Introduction

Interpersonal issues in projects and programs as well as in portfolio management can be messy and uncomfortable. Most significantly for the project manager, people issues can hinder project success; in particular, they can make it difficult to meet the project‧s schedule and budget and can jeopardize customer satisfaction with the project‧s scope and quality requirements. In program management, people issues can get in the way of the delivery of benefits, not only from the individual projects that compose the program but, more importantly, from the program as a whole. They also can interfere with governance approval and the ability to meet and manage stakeholder expectations. The overall value of the program‧s deliverables may decrease. In portfolio management, people issues can impede the development of a portfolio management process that people in the organization consistently follow and can delay and even prevent the plan from being communicated to the members of the organization.

As a project, program, or portfolio manager, you can, however, develop and refine skills that will enable you to address people issues successfully when they surface within a team setting. Equipped with these skills, you will not only bring added value to your organization but also find more personal enjoyment and fulfillment in your work as you proactively manage your career.

Projects: Technical Problems with Human Dimensions

Projects are technical problems with significant human dimensions. Cleland and Ireland (2007) note that most problems in organizations can be traced to people. They point to the importance of communication skills and note that there are many personal barriers to good communication that people must overcome. Management consultant Peters (2004) writes, “These days, it‧s the people skills that matter and will increasingly determine an organization‧s success.” He also notes that “only putting people first wins in the long haul, good times and especially tough times” (2008).

Unfortunately, many project professionals have not had training in the people skills required for success and career advancement; instead, they must develop these skills in formally as they proceed through their careers.

The Importance of People Skills

There are a number of key reasons why people skills are so important:

• We are under pressure to complete projects and programs faster than before; in today‧s competitive world, cycle times must be reduced in order to ensure customers’ satisfaction exceeds their expectations.

• We are working in a global environment. It is rare to work with a team of people who are co-located. Even if we do have the luxury of working with a co-located team, our stakeholders and customers may not be in the same location as we are. We may never see some of our team members, stakeholders, and customers face-to-face.

• Projects and programs are more complex, often using unproven technology, and we may not recognize the complex elements of our projects and programs early in the life cycle.

• The number of stakeholders we must interact with seems to increase as more and more interest is involved in each project and program. In other words, projects and programs have to reflect the interests of more stakeholders now than in the past.

• While more and more organizations are operating in a matrix environment, this kind of environment still presents challenges, not only for the project and program managers but also for the team members and functional managers.

• Offshoring and outsourcing are frequently used to decrease costs, and they increase the time required to complete projects.

• It is rare to work on only a single project, which means we must interact with more people than ever before.

• Many organizations have not completely defined the roles and responsibilities of program and project managers, and there may not be a portfolio management focus in the organization.

The Program and Project Life Cycles

Both projects and programs have life cycles, regardless of their size or complexity and regardless of whether they are performed by virtual or co-located teams. These life cycles are sequential and show the major phases that need to be performed. Typically, the specific life cycle is part of the overall program and project management methodologies used in the organization. Groups of individuals become a team as they progress through these life cycles. Each phase requires that project or program managers, and their respective team members, have finely honed people skills to succeed at the highest level.

Table I-1 shows how the five stages of the Tuckman team development model correspond to the Project Management Institute‧s (PMI) five life cycle stages for projects and programs and PMI‧s portfolio sub-processes.

We will look at these stages from the vantage point of how people working on projects, programs, and portfolios become effective teams. This discussion introduces specific people skills that will be covered in subsequent chapters. Over the course of any project or program, and in various phases of portfolio management, all of the people skills discussed in this book are employed simultaneously, though some skills are more heavily relied on in one stage than in another, and some are more essential in co-located or in virtual environments.

Forming Stage

A team begins as a collection of individuals with different motivations and expectations. Unless the team has worked together successfully in the past, there is limited trust among team members. Some members may not even want to be part of the team. They may have competing priorities because of their work on other programs or projects or in ongoing operations. Each team member brings his or her own ideas and perspectives about the purpose of the project and his or her specific roles and responsibilities. The team does not yet have specific processes for effective operation.

