CHAPTER 13

Leading the Project or Program

Leadership in the context of an organizational setting is a popular theme both online and offline (see Figure 13.1). On various media, leadership discussions tend to propagate a certain leadership style as righteous as opposed to other styles. What is regarded as righteous depends to a large extent on human values. Sometimes a distinction is made between leadership and management in which the two are contrasted (Zaleznik 1993). Whatever the perspective, leadership touches various traditions of management, including Taylorianism and anti-Taylorianism. In any case, it is a popular discussion and an interesting field for study. In the context of HybridP3M, leadership is a tool to build a successful organization. Second, leadership should develop a support base for decisions made in the context of projects and programs. In other words, leadership is a very functional concept according to HybridP3M, in which political dimensions such as self-interest are disregarded (for the sake of rationality). Only survival of the organization in a very competitive world counts, and therefore business success and growth are the main priority. In this chapter, the concept of organizational success is dissected (according to HybridP3M’s interpretation), two main leadership styles are introduced (Burns 1978), and the notion of decision-making capability is introduced. Superior decision making equates making the right decisions. But in the context of groups, there is also an element of accountability for decision making, which needs to be taken into account. A successful organization consists of eight components which will be elaborated in the following subsections. The corresponding activities occur in no particular order. According to HybridP3M, leadership processes (not to be confused with formal leadership corresponding to management roles) are not necessarily restricted to key authorities. It follows from leadership theory that there is complex relationship between the leader and the follower. In this light, leadership processes transcend traditional lines of authority. Accordingly, leadership is not only a matter of power but also character, an opportunity for team dynamics in complex situations, and thus agile behavior.

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Figure 13.1 Leading the project or program PDD

Fostering a Culture of Learning

Fostering a culture of learning is essential in the context of developing a learning organization. One practical approach to this leadership process is to stimulate knowledge management, as learning is partially a function of knowledge integration and other knowledge processes. A second important aspect is to increase learning capability. In this light promotion of evaluation activity is key. Learning often takes place in the context of success and failure. It follows that failure and mistakes must be tolerated to some extent. From a long-term perspective, advocated here, blame should be restricted to situations in which mistakes are repeated but could have been prevented thanks to existing lessons learned or cases (describing similar situations), or sharing of tacit knowledge. Also, learning from success should not be taken for granted. In organizations, there are often barriers to learning, at various levels, across dimensions. Leadership implies making these barriers visible and overcoming them. In most cases, this involves cultural change, which is never easy to accomplish.

Fostering an Agile Culture

An agile culture is characterized by a widespread agile mindset, underlying particular behaviors. While the delivery model of any project or program is either predictive or Agile, depending on the type of project and industry, an agile mindset is beneficial either way, HybridP3M assumes. Agile project management, whether realistic and/or sound or not, is simply the new ideal. Projects and programs increasingly demand responsiveness to change, an agile feature. The latter is due to the dynamic character of projects and programs, which is commonly accepted. Arguably, projects and programs are becoming less and less predictive, irrespective of incremental and iterative delivery. Hence, the need for change management is universal. In order to foster an agile culture, leadership should concentrate on formal change management procedure and promote agile values, such as flexibility, customer satisfaction, customer intimacy, acceleration, and dynamic capability at any level. Undoubtedly, an agile culture contributes to a “self-designing organization” (Weick and Westley 1996), an effective organizational approach dealing with uncertainty.

Fostering Organizational Maturity

The activity to foster organizational maturity is a leadership process that is driven by capability maturity management. Gaining higher maturity levels is a key value in this context. In the ideal situation, the main goal, processes are optimized. In order to realize optimization of processes, however, it is essential to develop maturity across organizational dimensions (recall MAIDEO’s five enterprise dimensions of an organization). Adopting a methodology like HybridP3M has implications not only for organization and process, but also for strategy and policy, monitoring and control, IT, and people and culture. Each of these areas should be developed and this requires leadership. That said, as project team members have limited corporate authority the main area in the context of projects and programs is arguably people and culture. By assuming leadership roles active members can stimulate each other with respect to personal growth, learning (including gaining knowledge and problem solving), and skills development. As a result, the outcome is an improving organization, essential in becoming a market leader.

