to think ahead about potential schedule implications (Hour 12)

• Inclusive and Accessible Thinking to minimize future rework (Hour 11)

• Good Enough Thinking to move forward (Hour 11)

• Mission Impossible Ideation for compressing the schedule (Hour 11)

• Möbius Ideation to minimize or avoid waiting on additional resources (Hour 11)

With our schedule preserved, optimized, and potentially accelerated, let us turn next to managing our scope of work spanning this schedule.

Managing Scope

The Project Management Institute has long provided guidance for managing our scope of work. A subset of the traditional techniques we often turn to for managing project scope include the following:

• Expert judgment

• Inspection

• Affinity and various relationship-based diagrams

• Facilitation skills

• Brainstorming

• Voting

Alongside PMI’s traditional methods, we can turn to Design Thinking techniques for planning, collecting, defining, creating, validating, and controlling project scope. Remember to link OKRs to our scope, creating a direct connection between the tactical features and business value we are delivering and an organization’s strategic vision. Some of these techniques include

• Time Boxing and Time Pacing to organize and distribute scope (Hour 16)

• Journey Mapping to consider scope in a stepwise user-centric manner (Hour 8)

• Balancing the Essential and the Accidental to identify scope that is more essential than other scope (Hour 21).

• Buy a Feature to reduce scope uncertainty and gain consensus in sprint and release planning (Hour 13)

• Bullseye Prioritization to make prioritized scope choices (Hour 13)

• Affinity Clustering to organize scope into themes, stories, features, and so on (Hour 13)

• Verbatim Mapping to directionally confirm scope or user needs and priorities (Hour 9)

• Five Whys to validate scope timing or priority (Hour 9)

• Golden Ratio Analysis to assess scope “fit” (Hour 12)

• “What, So What, Now What?” to rebalance scope in the wake of a problem or situation (Hour 13)

• Rough and Ready Prototyping and various forms of Building to Think as a way to directionally validate scope (Hours 16 and 17)

As the Project Management Institute shares, managing scope goes hand in hand with delivery and quality, covered next.

Delivery and Quality

Delivery is synonymous with execution. PMI tells us that delivery is about delivering a particular scope of work at the expected quality. Thus we have combined delivery and quality as we consider what it means to deliver with quality our scope of work. PMI’s most recent guidance and techniques include the following:

• Executing to achieve contracted outcomes

• Realizing project value and other benefits on schedule

• Managing stakeholder expectations in the wake of delivery and quality missteps

• Meeting requirements by delivering scope at the expected quality to drive the intended outcomes

• Using requirements management systems to provide traceability between outcomes and the requirements that must be delivered to realize such value

• Instrumenting delivery through validation and control-related policies, procedures, and other guidance

• Accommodating industry-specific quality standards or metrics

• Methods for identifying and stabilizing unstable or “moving” requirements

• Factoring in sustainability and other company or industrywide standards as part of responsible delivery

Applying Design Thinking to increase delivery velocity includes the following exercises and techniques, many of which tie back to schedules or timelines, organizing scope, and prioritizing our work to achieve value and other intended outcomes:

• Bullseye Prioritization to prioritize delivery choices or impasses (Hour 13)

• Adjacent Spaces Technique to consider low-impact delivery paths (Hour 13)

• Rose, Thorn, Bud (RTB) exercises for organizing delivery and quality matters (Hour 13)

• Affinity Clustering to identify themes in delivery (Hour 13)

• Smart Multitasking to deliver faster (Hour 18)

• Next-Step Thinking to select the next best step (Hour 13)

• Good Enough Thinking to deliver what is needed rather than what might be desired (Hour 11)

• Shortcut or Wormhole Thinking to recast a landscape for greater delivery velocity (Hour 18)

• Mission Impossible Thinking to uncover or target extreme delivery solutions (Hour 11)

• Forcing Functions to drive delivery (Hours 16 and 23)

• Failing Forward to stay future-focused and make delivery progress (Hour 17)

• Fixing Broken Windows to get delivery back on track (Hour 21)

• Avoiding the Abilene Paradox to minimize unnecessary delivery detours (Hour 21)

While PMI values delivery, PMI reflects an even richer track record of quality management, or what it means to deliver with quality. Traditional techniques for managing quality include the following and more:

• Flowcharts and models for visual planning

• Various types of testing (for validating features and evaluating fit through the traditional techniques covered in Hour 19)

• Test and inspection planning

• Inspection methods for validating conformance to a standard

• Cause-and-Effect for problem solving through data and diagramming methods

• Root Cause Analysis for problem solving

Alongside PMI’s traditional quality methods, we can turn to numerous Design Thinking techniques helpful for planning, managing, and controlling quality in ways that preserve if not improve velocity. Some of these quality-enhancing techniques include

• Snaking the Drain for thinking with a clean slate (Hour 10)

• Premortem Exercise for planning ahead (Hour 11)

• Worst and Best Ideation for planning (Hour 14)

• Rule of Threes for managing expectations (Hour 4)

• “How Might We?” Questioning for exploring what’s next in an inclusive and positive manner (Hour 4)

• Slay the Hero to improve operational quality (Hour 22)

• Silent Design to populate our backlog with what might have amounted to quality misses (Hour 22)

• Running the Swamp for extreme quality thinking (Hour 12)

• Golden Ratio Analysis for evaluating quality fit (Hour 12)

Note that many of the techniques and exercises related to understanding and solving problems are helpful when it comes to managing quality. Refer to Hours 9 and 14 to think through how to use additional delivery and quality techniques.