Table I-1 The Tuckman Team Development Model and Project, Program, and Portfolio Management

In this stage, people are gathering information about their fellow team members. Some may hold opinions of their teammates that are based on stereotypes, which may pertain to cultural differences or may be long-held assumptions based on job function (e.g., generalizations about “the auditors,” “the engineers,” or “the IT staff”).

Additional people-related challenges affect programs. Team members may not be sure why their project is part of the program in the first place and why it is being managed in a program structure. They may not recognize the benefits that can be derived from a program management approach and may not know how their project relates to other projects in the program. They may wonder whether they will interact with the program manager and, if so, how often this interaction will occur. However, because it is early in the process, conflicts are not usually a major issue.

Portfolio management is an ongoing process, as new programs and projects are selected for inclusion in the portfolio, and other programs and projects are terminated or successfully come to completion. Identifying the specific components (programs, projects, and other work) that will compose the portfolio and determining how best to categorize them are, nevertheless, concerns in the forming stage. Members of a portfolio review board or similar organization may resist the inclusion of certain components in the portfolio, or they may believe that certain categories in the portfolio are no longer relevant given changing business conditions and need revision. They may be concerned that the portfolio management process is not being followed throughout the organization. (If it is not, they may wonder why they are serving as board members, and they will try to figure out how to make the process more effective.) New board members may be uncertain about the board‧s operating procedures, its specific roles and responsibilities, and the organization‧s portfolio management process.

Leaders in project, program, and portfolio management during the forming stage must resist the tendency to make any assumptions about the personalities, values, sources of motivation, interests, and agendas of each of the team members. The ability to perceive and appreciate individual differences is an essential people skill that is discussed more fully in Chapter 4. The forming stage is a time for leaders to really get to know their team members.

Working with their teams, leaders must articulate the vision or end state for each program or project such that each team member can personally identify with it and support it. The vision explains why the program or project adds value to the organization, the desired end state of the program or project, and why it is part of the organization‧s portfolio. Focusing on the vision, rather than emphasizing specific deliverables, technical specifications, and the details of the work to be done, shows how the program or project contributes to the overall goals and objectives of the organization.

The people skills managers must have for crafting and communicating the vision include:

• The ability to comfortably inhabit four distinct leadership roles: leading, managing, facilitating, and mentoring. The manager acts as a leader to communicate the vision (see Chapter 1).

• Effective communication skills (such as listening actively and asking open-ended questions (see Chapter 4).

• Effective political skills, which enable the manager to work with a diverse group of stakeholders to clarify the vision and ensure commitment to it (presented in Chapter 5).

Storming Stage

The second stage, as described by Tuckman (1965) and Tuckman and Jensen (1977), is the storming stage. This stage is marked by conflict and disagreement among team members and the program and project manager. Some people may not like the roles and responsibilities they are assigned to perform and may prefer those assigned to other team members. They may challenge their peers for specific niches and identities in the project. Many may be anxious about the new project or program. The assignment represents change, which may surface self-doubt or old grievances. Team members so affected may try to resist the changes.

Conflict may be even more common in virtual teams because some people, based on their style of motivation, may be uncomfortable with their specific assignments. Some minor confrontations may occur. For example, a person who is motivated more by close connections and associations may resist his or her assignment to a virtual team because it does not offer the day-to-day interpersonal contact with team members. Or a person who is motivated more by a need for power may also resist his or her assignment to a virtual team because it is less conducive to involvement in multiple project activities and awareness of the specific assignments of others.

The project manager may be able to handle some of these confrontations, but some may have to be escalated to the project sponsor. At the program level, project managers may raise issues to the program manager for resolution, and often, he or she may need to involve the program‧s governance board or steering committee for assistance.

At the portfolio level, disagreements are especially likely if portfolio management is being introduced to the organization. Board members may question the methods used to identify portfolio components, and the selection process often is marked by extensive discussion and controversy, especially if a key member of the portfolio review board supports a project that is not selected for inclusion in the portfolio. Company employees may not know about the plan to introduce portfolio management, and if they are aware of it, they may feel threatened by its formal approach.

Project, program, and portfolio managers with an assertive and facilitative style can help the team create not just solutions to individual conflicts but also processes the team can use to resolve them directly.

