Future Issues, Career Management, and Thoughts on Interpersonal Issues

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Future trends related to interpersonal issues and leadership have implications for portfolio, program, and project managers. Over the past two decades, the emphasis on interpersonal skills as a path to success has grown. As a portfolio, program, or project manager, you need to make conscious efforts to continually improve your performance and to actively manage your career. Paying attention to the basic but profound question of what it means to be a person can enrich your growth as a leader as you and your team members grapple with the many people challenges you will face in your work.

Future Issues and Challenges in Portfolio, Program, and Project Management

The profession of project management continues to grow and change at a rapid pace. In the past decade, we also have seen a greater emphasis on program management and portfolio management, with PMI‧s issuance of standards for these areas. In 2008, PMI issued new standards for the three portfolio, program, and project areas, along with a standard on organizational project management maturity, to ensure that the four of them would be complementary. These publications are approved by the American National Standards Institutes as American National Standards.

The profession grows daily. More people are becoming members of PMI, the International Project Management Association (IPMA), and the Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM). Further, more people are becoming certified by PMI as a CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management), a PMP, or a PgMP; others are pursuing certifications from IPMA and AIPM. The International Organization for Standardization has certified the PMP and the PgMP programs.

At the same time, organizations are increasingly recognizing that programs and projects are assets to their work and are becoming more project-based. They also are focusing on portfolio management to ensure that they are pursuing the right programs and projects, given capacity limitations and the necessity of ensuring these programs and projects support the organization‧s strategic goals and objectives. Projects managed through programs provide greater overall benefits and more synergies, interdependencies, and effective resource allocation than if the projects in the program were managed in a standalone fashion.

Organizations are focusing on customer satisfaction, in addition to the triple constraint (on time, within budget, according to specification), and, even more importantly, on the value of portfolio, program, and project management and the enterprise program management office. Many organizations are also integrating business development and knowledge management into their program and project management processes.

As the profession continues its unprecedented growth, challenges are increasing as well. Programs and projects are far more complex than before. With virtual teams becoming the norm and not the exception, organizations have the opportunity to build a 24/7 workforce. Many find the virtual environment an ideal way to ensure that key subject matter experts are available regardless of their locations. The prevalence of virtual work also means we now tend to work with more people from different cultures who have different perspectives.

Downsizing continues, along with mergers and acquisitions. Organizations are performing programs and projects as joint ventures more frequently, often working with former competitors that are now considered valued partners or suppliers. Nothing seems to remain the same! Change is constant, and it should be embraced rather than resisted.

Improving Your Performance as a Portfolio, Program, or Project Manager

While portfolio and program management have become more significant to organizations, the project manager‧s work remains the cornerstone of the profession. Repeatable, successful projects (and programs) come from good processes and from project managers who continue to learn and improve their personal practices. As noted by Brown, Adams, and Amjad (2007), “successful project management relies almost entirely on the HC (human capital) that is embodied within the project manager as an individual … project management is concerned with the provision of leadership … we can expect this to cause project managers to depend on personal knowledge and experience that informs them how to lead in a continuously changing project environment” (p. 78).

It is never too late to focus on continuous improvement at any level. Jones (2000) noted that upper management and staff experience has a far greater impact on productivity than do effective methods or processes. At the same time, staff inexperience is much more detrimental to productivity than are ineffective methods or processes. Cockburn (2008) adds to Jones’ work by explaining that we have long recognized how success is influenced by the people on a program or project and how they interact with one another and are treated by the leader, but we keep hoping some new process or tool or technique will relieve the need for talent and communication. It is actually the movement of ideas between people that makes projects more efficient.

O‧Neill (1999) noted that people in project management spend less than 30 percent of their time on high-priority, value-adding activities. Instead, most of their time is spent coordinating initiatives and working with others—that is, solving people problems. The emphasis on people issues is even greater at the program level: The program manager coordinates the work done at the project level, works to solve escalated issues and risks, and communicates with a wide range of stakeholders. Interpersonal issues abound at the portfolio level, too, because of the continual rebalancing of portfolios and the need to communicate changes as soon as possible to a large number of involved stakeholders and to explain the importance of these changes.

