Abstract
A credibility foundation is built step by step during each person's professional career path. Credibility has a significant positive outcome on project and organizational performance. Not many organizations have a formal project management selection process in place. However, all companies want to have the best project managers ready for managing projects successfully—good leaders that others in the organization will follow.
Credibility is built through a set of little details achieved during the project. We learn from the results and refine our actions. That means credibility. Project management credibility has to do with reputation. Credibility is something that is earned over time. It does not come automatically with the job or the title. It begins early in our lives and careers. As each step is achieved, the foundation of the future is gradually built.
This paper explains a real case of building the project manager's credibility in a non project-oriented organization—how the project managers of that organization, with the help of a project management consultant, were able to achieve better and highly trusted relationships. The project managers in this organization learned how to discover and communicate the shared values that form a common ground on which all can stand.
Background
This case study is the story of “Grupo Eroski” and arose from the need of the company to improve project management in its organization. They had eight formal project managers in an organization of about 150 employees. They manage big internal IT infrastructure projects. They were conscious that projects were delayed, they had many unexpected changes during the project life cycle, and they found a lack of sponsorship. Then they detected the need to improve project management in the organization. They outsourced a consulting company to start up that improvement.
The project management consultant acted as a guide for the project managers and executives of the organization, helping them to understand how to create the right environment for successful projects and building the project manager's credibility. At the beginning we ran an assessment to find out the organizational maturity level in project management, and also ran a projects review. The findings were very meaningful for the executives in order to understand where they were in terms of project maturity, but also they were able to understand that many things that had very big business impact might be improved.
Twelve people answered the survey. We included in that survey professionals with different roles: project managers, functional managers, and the IT Director of the organization. After running that survey, an action plan was developed, and it has been implemented during the last two years. Now the functions of the project manager are better understood and recognized by everyone in the organization. Project managers are more and more credible in the eyes of customers, executives, and team members in the organization. They have been able to create a better environment for project success, and they learned how that effort affects the entire organization.
The Assessment
To evaluate the maturity of the organization, we used a tool (Environmental Assessment Survey Instrument) which is very effective and focuses on the ten areas of Creating an Environment for Successful Projects. The assessment deals with how to change to project based organizations, the strategic emphasis for projects, understand upper management influence, develop a core team process, organize for project management, develop a project management information system, develop plan for project manager selection and development, develop a learning organization, develop a project management initiative, and develop project management in your organization. The questionnaire has ten questions for each area and took no more than thirty minutes to complete.
Before running this survey, I (Bucero) asked the participants to be honest and speak the truth, explaining to them that nobody would be punished because of that. This approach worked very well and also helped them to reflect about the real situation within their projects. I sat down with the selected people, and they filled in the questionnaire. Afterwards we spent some time talking with the project managers about the projects they managed and their perceptions and feelings.
All people interviewed showed a positive attitude in answering the survey questions. The questions were scored from 1 to 7, and the results are shown in Exhibit 1. The different answers and point of views from senior and junior project managers turned out to be very interesting. Some executives interviewed also had different perceptions about the same questions.
Exhibit 1. Survey Results
Results and Recommendations
The scoring from all people interviewed in all areas never was higher than 4.5. It showed the project management culture was low in the organization. In any case all people interviewed showed a positive attitude facing the change.
The change to project based organizations: I detected the project manager position was not formally recognized in the organization as a formal but as a temporal job. Project managers perceived projects were important for the organization, but they did not feel supported by the organization. There was also a lack of communication among project team members. One of the reasons for that was that many of them were working on many projects.
Strategic emphasis: The strategic emphasis was low. Most of the people interviewed said that project objectives were not linked to strategic objectives. There was no formal project manager selection process in place.
Management support: The general perception was that management did not give the necessary support to project teams, and did not recognize the efforts put into projects. People had the feeling they were working on too many projects. Most team members had a lack of commitment. Project priorities were not consistent, they did not have any project management methodology, and the project manager had not enough authority in the organization. Management was focused on results rather than control.
Project team support: Most team members did not work only on one project. Everybody felt they worked on too many projects. Team members thought that teamwork was not recognized by the organization. Because of that there was a lack of commitment.
Organizational support: Project priorities were not consistent for all departments in the organization. There was no common methodology. The organizational focus was on operations, not on projects. The project manager did not have enough authority in the organization. Sometimes, the organizational structure created obstacles for projects.
Project management information system: They did not have any PMIS. They had some tools that were used to control project resources and project cost.
Project management selection and development: There was no formal process to assign project managers to projects. There was no professional development plan for project managers. They did not have a defined project management career path.
Organizational learning: The general opinion is that the organization was not promoting creativity. Organizational decisions were not made based on previous documented experiences. They did not do project reviews.
Project office: They only had one person, partially assigned, who pushed project management into the organization. They had a project inventory and a common repository for project documentation.
Project management culture: Not all project stakeholders knew the project status. The project management discipline was not homogeneous across the entire organization. They did not run project reviews and project snapshots. The overall opinion among the people interviewed is that not everyone spoke the truth about project work.
Then I made some recommendations for each area. My purpose was to improve the culture in order to build the project manager's credibility. I made suggestions for each of the ten areas investigated, but the main issue was how to start. What would be first?