Five distinct people skills are required to resolve conflicts and to model positive conflict-resolution behaviors:

• The ability to identify the motivational styles of team members (addressed in Chapter 3)

• The ability to use the most appropriate communications skills (addressed in Chapter 4)

• The ability to apply six distinct conflict resolution strategies and to know when to apply each of them (addressed in Chapter 8)

• The ability to guide the team as it forms and to employ various team-building approaches (addressed in Chapter 2)

• The ability to take on the manager role, one of the four basic leadership competencies, to help the team prepare a team charter that will define the methods it will use to resolve conflict (discussed in Chapters 2 and 3).

A team charter can help managers and team members determine how to address crisis situations—for example, if a critical incident, such as a serious illness, death, or a natural disaster, strikes a team member. At the portfolio level, major business changes, such as mergers and acquisitions, using offshoring for the first time, or a need to downsize staffing, can constitute critical incidents.

To effectively respond to a critical incident, portfolio, program, or project managers should be able to:

• Assess whether a critical incident debriefing—a facilitated team meeting that is intended to allow team members to talk through the crisis—is warranted, given the nature of the critical incident. Debriefings can be held in either a co-located or virtual environment.
• Be empathetic to the team members’ personal reactions to the event while still keeping a business-oriented, task-completion focus.
• Determine when a project or program recovery plan is needed and identify the qualities of the ideal recovery manager. At the portfolio level, a manager should be able to decide whether an outside person should be brought in as a recovery manager for the organization.

A potential downside of creating group standards and norms through a team charter or a set of operating procedures is that the team may display conformity, obedience, or groupthink in decision-making. Groupthink, as defined by Harvey (1974), also called management by agreement, is a major source of portfolio, project, or program dysfunction. In teams under the influence of groupthink, people take action based on what they believe the team desires, but in reality no one supports the decision that was made. Groupthink happens because many people do not express their true feelings about situations. When it becomes evident that the group‧s decision was ineffective or wrong, team members then blame others, a typical reaction during the storming stage. Obviously, such a situation damages team cohesiveness.

To mitigate the risk of groupthink or management by agreement, the project, program, or portfolio manager needs to achieve a balance of cohesion and dissent. The people skills required for managing agreement involve the five conflict resolution skills and the influencing skills discussed in Chapter 8.

Norming Stage

By the time a team reaches the norming stage, the work of the program or project is underway and people are accustomed to their roles and responsibilities. Team members have a greater sense of trust in each other, and they work to resolve conflicts. However, challenges remain. The program or project manager must ensure that team members do not lose sight of the overall vision or end state and that they maintain momentum to complete the required activities. At the portfolio level, it is incumbent to ensure that only those projects and programs that continue to support the organization‧s strategic goals and objectives are pursued, and pet projects or ones that do not meet the criteria in the portfolio system are not considered or continued.

It is easy at this stage for the team members to revert back to the storming stage, so the manager must foster an environment conducive to success and harmony for the team and continually engage stakeholders in a proactive fashion. The team must not be resource constrained and must remain motivated.

The people skills a manager must have during the norming stage include:

• The ability to operate as a facilitator, one of the four roles of a leader (discussed in Chapter 1), which involves pursuing needed resources and negotiating for these resources (discussed in Chapter 5)

• The ability to use a variety of motivational approaches, based on team members’ styles and the unique characteristics of the project or program (discussed in Chapter 3)

• Determining how best to involve each stakeholder on the project and how best to manage each stakeholder‧s expectations (discussed in Chapter 5).

Performing Stage

While many groups do not reach this stage because of team turnover or because of the short duration of many projects, those that do still need the project or program manager‧s active involvement. This stage is extremely important at the portfolio level because the portfolio management process is ongoing throughout the life of the organization.

In the performing stage, the team‧s identity is established, and it is empowered. Team members trust one another, and work proceeds in a fashion. When conflicts occur, or when changes affect the project or program, they are handled through a defined process. The key people skill in this stage is decision-making, discussed in detail in Chapter 6.

If the team is not operating at the expected level of efficiency during this stage, people issues affecting the team may be to blame. At the portfolio level, for example, there may be a new person in a key role on the portfolio review board or, at the program level, on the governance board. Or the team may have lost a key technical resource, which is affecting its morale. A “people issues” audit may be appropriate. Such an audit also can be helpful even if the team is performing at its peak level to document best practices to follow and replicate on future teams.

