Dr. John Lancaster of Hill International has recently published a paper that seeks to remove the subjectivity from the assessment of which claims are worth pursuing (see 1 below). Lancaster proposes using a risk assessment approach to determine the likely range of outcomes and which claims contribute the most to the likely settlement. He suggests using the following factors:

• Entitlement confidence:
  • The strength of the contractual argument for entitlement; and
  • Contractually compliant notices.
• Magnitude confidence:
  • The quality and quantity of supporting records;
  • The quality of the project schedules (and any necessary corrections and/or repairs), cost records, etc; and
  • The certainty with which the effect/s of each event is known.

Applying a percentage weighting to these factors and using Monte Carlo analysis the likely range of cost and time outcomes can be assessed and the key claims identified.

It is important that the right people complete this assessment: the entitlement confidence categories should be assessed by counsel and the magnitude confidence categories assessed by the domain experts with input from the project staff.

The results of this analysis will identify:

• The likely outcomes under the prevailing entitlement and magnitude confidence ratings;
• The probabilities of securing different outcomes; and
• Identifying the claims that are the most important to the overall claim and which ones require more work.

Based on this assessment and after factoring in the costs and consequences of making the claim, pragmatic decisions can be made on:

• whether or not to pursue a claim;
• where to set negotiation limits (see 2 below); and
• which of the claims, with more work on establishing entitlement and/or substantiation, could contribute the most to a robust claim.

In an ideal world effective stakeholder relationship management would remove the need for contractual claims. When they become necessary, Dr. Lancaster’s ideas will help remove much of the unnecessary ‘heat’ from the assessment process and provide a pragmatic baseline for managing any claim in a professional and business like way.

1. Lancaster, John, “The use of risk analysis techniques to evaluate potential delay claim outcomes,” Project Control Professional: The Journal of the Association of Cost Engineers, February 2010. The full article is available on request from johnlancaster@hillintl.com.
2. For more on dispute management and negotiating see: http://www.mosaicprojects.com.au/WhitePapers/WP1049_Dispute_Management.pdf

Details of the book are:
Project Relationship Management and the Stakeholder Circle [Paperback]
ISBN-13: 978-3838398167
Available from Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Project-Relationship-Management-Stakeholder-Circle/dp/3838398165/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282809735&sr=1-1

The research described in my thesis underpins the Stakeholder Circle methodology and tools which led to the publication of Stakeholder Relationship Management: A Maturity Model for Organisational Implementation and the SRMM maturity model available from Gower Publishing at http://www.gowerpub.com/isbn/9780566088643

Most business approaches to motivation are based on extrinsic motivators – if you achieve ‘A’ we will reward you with ‘B’ and if you are really good and make ‘2A’ we will give you ‘2B’. The theory used by business is based on the assumption the larger the reward the greater the motivation; provided basic principles such as fairness are applied and the reward is commensurate with the effort needed and expectations of the person being motivated. It is assume the increase in motivation will flow through to increased performance.

Management scientists way back to Henry Gantt had established that in the ‘carrot-and-stick’ approach to motivation, fear and the ‘stick’ had little effect, the ‘carrot’ and reward had measureable effect. However, these studies were applied to manual workers.

More recent work by researchers such as Hertzberg in his ‘Hygiene Theory’ (1959) and Maslow’s pyramid of need (1943) placed salary (wages/reward/income) relatively low down the list of motivators. As long as the ‘pay’ was what was expected it had little extra value; inadequate rewards could quickly de-motivate, but once adequate levels were reached ‘pay’ simply came off of the table. This is a basic part of our PMP courses, hardly new or exciting….

However, I have just watched a fascinating video on TED, by Dan Pink, on the surprising science of motivation: starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t: Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think.

A brief summary of the presentation is that traditional rewards do work for simple manual tasks. However, as soon as creative thinking is needed extrinsic rewards have the opposite effect by focusing effort in a narrow band and stopping the more creative thinking needed to solve the problem. The results are measurable negative performance, increasing as the reward increases.

According to Pink, the motivators that do work are intrinsic:

• Autonomy: control and self-direction over the work.
• Mastery: the ability to excel at the work by getting better and better at difficult tasks.
• Purpose: the work contributes value to the organisation and others (in the service of something larger).

