The Accidental Project Manager

When you decided to pursue your chosen career, the picture of the role you anticipated probably centered on the primary tasks of the job title. If you imagined yourself as a civil engineer, you likely pictured yourself using CAD software to design bridges and tunnels. If you imagined being a lawyer, you thought of yourself arguing in a courtroom. If you imagined being an astronaut, you pictured yourself floating during a spacewalk.

Most likely, never at any point did you think your time would just as often be spent making sure you even got a chance to apply the skills you acquired for your chosen field-that you would spend hours planning projects, gathering resources, engaging teams, monitoring and assuring progress and reporting on results. You never set out specifically to take on the role as a point person who must simultaneously be aware of progress on dozens of fronts, while executing on the actual tasks of your business.

And just as likely, to this day, if someone asked you if you are a project manager, you’d look to your job title and respond, “No, why, I’m a construction business owner,” or you’d even ask, “What’s a project manager, anyway?”

But guess what? Whether you’re a contractor, procurement manager, a CEO, a lawyer or even an astronaut, in actuality, you’re probably a project manager and you don’t even know it. You never meant to become one, but alas, you’re an “Accidental Project Manager.”

You don’t have to manage a space shuttle launch to be tagged with this title. In fact, you’re probably an accidental project manager if:
 

•     You don’t organize the team or the process, no one does
•     You find yourself managing multiple “to-do” lists
•     Every week has three or more deadlines to keep in mind
•     You faithfully cross-off tasks on a clipboard as they are accomplished
•     The sticky notes on your desk or dashboard are stacking up to your nose
•     You’ve missed a deadline because of others not completing their tasks on time
•     You’ve been given the excuse of “You didn’t tell us about that” when you know you did
•     You find yourself getting confused as to which task relates to which project

Now that you’ve been mildly disturbed by the self-diagnosis of what may sound like a horribly tedious disease termed “project management,” you can be comforted by the fact that there are thousands of people going through the same experience and a range of treatment options out there. Relief can be yours if you are willing to confront the challenge head on. Say it with me-I am (your name here) and I am an accidental project manager.

In all seriousness, the fact that there is an entire field of professionals and several organizations (i.e., Project Management International, etc.) dedicated expressly to project management provides the everyday, accidental project manager with a treasure trove of best practices, as well as a strong host of tools aimed at simplifying the pathway to success for any initiative. Even if you only manage an occasional, short-term initiative, by taking your cues from the pros, you can anticipate obstacles and reap the benefits that come from formalizing your approach to project management. The bottom-line-you can make it so that your projects get completed on-time and under budget if you take the right approach, and in the end, this means more profit for your business.

What Accidental Project Managers Face

Most people’s first obstacle in achieving project success is finding a way to get everyone on the same page. Within an organization, roles are often highly distributed-that is, multiple people may have a small part in assuring a particular task is completed. For most construction businesses, multiple people play a small part in assuring a particular task is completed. Equally often, a bottleneck in completing one task may hold up dozens of others working on the same project.

For a construction manager, a rain delay might cause a delay in pouring a foundation, which can trigger delays in completing subsequent tasks that require the foundation to be in place.

The need to be on the same page can also be quite evident internally, when working across departmental lines-such as when the marketing team needs assistance from the technicians to implement a new web initiative, or the manufacturing design team needs quick turnaround from the modeling production department. Forget for a moment about assuring timely completion of tasks-without the right mechanisms in place, it can be a struggle to even collect status updates from point contacts in other departments. For a project manager, even an accidental one, this can mean things grind to a halt quickly.

Those potential obstacles are functions of the mechanics and ability of the organization on a whole to adapt to dynamic factors, but equally challenging are those obstacles that are presented by the personalities within organizations.

Turf wars can ensue when project team members, as a result of their enthusiasm and passion for their phase of the project, cause friction by arguing among the different sub-teams about priorities. Sometimes department heads compete for ownership of the overall initiative. Sometimes one department’s team isn’t as convinced of the urgency and importance of the initiative compared with other initiatives on its plate.

Another factor can be information hoarders-those who don’t share intelligence quickly or effectively. Sometimes, an individual’s working style is such that he or she prefers not to share news on progress, as part of an effort to control the process or perception of performance. Sometimes there’s a belief that those in other departments will not understand details specific to another’s role in the project. Other times, priorities shifted by leaders aren’t communicated swiftly to those managing the day-to-day of the business. Regardless, instilling a culture where information is shared, not protected, is vital to project success.
Still another obstacle is the resistance to adopting new processes. Often, this starts with the executive team, the group most likely to be set in their ways regarding planning. Sometimes, the idea of a structured, strategic approach to project planning sounds like a lot of hard work. Team members can get nervous about accountability, don’t want to switch from old-school paper methods or are of the mind, “We’ve always done it this way.” The accidental project manager must convince these individuals that the time it will take to create and develop new methods and processes will be dwarfed by that saved as a result of the efficiencies those new processes will bring.
 

Benefits of Formalizing Project Management

Why formalize your approach to project management? Think P to the 5th power:  Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance. For most projects, the No. 1 measure of performance is project speed. And project speed leads to greater profit.