Further, a people issues audit can help ensure that team members are working on activities that best support their own competencies, skills, and abilities. It can also be used to determine whether tasks are sequenced effectively, so that if a particular team member‧s skills are needed to support several of the projects within a program, this individual will not be overloaded and can perform at peak efficiency. Finally, it can be used to evaluate the team‧s work—whether it is contributing to the project or program and to the work of the performing organization, the customer, or both. The results of this audit, then, are used to promote overall team building, which is discussed in Chapter 2.

Adjourning Stage

In the adjourning or closing stage of a project or program, team members, especially if the project or program has been underway for some time, may not wish to leave their current assignment. They may enjoy the team‧s camaraderie. Some people may not have another assignment in the organization and may need to look elsewhere for work; others may wish to move on quickly to the next assignment. This stage affects people differently, and team members’ reactions, positive or negative, may be directed toward the project or program manager.

During this stage, the project or program manager should remember that:

• Team members may display a variety of emotions, ranging from anger if they do not have another project or program to look forward to, to dismay if they believe they are missing out on an opportunity because they need to stay with the project or program to complete all of the closure tasks.

• Team members’ feelings may not be logical and may have little to do with the work the team has done.

Project or program team members who have a positive attitude about the next opportunity may be candidates for a project management career path. These people might benefit from mentorship, in which the program or project manager, the team member, and his or her functional manager work together to determine the team member‧s next assignment and guide his or her advancement in the organization. (Mentoring is discussed in detail in Chapter 1.)

Given the importance of proactive stakeholder engagement, the project or program manager must ensure that stakeholders are satisfied with the end result. Whoever is assigned to work with each stakeholder should meet with him or her to determine whether he or she is satisfied with the project deliverable or result or the benefits of the program.

Project and program managers also must ensure that all of the closing activities are completed successfully. Someone who is skilled in and enjoys closing activities may stand in for the manager, though the manager should assist this person. He or she makes sure that the administrative and contract closure processes are followed. For a program, a process must be in place for benefit sustainment.

Therefore, to maximize performance during the adjourning/closing stage, the project or program manager must:

• Craft tailored motivational strategies that address the needs of each team member, stakeholders, and, in a program setting, those who will be responsible for benefit sustainment (discussed in Chapter 3)

• Offer suggestions as appropriate to help team members deal with stress to help keep team performance at an optimal level (discussed in Chapter 7).

The program or project manager must have various interpersonal skills to address the people issues that arise during each of the stages of a typical program or project. While the successful program or project manager uses almost all of these people skills during each stage, this book highlights the most important skills needed during each stage.

Figure I-1 The Project-Based Organization

The Project-Based Organization

In many organizations, programs and projects are now seen as organizational assets. In the public and private sectors, leading organizations recognize that programs and projects are critical to growth and organizational sustainment. In fact, without programs and projects, some private-sector companies could not continue to ensure their competitive position in the marketplace. (See Figure I-1.)

This movement toward the project-based organization means that:

• Communications can no longer be conducted in a hierarchical way, based on organizational silos. Instead, communications cross organizational lines.

• People are assigned to programs and projects based on what they can contribute rather than where they are located in the organization.

• Often, assignments are short-term. Team members must build trust as rapidly as possible; there is not enough time to develop the working relationships of the past.

• Motivation may be more team oriented than individual oriented.

In project-based organizations, there has been a definite shift in management style at all organizational levels. There is a growing emphasis on consensus and participation, calling for the project manager to serve not solely as a manager but also as a facilitator, team member, team player, and mentor. The manager‧s ability to demonstrate effective people skills in a variety of circumstances has become paramount.