Creating a Personal Improvement Plan

Because portfolio, program, and project managers spend so much time on people issues, it is crucial for every manager (and for team members as well) to craft his or her own personal improvement plan.

The first step in creating such a plan is to establish a baseline of your own level of people skills, knowledge, and competencies (Levin 1999). PMI‧s Competency Development Framework, second edition (2007), can assist in this effort. Also, reviewing the Software Engineering Institute‧s People Capability Model can be helpful. [Curtis, Hefley, and Miller, 2001].

Assess and document your best and worst performance on projects, with an emphasis on the people skills you used in each case. Note those aspects of your performance that you believed would work well but failed. Also note other situations in which you believed you would not succeed but were in fact successful. These observations will serve as the baseline that will enable you, going forward, to recognize whether your performance is improving or is remaining static.

The next step is to define and establish a personal process you can follow as you perform your work. The purpose of a process is to describe your intentions, which must meet your needs and will help guide your work. Focus on the aspects and areas of your work that you can control and influence as well as productive activities that add value, rather than on circumstances over which you lack control. Keep DeCarlo‧s words in mind: “The next century will put a premium on back to basics … challenging us to redirect our energies to focus on those things that are within our power to change. The fact is that we can‧t change the competitive scene, the course of globalization, or projects that will become increasingly complex” (p. 428, 1997). We live in this new century today.

Establish objective performance criteria for yourself, and compare your own goals with those of your manager, your organization, and your customer. If your organization does not have performance plans, set one up to use for your own improvement. This approach may encourage others to do the same, especially when people notice the improvements you are making.

Strive to answer the following questions when creating your personal improvement plan:

• Where does my work package (if a team member), my project (if a project manager), or my program (if a program manager) fit within the overall strategic plan and portfolio of the organization?

• What is my organization‧s future strategy?

• Why do some projects or programs in my organization fail?

• Can I improve my own work and the processes I follow to do it by building on the work done by my peers and team members?

• What are the key characteristics of the programs and projects in my organization that succeed?

Measure, analyze, and improve your work processes by evaluating the accuracy and effectiveness of your personal plan and processes, making adjustments as needed. Defining, measuring, and tracking work provides insight into your performance, especially your development of people skills (Humphrey 1995). For example, by tracking your work you can determine whether you had to communicate with more stakeholders, work with various team members to improve their performance, or needed more training to improve your own performance. Remember, just as if you were preparing a project plan, you can progressively elaborate your own processes. Keep in mind, also, that one process will not fit all the situations you will encounter in your work. Humphrey, Konrad, Over, and Peterson (2007) write that continuing to follow a process without adapting it as necessary may not benefit your organization; the organization could even miss making its commitments to its customers and users. Your own improvement may have larger implications for your organization.

However, similar to work on a project, you should recognize that even with the best intentions, a detailed plan, and a process, some problems will arise because change is constant. Do not be embarrassed by mistakes you make, but instead recognize that they are lessons learned for future improvement. Analyze your mistakes and accept responsibility for them. Your team will appreciate these efforts, and by accepting responsibility, you will build greater trust and lasting relationships.

Beyond developing a personal improvement plan, you can make additional efforts to further your mastery of people skills:

• Acquire the training you need to pursue a continuous improvement approach; if your organization lacks the resources to fund training courses, see if you can fund them yourself. Participate in some of the numerous free webinars available from PMI and other organizations.

• Search for practice opportunities for testing new skills. Consider your interpersonal skills to be prototypes and work to continually refine them. Ask peers for their support.

• View each program or project and each interaction with a key stakeholder, especially those who may not share your enthusiasm for what you are doing, as a learning opportunity, and share the lessons you have learned with others.

Striving for Excellence

Frame (1999) writes that one of the two or three most significant issues facing organizations today is competence. In the past, getting by was acceptable; today, getting by is a prescription for failure. Individuals must strive to be superlative.

Kevin Cashman urges the pursuit of personal growth, saying, “Too many people separate the act of leadership from the leader. They see leadership as something they do, rather than as an expression of who they are. To be more effective in our people skills with others, we must be more effective with ourselves” (LaBarre 1999) This means making a commitment to your own personal growth. As John Wooden exhorts, “Don‧t measure yourself by what you have accomplished but by what you should have accomplished with your ability” (Loverro 2002).