Sometimes it can mean greater revenue. First of all, well-organized, clearly depicted work schedules give you the chance to manage a project by helping you win it! At project scoping and bid stages, contractors that present a calendar or other visual tool that explicitly lays out the project schedule instill a greater sense of confidence in those considering who to hire.

You can also make more money because faster completion of one portion of a project can often mean a contract bonus for the contractors involved. And projects finished on time more often lead to repeat work and more referrals.

Even if there are no direct monetary incentives for project speed, if deadlines and objectives are created through a collaborative process from the outset and good communication on status remains in place, fewer project revisions are necessary.  As a result, the project managers, as well as staff and contractors are spending less time in “project update” meetings, freeing up their time to work on the actual task at hand.

Another primary benefit of formalized project management is that it instills greater accountability of each individual participating in an initiative. Team members realize their position within the workflow of a project and get a sense for how their performance impacts other tasks, deadlines and ultimately, individuals. And formalization usually leads to more frequent status updates, spurring a more take-charge approach by each stakeholder who realizes that he or she is more accountable due to project transparency. Many times, team members also feel more comfortable knowing precisely what is expected of them, and the process of entering information into a more structured system clarifies their responsibilities and reinforces the belief that their success will be visible.

Measurability is another key advantage of formalized project management.  Not only can team members track their progress against stated goals, but they can also improve ongoing estimations of project life cycles. Some common metrics include:

1.     The project is delivered on the original delivery date of the scheduled project
2.     Project cost is under the original budget
3.     Fewer instances of overruns compared with planned allocations for any particular resource (i.e., the plumber doesn’t have to come out twice to do the same thing)
4.     Number of sub-projects running simultaneously

A final benefit of adding structure to the way you manage projects is that it helps your organization develop a formalized and dynamically evolving business process. After developing an initial template, projects get off to a start more quickly, as project-specific obstacles can be anticipated more effectively.   Capacities are better understood, helping your company avoid biting off more than it can chew at any particular time. Deliverables become more clearly defined with each iteration of the project plan, which is continuously refined based on each of the organization’s experiences.

Formalized projects can also set the tone for increased organizational collaboration in an ongoing way, beyond the scope of any one project. Teams gain a better understanding of each department’s tasks and responsibilities within not only single project, but for the organization’s overarching operations as well. Overall, this form of collaboration prevents teams from getting “tunnel vision” and delivers a sense of the big picture.

Five Must-Have Best Practices

1.     Before beginning a project, engage all the stakeholders necessary to develop and agree upon organizational structure and workflow
2.     Create a visual map of production processes to increase efficiency and improve strategic decision-making
3.     Provide clear objectives and an overall benchmark for project success
4.     Create a single visualization of all project details, tasks and their interdependence that includes a mechanism for tracking status in as close to real-time as possible
5.     Hold regular, formalized status reviews

Leveraging Technology

Today, the No. 1 arrow that an accidental project manager can put in his or her quiver to achieve these best practices is good technology. Long gone are the days when the only option was pencil and paper, and quickly fading are the days where coordinating dozens of home-brewed spreadsheets are the best option. Project-focused software enables organizations to create and adopt a new process that will increase overall productivity, improve response time when changes are required and provide immediate information on the impact of changes.

Keep in mind, it’s not just the tools designed for the folks who launch the space shuttle that can bring this value-even popular tools like Microsoft Project are overkill for the average accidental project manager. Instead of trying to train yourself and your entire staff on a complicated software tool with many confusing features your organization is unlikely to use, look for software that cuts to the quick, and has a simple, no nonsense interface. If it’s easy to use, your chances skyrocket that people working on your projects will adopt it, and your projects will reap the benefits described here.

In addition to seeking an easy-to-learn project management suite, choose one that can work well with your existing tools, which may include spreadsheets like Excel, calendar programs like Outlook or iCal, presentation programs like PowerPoint and Keynote or accounting packages like QuickBooks and Microsoft Dynamics. The best project management software can even interact with other software applications aimed at the same goals. Choosing a suite that can open and modify Microsoft Project files, for example, can go a long way in assuring that an accidental project manager can work seamlessly with other organizations that use more complex programs to manage projects hour-by-hour, day-by-day.

Finally, when possible, seek out software that can work across platforms. For example, often one contractor uses Macs while another uses PCs-a cross-platform software suite can help bridge this gap and enable Windows and Mac users to collaborate on projects and seamlessly share vital information.

Although most people don’t realize it, nearly everyone inhabits a project management role at some point in their daily professional or even personal lives. Regardless of setting, these accidental project managers deal with the same obstacles-from turf wars, to information hoarding, to resistance to change. By gleaning best practices from the “purposeful” project managers-those whose roles focus solely on managing projects, even the occasional project manager can bring new efficiencies to an organization that mean greater profit. And through mechanisms that promote accountability, thoughtfully planned workflow and collaboration, you can bring order to the chaos of information being thrown your way, reducing your own stress levels and giving you more time for the job you had envisioned when you first entered your field.

 
Construction Business Owner, November 2006