This trend toward management-by-projects is further evidenced by the growing membership of the Project Management Institute. When Management Concepts People Skills for Project Managers book was published in 2001, PMI had approximately 77,000 members. At press time, PMI had more than 300,000 members in more than 275 countries. The number of certified Project Management Professionals (PMPs) has increased dramatically and a new credential the Program Management Professionals (PgMPs) is growing in the recognition of its importance by people in the profession. Such a trend is expected to continue, which is due in part to the completion of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) initiative in project management, along with the cooperative agreement signed in 2008 between PMI and the International Project Management Association (IPMA). These developments show that project management is a recognized profession across the globe, as management-by-projects continues to increase worldwide, and that project management is recognized as a desired career path for many professionals.

The Importance of Project and Program Stakeholders

Programs and projects always have been customer-driven because they are performed for stakeholders—customers and end users, who may be internal or external to the organization. And, increasingly, customers are playing a far more active role in programs and projects. Their support cannot be taken for granted. Proactive stakeholder management is essential for overall program success in terms of deliverables and benefits. It is a continual process starting at project initiation (in the project management life cycle) or the pre-program preparations phase (in the program management life cycle).

Program and project managers must have strong people skills to understand customers’ requirements, manage relationships with customers, and ensure customer retention. Often, they are measured by their success in these areas. But maintaining customer relationships can be challenging because managers often have to communicate with so many stakeholders. It is easy in such a fast-paced environment to become overloaded with nonessential information, miss critical metrics and indicators of program or project success, or overlook the requirements of critical stakeholders.

In its discussion of project manager-stakeholder relationships, the PMBOK^(r) Guide (PMI 2008a) emphasizes the need to proactively manage stakeholder expectations by continually working with stakeholders and using effective communications skills and consistent messages to clarify and resolve issues of concern.

At the program level, the priority in stakeholder management is ensuring that stakeholders will actively support and accept program objectives and benefits as they accrue throughout the program‧s life cycle. Interpersonal skills facilitate the identification and recognition of stakeholders (PMI 2008c).

At the portfolio management level, portfolio managers must use interpersonal skills at a variety of levels, working with senior executives as well as other internal and external stakeholders to maximize the performance of programs, projects, and the overall portfolio (PMI 2008b). This requires the portfolio manager to interact effectively with an even greater number of internal and external stakeholders. Portfolio managers can prepare a communications management plan as part of their stakeholder management strategy to show the requirements of each stakeholder group and to rank the importance of each stakeholder group in gaining overall approval of the portfolio management process.

Program and Project Complexity

Interpersonal skills are even more important as programs and projects become increasingly complex. The norm today in program and project work is to work faster with fewer resources, turning out products, services, and results with multiple applications and uses. It has become harder and harder for project managers to produce the promised deliverables and for program managers to ensure program benefits are attained. From a people perspective, complexity often results in a loss of team morale, presenting motivational challenges for the program and project manager. At the portfolio level, there is more pressure to ensure the “right” programs and projects are pursued—ones that will best enable the organization to meet its strategic objectives.

This complexity also is evident in the continuous advancement of technology. Given the length of some projects, and especially at the program level, it is not uncommon for the technologies used on programs and projects to change during their life cycles. The program or project manager may be struggling to maintain an adequate understanding of the current technology while facing pressure to implement newer technology (and still responding to the human factors of the team) in an atmosphere of intense competition from other organizations.

Technology and the use of virtual teams on programs and projects have enabled global teams to employ a 24-hour workday. Constant communication between managers, team members, and stakeholders is expected, and programs and projects must be completed faster than in the past, which often leads to team burnout as well as increased stress for program and project managers.

Program and project managers must be comfortable with approaches such as fast tracking, concurrent engineering, and agile methods to enable a faster time to market while still emphasizing quality products, services, and results. Program managers must focus on the interdependencies between projects in the program and must be prepared to deploy staff from one project to another, when necessary. And portfolio managers must recognize the interdependences between all of the current programs and projects, especially from a resource-allocation perspective.

Continual Downsizing, Outsourcing, and Offshoring

Not long ago, downsizing, outsourcing, and offshoring were the exception rather than the norm and occurred only in times of economic slowdown. People joined an organization and expected to remain with it for their careers. It was rare to change jobs and even rarer to move outside one‧s initial selected field.

Downsizing, outsourcing, and offshoring now are a way of life. While competency in one‧s chosen field has always been important, it is necessary today for program and project professionals to continue to enhance their skills and competencies so that they remain essential to their current organization and are in demand by other organizations. Movement of people both within the organization and to other organizations is common and expected.