Improving Team Members’ Performance

As you work on improving yourself and your own people skills, you will also be helping your team members further develop their skills. You will find yourself offering assistance to help them grow in many subtle and indirect ways. To help your team members grow, you must become a guide and create a team culture of success.

Becoming a Guide

The program or project manager must serve as his or her team members’ guide. People on your team should understand the big picture of the program or project and should have a clear understanding of how success is defined. As the program or project manager, it is your job to guide your team to this understanding by applying your people skills. To fulfill your role as a guide:

• Meet with team members and foster two-way conversations.

• Talk success and the big picture.

Creating a Team Culture of Success

Success must be central to the team culture (Skulmoski and Levin 2001). One method of building such a culture is to structure activities in a way that makes early successes possible. Early successes will help build a winning attitude and set the direction of the program or project. This effort can help people overcome their fears that this particular program or project simply cannot be successful. With the habit of success established early, team members will be motivated to continue toward success.

Willoughby (2005) suggests breaking each program and project into specific, useful milestones as measures; their completion creates an atmosphere of success.

Foster the habit of success by completing an early milestone quickly so that you can use it to celebrate success with your project team. For example, reconfigure a deliverable so that a portion of it can be completed early in your project.

Career Management for Project Professionals

Your career as a project manager may be just beginning, and you may be enjoying the challenges of developing team leadership skills. Or you may be in the middle of your career, having had some success but not certain what you want the rest of your career to look like. Or, after a long and full career, you may be curious about what professional activities you can engage in during an active retirement.

Regardless of your current career stage, you must take responsibility for the direction of your career; no one else can do that for you. Even if you are currently working under a benevolent mentor, you may come to work one Monday and discover that your mentor has been fired, has been laid off, or has decided to leave the company. Only you can really be responsible for your future. Six rules for career management are:

• Rule 1: Actively consider what you want to do.

• Rule 2: Network, network, network!

• Rule 3: The higher you go, the more important chemistry becomes.

• Rule 4: Keep your résumé current and active.

• Rule 5: Put your personal references in order.

• Rule 6: Create your two-minute introduction.

In addition to these six rules, you can also consider an entrepreneurial career.

Rule 1: Actively Consider What You Want to Do

The significance of this career rule becomes evident when you listen closely to people who are considering career changes. Many times, professionals say that they never really set a direction for their career. Things just happened. But if you do not take the time to create a system to consider what you really want to do, you may find yourself in a situation in which:

• You achieve professional success but never attain personal satisfaction and happiness

• Your current path reaches a dead end, with no alternatives in sight

• A major organizational change, such as a merger or downsizing, happens, and you are caught with no survival strategy.

The best way to know what to do with your career is to know who you are. Placing yourself in situations that provide opportunities for formal or informal self-assessment is an excellent way to get to know yourself. Examples of formal self-assessment experiences include career interest and personal style instruments. Consulting psychologists who are skilled in personality assessment as it relates to career planning often use these instruments to help individuals develop their people skills. Traditionally, these psychologists employ tests that evaluate:

• Personality and personal style

• Work and career values

• Interests and skills.

Depending on the size of your company or organization, there may be a consulting psychologist in the organizational development group or the human resources department. Some project professionals value the opportunity to undergo the assessment process with a psychologist who is employed by the company, believing that this person is intimately aware of career issues within that company. Others, however, prefer to consult privately with an outside psychologist, believing this person will bring a more objective view and perspective to the assessment experience.

Informal, more casual self-assessment experiences can be equally valuable. These methods, such as journal writing or going on short, personal retreats are also directed at helping you gain a clear understanding of your personality, your interests, and your values, but they do not involve taking “tests.”

Rule 2: Network, Network, Network!

A professional network is a group of people who know you or are familiar with the trends within your profession. Building a vibrant and active professional network before you need it is an essential part of active career management. Many professional jobs come from leads generated through professional networks. When you want to make a career change or transition in the future, a professional network can be an invaluable resource. People who might be part of your professional network include:

• Current and previous coworkers and superiors

• Acquaintances from school, conferences, or professional organizations

• People you know personally or through your community

• People who are known for being thought leaders in the profession. There are many ways to develop a professional network. You might:

• Call peers on a periodic basis to find out what is going on in their professional lives.