Although the common tendency in many organizations is to put the focus on the weak areas detected in the survey, we focused on the highest scores. We had eight project managers that did a few things well; we needed to believe in and give them the benefit of the doubt. We needed to demonstrate to the organization that there was room for improvement, and they already had potentially good professionals to manage their projects.
The Follow Up and Implementation
My recommendation was to start all areas in which the scoring was the highest. We identified: Project manager development, Executive development, and Project Management Information System. Then we prepared an implementation plan. Exhibit 2 is an example of some of the activities accvomplished. We started reviewing running projects and delivered some PM foundation training.
Exhibit 2. Schedule of Activities
We used colors to show the progress (Red: pending; Yellow: In progress; Green: Completed). We updated this matrix on a monthly basis. It was part of the credibility PM process. It was very helpful not only for showing progress but also to learn about failures and apply corrective actions.
The combination of basic PM training for managers, project managers and team members, and the mentoring process we put in place was a key for project success. I visited the customer three days per month, and one out of three I was available for everybody, answering questions, or solving problems. Every month, the evening of the second day I organized a seminar (two hours long). Those seminars were focused on soft skills (effective presentations, communications, teamwork, building relationships, and leadership). The content of those seminars were reinforced by PM Newsletters (two page documents explaining project management concepts and practices). In some of the seminar sessions I also invited team members and managers to attend. At the beginning it was difficult to interact among people. After two months I perceived people felt more and more comfortable, with the feeling that they were all in the same “boat.”
The Process
Many activities have been accomplished over the last two years, but the focus was on reinforcing the importance of the project manager role in the organization, because project managers are a key for project and organizational success. To strengthen project manager credibility in the organization, I recommended attention to:
Sharpness: Clarify your commitment, needs, interests, values, vision, and project objectives. I encourage project managers to ensure that their team members understand those same qualities. I trained them to ask questions of various project stakeholders.
Harmony: Communicate goals, direction and the principles that guide your actions. Harmony exists when team members widely share, support and endorse the intent of the commonly understood set of aims and aspirations.
Passion: I encourage project managers as people who feel strong about their values to act on them. Passion exists when principles are taken seriously, when they reflect deep feelings, standards and emotional bonds, and when they are the basis of critical organizational resource allocations.
Exploring yourself: Look into the mirror and ask yourself questions like: Who are you? What do you believe in? What do you stand for? Once clear on your own values, translate them into a set of guiding principles that you communicate to the team you want to lead.
Be sensitive: Leadership implies a relationship, and you will only be able to build that relationship on mutual understanding and respect. Team members believe in their leaders when they believe the leaders have their best interests at heart.
Confirming shared value: Confirm a core of shared values passionately and speak enthusiastically on behalf of the project.
Developing capacity: Project managers need to develop the capacity of their team members to keep their commitments. Assure that educational opportunities exist for individuals to build their knowledge and skill.
Serving a purpose: Leadership is a service provided to the team, on behalf of the organization.
Sustaining hope: Teams need a positive attitude in troubling times of transition. People with high hopes also are high achievers.
Project team members expect their leaders to have the courage of their convictions and to stand up for their beliefs. Realize that, day-by-day, the best way to build credibility on your project is “to walk the talk.”
Critical Success Factors
We believe there are a number of critical factors that helped to build project manager's credibility in Grupo Eroski:
- Ask questions of project stakeholders and do face to face meetings.
- Speak the truth to power. Say what you believe and act consistently with what you say. One example was the generation and distribution of a PM Newsletter.
- Speak the language management understand (results, tangible things, ROI). This practice ensures a higher probability of management support.
- Spend some time talking to team members and managers, share project mission and objectives, share difficulties and successes.
- Use your passion.
- Be positive and inspire good attitude in your people and upper managers.
Results and Lessons Learned
Building project manager's credibility takes a lot of time but is possible. It took almost two years to change the attitude of project managers, managers and team members at “Grupo Eroski,” but we got it. Upper managers perceive value when they see tangible results. Achieving small wins was the key to building project manager's credibility. At the beginning most project managers were very focused on planning activities for their projects, but did not take care of their team members. The result was demotivation. We changed it with persistence and patience.
Step by step, I invited team members to attend the project management seminars on a monthly basis. More and more, team members became conscious about the activities and obligations of the project manager. They understood much better the role of the project manager and saw the project manager as necessary for every project in their organization. The same process happened between project managers and managers. We started to run project reviews, and that process gave managers and project managers the opportunity to share project status, issues, problems and achievements. It was great. They learned together about their projects. They learned from successes and from failures.
We learned that building project manager's credibility is based on dealing with people attitudes, behaviors and patterns. If you create the right environment for successful projects, your project managers will have more formal authority, will have more management support, and more recognition. Everybody in the organization will see project managers as key for project success. Project managers need to develop soft skills to be credible.
Key soft skills for project managers to develop and put into practice are:
- Be passionate.
- Be persistent; building credibility is a long process but is not impossible.
- Talk to your managers frequently. Do not wait to be asked about your project.
- Say what you believe and act consistently on what you say. If you promise to do something, do it.
- Be honest.
- Team members believe in their leaders when they believe the leaders have their best interests at heart.
- Provide service to your people.