Outsourcing and offshoring are often necessary for companies to remain competitive. The work done by the performing organization itself should be the work it is most suited for, and suppliers and valued partners should do any work outside the organization‧s typical lines of business. Offshoring can enable the 24-hour day to become a reality, and it allows companies to take advantage of lower currency exchange rates to reduce overall program and project costs.

When companies outsource, program and project managers must be able to rapidly establish teams of people who may never meet face-to-face and who represent different cultures. They must be able to merge diverse perspectives to develop common solutions and make effective decisions when there is not enough time to gain consensus among all the parties involved. Program and project managers also face interpersonal issues such as:

• Finding ways to motivate the surviving employees, who may be wondering whether they will be part of the next wave of layoffs within the organization

• Motivating these employees, who feel overburdened and must “do more with less”

• Motivating outsourcing and offshoring partners to become part of the team and to work under the team‧s operating procedures and charters.

Leading in a Matrix Structure

Some form of matrix management is used in most organizations, ranging from the weak matrix to the strong matrix and various approaches in between. The matrix organization has emerged as the organizational structure for programs and projects. In a matrix organization, the project manager and the functional manager share responsibility for resource allocation and reporting, and project team members thus tend to have two bosses in most cases.

Although matrix management has become a given, the roles and responsibilities of functional managers, project managers, and team members are still uncertain. In fact, this uncertainty has increased, since each organization tends to use a variety of organizational structures based on the nature and complexity of its programs and projects.

The matrix structure often tends to discourage team members from committing to a program or project, especially if they are also doing ongoing work within their functional organization. Team members recognize that program and project work is temporary, while the ongoing work remains. They may never work again for the program or project manager or with their teammates as a collective unit on future programs or projects. Also, it is rare to work on only one program or project, so team members have several managers to whom they must report. This further diffuses their commitment to a single manager. The portfolio manager must recognize when allocating resources that some individuals may resist assignments to certain programs or projects if they prefer to remain within their functional units.

Kerzner (2009) highlights the motivational issues facing the project manager:

• Project managers have little real authority; functional managers have considerable authority.

• Project managers may not have input into team members’ performance evaluations; functional managers are responsible for employee evaluations.

Milosevic, Martinelli, and Waddell (2007) note there are additional challenges at the program level because program managers often do not have resources reporting directly to them, which means program managers must use strong leadership skills that focus on building relationships to influence, focus, and motivate the team.

The portfolio manager may have a small staff who are direct reports but, as noted by PMI (PMI 2008b), portfolio managers must be adept in managing people and may need to use mentoring, coaching, motivating, and training skills to develop employees. They also must focus on recruitment and retention, goal setting, performance evaluation, reward and recognition, and succession planning.

Virtual Teams and a Distributed Workplace

The growing popularity of virtual organizations is a response to the unprecedented growth in program and project management, customer and other stakeholder expectations, global competition, complexity, rapid change, and time-to-market compression. At the same time, the growth of virtual teams has led to the increase in organizations practicing management-by-projects.

Customers, suppliers, and employees no longer need to reside in the same location or the same city and can be located anywhere in the world. While the virtual organization does present a number of challenges, the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages. Virtual work enables an organization to quickly deploy its resources to form teams capable of responding to emerging program or project work or to a change in the strategic direction of the organization‧s portfolio.

However, while there are commonalities between work in co-located environments and work in virtual environments, on virtual teams people-oriented issues take on greater importance and need faster resolution, which often is difficult given that people may be located all over the globe. The program and project manager must set the stage for success and facilitate effective communication, recognizing that most communication will be asynchronous and that communications must be especially succinct and explicit so they are not easily misconstrued.

As noted by Rad and Levin (2003), because the virtual team may span multiple cultural and language boundaries, team procedures must ensure that diversity among team members is an asset and not a liability by making sure team members are aware of each other‧s cultural backgrounds. Additionally, if programs and projects follow a 24-hour workday, managers must ensure that team members pay strict attention to documentation and configuration management as a matter of course. For example, if a team member located in Asia completes a portion of the deliverable and then passes it to someone in North America to continue working, the team member in Asia must refrain from further work on the deliverable until it again is his or her turn.