• Send selected articles to people who have unique interests.

• Set a goal of meeting three new people at the next professional conference you attend.

• Inform people in your network when you receive a promotion or take a new position.

• Consider joining some professional networking websites, such as LinkedIn or Plaxo, and join the sites’ portfolio, program, and project management groups.

• Consider joining some of PMI‧s virtual communities of practice.

• See if your organization has a community of practice set up for project management. If it does not, but has other communities in place, suggest to your knowledge management officer that one be established for project management. If your organization does not have any communities in place, explain to your management that they are a valuable source of ideas for people working on programs and projects and that they promote the sharing of lessons learned.

• Create your own personal “board of directors,” a loose association of people you know who can get together periodically (perhaps over a meal) to advise and guide you through the process of career planning and decision-making.

Rule 3: The Higher You Go, the More Important Chemistry Becomes

As you move to higher and higher levels within an organization, the more chemistry between people helps further success. You cannot guarantee good chemistry between you and a key executive, but you can work on creating the people skills that give you the ability to experience positive chemistry. Good chemistry between people takes place when at least one of the two people has sophisticated people skills.

Closely related to good chemistry is the concept of successfully managing upward toward your functional manager, project sponsor, and other executives. The program or project manager who can successfully manage upward is able to:

• Understand the needs of his or her manager

• Achieve goals consistent with these needs

• Find appropriate ways to inform the manager about successes and actions taken to achieve these goals.

For example, if you have a random encounter with an executive or a sponsor, say in the cafeteria or on the elevator, you should be ready to share with that person a two-minute summary—an elevator speech—about your current project. Search for other opportunities to give presentations about your project that will keep internal stakeholders informed. Many organizations will have lunch-and-learn sessions for project professionals. If you work in such an organization, plan to attend them. Typically, these sessions are also offered virtually and are recorded so you can view them later. After attending or watching a session or two, ask the organizers if you might present about your work. The organizers will welcome your desire and interest. You may even consider asking some of your team members to present with you to give them an opportunity to speak about their roles on your program or project.

Do not let your fear of speaking up get in the way of speaking with a key executive. Often, these executives really want to know what is happening in the “trenches” and welcome the opportunity to meet staff members one on one. Speaking with them may even encourage them to practice a “management by walking around” approach.

If a particular executive does practice “management by walking around,” making an effort to connect with each person, this is all the more reason to have an elevator speech ready. This is a great opportunity to let the executive know about your work and your enthusiasm for it.

Rule 4: Keep Your Résumé Current and Active

Any professional in today‧s fluid work environment should have an up-to-date, polished résumé. Even when you are not currently in job-search mode, having a current résumé keeps you sharp with regard to recording your accomplishments and prepares you for interviews should the ideal job come along unexpectedly.

Make your résumé results oriented, telling the reader not just what you did (such as “served as a project manager for software development”) but what you achieved (such as “decreased software turnaround time by an average of 13 percent per project; increased ROI by 5 percent; ensured customer satisfaction as noted by repeat business”). A results-oriented résumé:

• Shows that you can set goals and achieve them, realize benefits, and promote value

• Uses action verbs such as “expanded,” “improved,” “created,” “developed,” “reduced,” “achieved,” and “built”

• Uses numbers to quantify and support your listed accomplishments.

Rule 5: Put Your Personal References in Order

An effort related to creating and maintaining an active, vibrant network is identifying people to serve as your professional references. As with your network, your references should be developed and nurtured well in advance of when you will need them. Do not wait until an interviewer asks you for your list of references; that may be too late. Once you have a potential job in mind, you need to qualify your references by talking with them about what they expect to say about you regarding the job you are seeking. Tell them what you think the interviewer would want to know about you. Also, tell them something about the specific job and the company that you are pursuing so that they can tailor their comments accordingly.

When qualifying a reference:

• Choose references who will have credibility with the interviewer and whose backgrounds are relevant to the position for which you are applying.

• Inform your reference of the specific accomplishments, traits, and abilities you think the interviewer should hear about. The fact that you remember these accomplishments does not mean that your reference will also remember them.