Communications and Collaboration

Always a top priority but not always executed well, communication demands special attention to be executed well. The Project Management Institute (2017) shares that communication is the “process of planning, collecting, storing, and updating project information…to ensure that the information needs of the project and its stakeholders are met through development of artifacts and implementation of activities designed to achieve effective information exchange.” Traditional techniques for managing project communications include these and more:

• Tending to cross-cultural communication realities

• Analyzing communication requirements to determine the types and channels of communication

• Considering the effectiveness of channels for specific needs or situations

• Using the Encode-Transmit-Decode communication model

• Employing push-and-pull communications methods as needed

• Learning the role of nonverbal communications and the skills necessary to use and pivot to nonverbal communications

• Expanding individual observation and conversation skills, including team listening and communication skills, to be more effective communicators

In conjunction with our traditional communications management methods, we may also turn to Design Thinking techniques for communicating more effectively, inclusively, and with greater clarity. Some of these techniques include

• Simple Rules and Guiding Principles for communicating internally what and when and how our teams execute (Hour 4)

• Cover Story Mockup for communicating vision and generating buy-in and excitement (Hours 3 and 16)

• Active Listening to learn and therefore communicate faster in a meaningful way (Hour 6)

• Probing for Understanding to learn and therefore communicate faster and with greater clarity (Hour 6)

• Silence by Design to learn and therefore communicate faster in a meaningful way (Hour 6)

• Supervillain Monologuing for quickly collecting information that might not otherwise be proffered in formal discussions (Hour 6)

• Concentric Communications for communicating with the right people at the right time (Hour 15)

• Inclusive Communications to ensure everyone has a voice and is drawn into team communications (Hour 15)

• Storytelling for deeper understanding and to share vision and purpose (Hour 15)

• AEIOU Questioning for verbally and rapidly assessing situations and taking better-informed next steps (Hour 9)

• Structured Text so receivers may more quickly comprehend complex written communications (Hour 15)

• Mesh Networking to create a more effective communications network linking our teams to one another and to other resources (Hour 4)

For additional communications tips and techniques, consider the material and techniques throughout Hours 4 and 15 for leading healthy teams and effectively communicating and collaborating cross-boundary.

Beyond the eight areas covered here—spanning leadership and governance, stakeholders and their expectations, development approaches, risk management, schedule management, scope management, attention to delivery and quality, and communications and collaboration—PMI has recently outlined additional areas where Design Thinking techniques may be helpful. Consider, for example, how the following areas were also covered throughout the previous 23 hours.

• Value (Hours 1, 2, 4, 6, 17, 18, 21, 22, and more)

• Complexity (Hours 1, 9, 21, and more)

• Uncertainty (Hours 1, 3, 13, and more)

• Adaptability and Resilience (Hours 4, 13, 16, 22, and more)

• Change (Hours 3, 6, 11, 12, 13, 16, 18, 19, and, of course, 23)

As we go about the work of understanding people and situations to solve complex problems, let’s look for those opportunities where we can drive clarity and velocity through Design Thinking. As we have seen in every case study and “What Not to Do” real-world example throughout this book, the opportunities are all around us!

What Not to Do: No Courage, No Future

As we have seen in several previous “What Not to Do” case studies, an unwillingness to move forward in light of the risks of the unknown only serves to keep our teams and our solution from realizing their intended value. It takes courage, but we must eventually quit iterating and refining our work—and actually deploy something of value. After all, our value hangs in the balance in the same way that velocity hinges on delivering value.

For a global wealth management firm, a nervous Product Owner eventually only found a world of missed expectations and the unemployment line. The Product Owner missed early opportunities to pull in her user community’s feedback. Demonstrations were cancelled more often than actually held, and the idea for an MVP never materialized despite the firm’s positive experiences with other such MVPs.

Instead, the firm’s Product Owner continued to have her team groom and iterate to perfection several admittedly important feature sets. Together with her Product Manager and a frustrated consulting partner, the Product Owner created a beautiful but incomplete case management system. But like a pearl stuck in mud, the system would never be enough to wow her users; they never even got the opportunity to provide feedback in a meaningful kind of way. In the end, a new Product Owner and tech leader were given the opportunity to create with the team a more user-inclusive release and sprint plan to complete their predecessor’s work.

Summary

In Hour 24, we reviewed a host of Design Thinking exercises and techniques cast through the lens of project management velocity. We organized these methods around a number of PMI knowledge areas, performance domains, and principles. While every PMI knowledge area, performance domain, and principle is important, through the lens of velocity, we identified eight focus areas that strongly benefited from new Design Thinking–inspired ways of thinking and executing. These eight focus areas included leadership and governance, stakeholders and their expectations, development approach, risk management, schedule management, managing scope, delivery and quality, and communications and collaboration. We concluded this hour with a “What Not to Do” reflecting the need to deliver value despite ever-present uncertainty and other unknowns that can trap us into iterating endlessly.

Workshop