For overall success in virtual teams, and in a management-by-projects environment, there really is insufficient time to build trust in the normal way because team members must quickly form as a team and assume others have a comparable commitment to the project‧s vision, mission, and values. Also, on most virtual teams, the conditions required to develop trust simply do not exist; physical proximity, daily informal and unplanned interactions, and face-to-face meetings are lacking.

Program and project managers must ensure that virtual team members have the same level of commitment to the virtual program or project as they would if the team were co-located. This necessitates communicating effectively to motivate each team member to participate actively and not develop an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality, and it necessitates an issue resolution process because the manager obviously cannot use a “management-by-walking-around” approach.

The virtual program and project manager must:

• Lead by influence, rather than through control or supervision

• Encourage team members to collaborate on work

• Reduce the stress that often exists on a virtual team and help create an environment in which membership on a virtual team is as valued as membership on a co-located team by emphasizing the importance of the program or project to the organization‧s overall strategic goals and by emphasizing the program or project‧s vision or mission

• Help build trust and a team identity

• Ensure that team members feel free to discuss ideas.

Continual Organizational Change and People Skills

Because of global competition and technological obsolescence, as well as the natural tendency for stakeholders to change their ideas about priorities, leaders in organizations must continually make changes, and members of the organization must embrace change. Change is to be expected in today‧s environment; it will happen, though its timing is uncertain.

While incremental changes to a strategic plan in an organization may not require changes in the portfolio, significant changes certainly will have a definite impact. Portfolio, program, and project managers are expected to be change agents. Portfolio managers must rebalance the portfolio based on changes that are made, and at the program or project level, changes may lead to reallocation of resources, a change in priorities, and even, in some situations, to program and project termination.

Most people resist change. This resistance causes tension, lower morale, higher anxiety, more stress, and reduced productivity. Change, coupled with the temporary uncertainty of program and project work, may lead to employee dissatisfaction; in some cases, valued staff members may decide to leave the organization. They may feel that their own well-being is not being considered amid constant and continual organizational change.

Further, when an organizational culture is made more project-oriented—even if the change is limited to establishing a program or project management office (PMO) or a portfolio management system—even the most senior managers may resist. (Sometimes, even Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) who promote management by projects put up resistance to actually making the necessary changes.) Structural changes shape a new organizational environment, and senior leaders may view the program and project models as a threat to the power they have accumulated over the years within the functional organization.

Because the personal consequences of resisting change, such as stress and decreased motivation, are detrimental, portfolio, program, and project managers must work to develop motivational strategies to help team members and other stakeholders cope with change and the resulting stress in a positive manner. As change agents, managers must:

• Articulate the vision of the program or project to internal and external stakeholders at different levels

• Be assertive and persistent in pursuing the organizational transformation

• Develop and use good listening skills

• Mentor team members as the change is implemented.

People Skills and Risk Management

Portfolios, programs, and projects all encounter risks of some type. The sheer size of many programs and projects places increased emphasis on managing risks and also on thinking of risks not only as potential problems but also as possible opportunities for the organization to pursue. While risk management usually focuses on the deliverables of the project or the benefits of the program, it also must focus on the people component; after all, programs and projects are performed by people.

To be effective as a portfolio manager, one must understand “how to manage risks and opportunities” (PMI 2008b, p. 16). These include fiscal and budgetary constraints, resource constraints, stakeholder dynamics and risk tolerances, and constraints affecting programs, projects, and nonproject work. PMI (2008b) further explains that assessing risks and reporting the risk level of the portfolio is critical in making decisions about whether to include a program or project in a portfolio, keep it in the portfolio, and determine how a risk to one component will affect others in the portfolio or those planned for future inclusion. Portfolio risk monitoring and control is paramount to organizational success.

Risks are identified and quantified, responses are prepared, and then the risks are monitored and controlled primarily because of their impact on project deliverables or program benefits. These risks typically involve the technical aspects of the program or project. Risks that could affect the people who are working on projects are often overlooked, but they are also important. For example, a key subject matter expert may decide to leave the organization or may have an accident or serious illness. What would the team do if this person were unable to contribute as planned?