• Talk with your reference about areas in which you know you need professional development.

• If you are seeking to leave the organization, inform your references so they are not surprised by referral requests later.

Rule 6: Create Your Two-Minute Introduction

As you begin to inform the outside world about your interest in finding a new position, you should be able to tell your professional story concisely, in about two minutes. A two-minute introduction is the speech you would give to someone who meets you at a conference and asks you to tell them who you are and what you want to do.

Allocate your time wisely when presenting your two-minute introduction. A good rule of thumb is to use about one minute to describe your past and your previous accomplishments and the other minute to describe what you want to do in the future.

The two-minute introduction, tailored to the specific interests and needs of the listener, is designed to quickly give the listener an impression of you as an achiever and as someone who is excited and competent to pursue the next venture. You need not specify a particular job of interest when giving your two-minute introduction, but you do need to provide as many details as you can about the setting, the duties, and the role that you want to assume in your next position.

Consider an Entrepreneurial Career

Trends in the global workplace have led to the creation of a new way of working—an entrepreneurial career. This type of career can be ideally suited to the project professional.

An entrepreneurial career is a career in which the individual is involved in a number of professional activities at one time, conducted under the banner of self-employment. In essence, the professional manages a “portfolio” that holds the various career activities.

Entrepreneurial careers can be exciting for the professional who wants to be involved in a variety of activities and believes that it is not realistic to expect to find a traditional salaried position in which these varied interests will all be satisfied. Examples of activities in one person‧s entrepreneurial career include:

• One day per week of university teaching

• Independent consulting on portfolio, program, or project management issues

• Coaching project managers on a variety of leadership issues

• Periodic training as a subcontractor for a project management consulting firm

• Writing articles occasionally for professional publications.

Entrepreneurial careers are not for everyone because they have much more variability than salaried positions. In considering an entrepreneurial career, keep in mind that to be suited for such a career, you should:

• Be able to tolerate a lack of predictable structure

• Be comfortable with periods of intense activity (feast) followed by periods of minimal activity (famine)

• Have excellent time-management skills

• Foster customer relationship management at all levels

• Feel comfortable in an entrepreneurial environment in which you must constantly be pursuing business development efforts

• Have outstanding competencies in business development.

Some people find it helpful to move gradually from a salaried position to an entrepreneurial career. This gradual move could start with the salaried person teaching a class in the evenings, followed by a shift to part-time work, then garnering his or her first consulting assignment.

An entrepreneurial career also is one to consider if you are the victim of downsizing in your organization. You might try teaching or consulting as you search for a salaried position, and while doing so, you may find that you are well suited for such work and wish to continue it.

Interpersonal Issues in the Digital Age

When all is said and done, your biggest challenge as a project professional is dealing successfully with people. People determine your successes and your failures. To work effectively with people over time, you need to stay abreast of changes in society. Tapsott (1998) describes the digitally based culture in which today‧s young people are growing up. The upcoming generation will:

• Exhibit intellectual independence and demand for free expression

• Desire innovation, inclusion, and diversity

• Be motivated by immediate experiences and the acquisition of knowledge.

As a project professional, you should continue to develop interpersonal skills that will enable you to keep up with these changes in priorities and values in an era dominated by technological advancement. The primary people skills that you should continually hone include:

• Being a persuasive communicator, leading through influence as opposed to directives

• Embracing intellectual and cultural diversity without feeling threatened

• Comfortably accepting the fact that younger team members may know more than you about current technology and may even be paid more based on their knowledge and skills.

Refining Your People Skills

To further refine your people skills, Baldoni (2009) suggests looking at your own needs and those of your team. Key questions to consider include:

• What more do I need? Perhaps there are parts of your job you could be doing less and delegating more to others.

• What else should I be doing? It may be necessary to provide your team with more training and additional resources.

• How do I handle feedback? Self-aware leaders do not just accept feedback—they invite it to promote continuous learning.

Baldoni adds that strong leaders acknowledge their shortcomings and strive to make improvements—even though this is hard to do.