Fostering P3M Maturity

By applying a P3M methodology like HybridP3M consistently across projects, project management team members lay the foundation for high P3M maturity levels. Application of HybridP3M’s processes combined with understanding of process interfaces and interdependencies (in a P3M landscape), supported by never-ending accumulation of knowledge and experience, creates a path for optimization and sets the conditions for more success and less failure. Leadership should stress the importance of project assurance so that HybridP3M is indeed consistently applied. Second, leadership should facilitate understanding of P3M interfaces as an enterprise architecture view emerges among key staff. Third and finally, related to learning, P3M maturity depends on knowledge development and subsequent knowledge processes. So leadership should foster learning in every aspect of P3M.

Communicating Project Process Responsibility

Leadership also involves communicating project process responsibility in order to develop better role understanding across the team. Project process responsibility implies HybridP3M process understanding in a situated, practical setting. While HybridP3M provides a lot of guidance, using both explicit and implicit assumptions, it is the combination of matrices 1 to 3 that establishes roles and responsibilities and provides the basis for social contracts. It is unrealistic to assume that the ambiguous and complex nature of project processes will never result in organizational issues such as role disarray and general confusion. Therefore, leadership should resort to simple communication in order to prevent such issues. As HybridP3M believes in social contracts sustained by the right type of leadership and team dynamics, resorting to formal job descriptions, a PRINCE2 concept, should be exceptional (as a last resort rooted in follow-on actions).

Promoting Team Effort

The leadership process of promoting team effort is self-evident. Team spirit is an important foundation for achieving better results and efficient working. Project performance simply depends on team spirit. This is a matter of project establishment, getting the right group of people together, as well as team building. It is generally accepted that team building requires coaching. So leadership processes promoting team effort imply coaching ability, a skill that needs to be acknowledged, promoted, and trained. Team effort applies to the project management team, supervised by a project board and influenced by corporate/portfolio management, but also subteams of specialists headed by team managers.

Managing Events

Events relate to new situations that require human attention and which are not part of daily routine, such as work triggers or anticipated process transitions. There are two kinds of events: expected and unexpected. The main implication here is the level of possible preparation for events occurring. Note that preparation requires leadership skills. In the context of leadership, events may trigger conscious changes, set by the leadership. HybridP3M assumes that if change is required this calls for “transformational leadership,” and if change does not apply “transactional leadership” should be used, two well-established leadership styles. In case of crisis, the ability to manage events may contribute to effective crisis management, another element of a successful organization.

Applying Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership (Burns 1978) is based on a dynamic relationship between leader and follower in which both roles stimulate each other based on higher needs, such as morality, and assumes that values and assumptions are not fixed but can be influenced. Hence, this leadership style is in theory the right one for cultural change. Note that according to Schein (1985) values and assumptions lay at the heart of culture. Most cultural changes fail because leaders try to change artifacts and symbols, or patterns of behavior, without the means (or ideas) to foster change at a deeper level. That is to say, changing assumptions and values is fundamental to cultural change. Transformational leadership claims that if carried out effectively there is also less resistance to change. According to Bass (1995), transformational leadership has four dimensions:

1. Idealized influence. Effective transformational leaders have charisma. They are role models that followers want to identify with.

2. Inspiration motivation. An effective transformational leader inspires and motivates others. He or she is well capable of communicating his or her vision and followers do identify with this vision.

3. Intellectual stimulation. An effective transformational leader challenges followers intellectually and stimulates creativity, sometimes essential in problem solving.

4. Individualized consideration. An effective transformational leader understands the power of a collective, but at the same time has attention for the needs of individuals. He or she supervises, coaches, provides feedback, and acknowledges the needs of followers.

Applying Transactional Leadership

Transactional leadership is the type of leadership that is based on win– win situations and is effective when assumptions and values are fixed. An effective transactional leader gets things done in exchange for something. In other words, it is the type of leadership defined by incentives. Bass argues that the best leaders can switch between transformational and transactional leadership. As stated earlier, transactional leadership is most effective when change does not apply. It is the preferred leadership style while maintaining a status quo. Transactional leadership has two dimensions:

1. Contingent reward. An effective transactional leader sets targets, establishes expectations, and determines relevant reward for followers.