Frame (2002) suggests that if one compiled a list of risks for a project, the list of possible human risks would be the longest. He also believes it is difficult to determine appropriate risk management responses for these risks in advance, creating the need for spontaneous, people skills-based solutions, rather than implementing predefined contingency plans.

The effective program or project manager must have strong interpersonal skills to manage the people risks in the organization and, if possible, turn these risks into potential opportunities. Managers must have the skills to effectively handle:

• Grievances, harassment complaints, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints

• Politics within the organization

• Union activity

• Violence in the workplace

• Loss of key staff members and other retention issues

• Time lost to injuries.

People Skills and Business Development

Previously, most organizations relied solely upon their strategic planning, sales staff, and marketing staff to determine the programs and projects to pursue.Program and project managers were not part of this process, and if they were included, it was an afterthought, or they were, for example, asked to craft a potential technical solution to a customer‧s request to help secure a business opportunity. Managers were rarely involved until after a program or project was initiated.

Now, most programs and projects have multiple customers to satisfy, and customers cannot be taken for granted. There is no guarantee that even long-term customer relationships will continue in the future. Competition may dictate that the customer, no matter how satisfied it is with the program or project team, look elsewhere.

This means that everyone involved must be committed to business development, supporting adaptability, innovation, and customer-oriented solutions as strategic values of the organization. Effective and proactive communication with customers is needed at all levels, and program and project managers must be involved in solution development to foster customer collaboration, ensure that solutions yield customer value, and maintain customer interaction as long as possible to make sure customers are deriving value from the deliverables. At all levels, best practices and plans should be developed collaboratively with customers for innovative solutions.

Competencies in business development must now be part of a program or project manager‧s skill set and career development plan. Program and project managers must:

• Conduct numerous targeted customer meetings to nurture customer relationships over the long term

• Instill confidence in customers about the organization

• Understand the customer‧s business plan in order to relate program benefits and project deliverables to the plan

• Regularly obtain customer feedback to adjust benefits and deliverables as needed

• Lead the implementation of customer-focused, collaborative approaches and strategies—before the customer asks other organizations to provide these solutions.

People Skills and Knowledge Management

Knowledge is a strategic asset for organizations. Knowledge management (KM), previously called information resource management, can enhance productivity and increase profitability if knowledge assets are used effectively. But while everyone possesses some key knowledge assets, people tend not to share their knowledge with others even though they realize that sharing could serve the organization and lead to exemplary performance. Too often, people hoard knowledge or think of it as a private power, rather than leveraging the power of knowledge as an integral part of portfolio, program, and project management. The problem, then, is that most knowledge assets are not articulated.

KM should be part of people‧s daily work, but this can happen only in an organizational culture in which knowledge assets are regularly shared. Information must be easy and quick to access, and people must be able to use it to improve program and project effectiveness and efficiency. In such a culture, people assess a knowledge asset and consider how it might benefit others in the organization. The emphasis is on sharing and connecting people to people and people to knowledge.

Portfolios, programs, and projects are an excellent source of vital historical data that can be used for future programs and projects, which often must be completed in as short a time as is feasible with limited budgets and resources. Also, KM can facilitate rich communication and collaboration in virtual teams, on which project team members may never meet face to face, or co-located teams, even if team members do not know each other well.

Reich (2007) says that on teams in which members have a variety of specialties, “the project manager‧s primary task is to manage the knowledge bases of the team members and stakeholders so that they combine in the best possible way to successfully accomplish their assignment” (p. 6). (Team members, for their part, must learn how to transfer knowledge to others.) The effective portfolio, program, and project manager must be able to facilitate knowledge sharing and management, not only for the individual program or project but throughout the organization. These include:

• Leading knowledge asset creation and sharing by example, so that it becomes a routine way of working throughout the program and project life cycles

• Fostering an environment that emphasizes knowledge sharing, not knowledge hoarding

• Recognizing not only team members who developed breakthrough innovations that contributed to program or project success, but also those who worked with the technical team member to document what was done in an easily accessible format for future reference

• Emphasizing the importance of sharing knowledge to career advancement; i.e., sharing knowledge so others can pursue interesting and innovative tasks.