Recognize the importance of chemistry on the people side of your work. Better teamwork at any level improves the likelihood of overall success, but effective teamwork takes more than just saying “Let‧s all work together”; as Willoughby (2005) notes, it is easier said than done. He suggests that teamwork can break down the hidden agendas people may bring to the program or project environment, which allows more problems to be brought forward earlier for resolution. To break down these hidden agendas, the program or project manager should encourage everyone to speak when meetings are held and should ask open-ended questions to uncover possible issues that may be affecting the program or the project.

Finding Meaning in Life

One of the basic challenges we all face is creating a purpose for our lives. The challenge, as we grow and develop, is to define a personal meaning for our individual existence. But what does this need to construct our own personal meaning in life have to do with our work in portfolio, program, and project management? In today‧s world, people are increasingly defining their life‧s purpose based at least in part on their professional and career identity. The concept of “who we are” is often intricately related to our job description or our profession.

It is important for portfolio, program, or project managers to remember that:

• Each individual strives for his or her own meaning in life, occasionally in ways that may be unacceptable to you.

• You should look closely to find the individual‧s contribution; the glass really is half full.

From a purely selfish perspective, remember that the more you can understand about someone‧s approach to finding meaning in life—and then give them assignments compatible with that approach—the more successful you will be in your own role as a portfolio, program, or project manager.

Coming to Grips with Isolation

Even the most socially active person sometimes feels isolated and alone. Alone-ness stems from the truth that no one can ever really know what we are feeling or thinking, regardless of how intent we are in communicating with others. We can try to explain ourselves, but words ultimately cannot bridge this aloneness.

What does this aloneness have to do with portfolio, program, and project management? First, isolation is increasingly more common because of the prevalence of virtual teams. We may not even work in an office setting; more and more people, even those who work for large organizations, work at home. We may not even talk on the phone with anyone during the day; all of our communications may be through email or instant messaging, even if we are on a number of project teams. When someone does call on the phone, it is such a surprise that it is easy for some of us to over-talk and not actively listen to the person who called us, whether he or she is a customer, the program or project manager, a functional manager, or a team member. The human need for social interaction is such that even an introvert may dominate the conversation.

On both co-located and virtual teams, it is vital for each team member to have a sense of identity and commitment to the program or project. Recognizing the vision and mission of the program and project, how one‧s work supports it, and how it contributes to the overall strategic goals of the organization can help to reduce team leaders’ and members’ sense of aloneness. In particular, it is important for managers of program and project teams, particularly virtual teams, to conduct regular meetings.

Program or project managers should not underestimate the power that the team has to alleviate individual isolation. Treat the team building process and the team itself with honor, respect, and care. For you and your team members, the team is more than simply a vehicle for accomplishing a task. It is an evolving entity through which individuals can feel part of something greater than themselves and people are offered a chance to work together toward a common purpose, decreasing alienation and isolation.

Managing Beginnings and Endings

Programs and projects and people have one basic quality in common: they have a beginning and an ending. Many of us manage our anxiety about our ultimate demise by becoming very active in our work. This is not necessarily bad. In essence, work becomes a medium through which we can create testimonials to our time on earth, establishing concrete representations of our labors and our achievements that will remain after we are gone.

Work can be an effective means to come to grips with the fact that our life span is limited; this in part explains why people will work outrageous hours or put up with nasty bosses or coworkers. We want to leave this life with some marks of achievement, something that will outlast us.

It is important for you as a program or project manager to realize that each of your team members wants to leave a testimonial through his or her work; this need surfaces on some level over the course of each program or project. Help team members enjoy the experience of leaving a personal legacy or testimonial through their work on each program or project by:

• Helping them have both individual and team successes

• Helping them understand that their work truly makes a difference.

Parting Thoughts

The roles of portfolio, program, and project managers are special and are increasingly recognized as essential. More and more organizations have become project-based and have defined project-management career ladders. The roles of the portfolio, program, or project manager go beyond ensuring that the portfolio is optimized or the program or project is successfully completed to the customer‧s satisfaction. You influence the lives of people who are looking to you for guidance, and you affect the vibrancy, level of excellence, and future capabilities of your company or organization.

Try using the tools and approaches presented in this book. Above all, remember that solving interpersonal issues requires you to use your interpersonal skills as an artist would. Practice, experiment, integrate, and trust your intuition. Portfolio, program, and project management can be highly rewarding on both the professional and personal levels.