2. Management-by-exception. An effective transactional leader does not intervene as long as old methods are functional and followers keep realizing set targets in alignment with the established norms.

Developing Decision-Making Capability

The final element of a successful organization is supported decision authorities. When decision authorities are supported, decisions taken are respected and executed accordingly. This leads to stability and order, that is to say, a more effective management environment. In order to achieve this level of support, decision makers must build a reputation of sound leadership and accurate management. Ultimately, managers or leaders are judged by their decisions and their outcomes. Therefore, it is essential as a decision authority to develop “decision-making capability.” Decision-making capability in its most effective form is interpreted as the ability to make the right decisions in the right setting following a decision-making process that can be justified in hindsight. As problems and issues tend to repeat across similar projects this calls for case-based reasoning (CBR), an analytical and rational form of decision making. The limitation of CBR is that it only applies to problem solving, not the whole spectrum of decision making. The whole spectrum of decision making covers also political decision making, which is inevitable. In case decisions are politically motivated, it is important to sell them (for buy-in). In case they are not driven by political motives it is key to rationalize them (also for greater commitment). The greater the understanding of sometimes controversial decisions the greater the tolerance, the stronger the reputation and so on.

Selling Decisions

Selling decisions is a typical political activity. It is mainly the domain of the bigger project/program sponsors and is driven by larger interests. Make-or-buy decisions like selecting a particular supplier, when objective procurement criteria do not apply, is a typical example. Promoting a project methodology to a third party (for integration purposes) is another example. By selling decisions, key decision makers show that they remain sensitive to reception, bearing in mind stakeholders’ needs. By selling decisions, key decision makers can gain political power.

Rationalizing Decisions

Decision making should be as rational as possible. Rational decision making enables critique based on analytical grounds. This is important because decision makers are responsible and sometimes accountable for outcomes. Both success and failure need to be traced back to the original decision and/or taken actions. Only a rational approach contributes to the development of decision-making capability and long-term organizational learning, including learning from mistakes. Rationalization on hindsight of political decisions is not advocated and rather perverse as the related decision-making process was never analytical other than serving particular interests.

Process Aspects

Figure 13.2 captures the knowledge nature of leading the project or program.

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Figure 13.2 Tacit–explicit continuum of leading the project or program

Leadership depends on tacit knowledge. Explicit information only plays a support role, mainly for communication ends.

Figure 13.3 captures the manageability of leading the project or program.

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Figure 13.3 Step-by-step process versus skilled activity continuum of leading the project or program

While leadership is definitely not a step-by-step process that can be repeated, it is sensitive to corporate strategy and policy. Hence, it can be influenced and directed.

Figure 13.4 captures the specialization level of leading the project or program.

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Figure 13.4 Management–specialist continuum of leading the project or program

Leadership is a management skill; it is not a specialization confined to a particular role.

Figure 13.5 captures IT support in relation to integrating leading the project or program.

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Figure 13.5 Available IT support for leading the project or program

Leadership is a human quality; it does not rely on IT.

Figure 13.6 captures the complexity of integrating knowledge management.

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Figure 13.6 Task complexity scale of leading the project or program

Leadership is a very complex process simply based on the complex relationship between leader and followers.

MAIDEO Requirements

Table 13.1 presents MAIDEO requirements related to “leading the project/program.”

Table 13.1 MAIDEO requirements related to leading the project/program

Requirement

Level

Dimension

Leadership takes into account crisis management.

1

People and culture

Depending on the political nature, decisions are sold to those affected.

1

People and culture

Team effort is promoted.

2

People and culture

Transactional leadership is applied when status quo does not need to be challenged.

2

People and culture

Project process responsibility is communicated continuously.

3

People and culture

Status quo is challenged based on transformational leadership.

3

People and culture

To become a learning organization is part of the corporate mission, vision, and strategy.

4

Strategy and policy

Leaders foster an agile culture.

4

People and culture

Depending on the political nature, decisions are rationalized.

4

People and culture

Leaders foster a culture of learning.

5

People and culture

Leaders are driven to improve organizational maturity.

5

People and culture

Senior management is driven to improve decision-making capability across projects and programs.

5

Strategy and policy

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