These motivators are very similar to the ideas of Maslow and Hertzberg briefly discussed above, and McGregor (Theory X, Theory Y – 1960). What’s fascinating in Pink’s presentation is the fact most organisations reward their senior decision makers with huge pay bonuses to solve some of society’s most difficult problems (and wonder why they fail so often…).

To see the presentation, go to the TED website at: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_pink_on_motivation.html – whilst there it is well worth browsing, there are dozens of other fascinating presentations.

Sourced from: Breaking through the Project FOG. Author, James Norrie, Published, Jossey-Bass. See: http://www.projectgurus.org/project-fog.html

Identifying, developing and using the right processes is a key factor in organisational maturity. Research by Carnegie Mellon University and the Software Quality Institute shows that organisations who improve their process maturity gain:

• improved schedule and budget predictability
• improved cycle time
• increased productivity
• improved quality (as measured by defects)
• increased customer satisfaction
• improved employee morale
• increased return on investment
• decreased cost of quality.

And the best way for an organisation to improve its process maturity, is to use a process maturity model. Three models seem to dominate, these are:

• CMMI from Software Engineering Institute (SEI): Carnegie Mellon University. CMMI (and predecessors) has been used by organisations for many years, there is statistical proof of effectiveness and two approaches to maturity assessment (staged and continuous). CMMI is a systems engineering maturity model with project management as one aspect of systems delivery.
• OPM3 from PMI:  offers most comprehensive assessment and reporting, supported by software (OPM3 ProductSuite). OPM3 offers reports on a continuum of best practice by project, program and portfolio and by stages of improvement. OPM3 is a project, program and portfolio management model supported by hundreds of best practices. For more on OPM3 see: http://www.mosaicprojects.com.au/OPM3.html
• P3M3 from Office of Government Commerce UK (OGC): offers a staged approach that supports an organization’s journey through progressive maturity in all three domains. P3M3 is more aspirational in its approach, lacking some of the rigor and detail of the other two systems.

For a more in-depth discussion see: Modelling Your Maturity, P3M3, CMMI and/or OPM3

These basic processes closely align with my SRMM model for Stakeholder Relationship Management Maturity. For more on this see: http://www.stakeholdermapping.com/

Maturity modelling is an important step to attaining process maturity, the challeng is choosing the best model.

By using the same steps for every project the organisation undertakes risks and uncertainty are minimised and there is likely to be an overall saving of time and effort on projects.

Defining ‘your’ methodology

The key steps to follow are:

• Define what it is that you want from your methodology, the type of content it should contain and the way in which it will be used.
• Create a set of specific requirements. Some options include defining:
  • How much of the project lifecycle needs to be incorporated
  • How much detail should be included? What practical templates and examples are needed to help to complete the step quickly and easily?
  • Should it follow one of the worldwide project standards such as the PMBOK® Guide?
  • Can/should the system be easily customised suit all project types and sizes?
• Determine the best methodology to use:
  • Review the methodologies used currently by your organisation and compare them to your requirements to see if there is a good fit.
  • Review the commercially available methodologies to see if there is a good fit.
  • Select the option with the best fit to your requirements
• The best methodology is still only likely to have a 90% fit (or less), this is normal. Make sure you can customise the remaining elements to meet your requirements.
• Ensure adequate flexibility for the range of projects in your organisation.

Implementing the methodology

The key steps are:

• Create an Implementation Plan supported by a change management plan. Implementing a methodology is a significant organisational change.
• Run the implementation as a change management program, including customising the methodology for your environment. Stakeholder engagement is vital to the overall success of the initiative.
• Train the users and support staff in the methodology and ensure ongoing support.
• Ensure the methodology is followed.
• Start improving the methodology (for more on measuring and improving the organisations project management maturity see Mosaic’s OPM3 home page).

Improving the methodology

Processes are always capable of improvement. Observing the actual implementation of the methodology will define actions and outcomes within the following matrix.

Unauthorised, unproductive activities need to be stopped and authorised productive processes supported. The two zones for process improvement are refining or removing elements of the methodology that do not add value to the overall management of the project and incorporating unauthorised processes that are not in the methodology but that are being used add value.

The easiest and most important area for action is rectifying the unproductive processes already in the methodology. Care need to be taken to ensure the definition of ‘unproductive’ is understood. Most planning processes don’t produce anything and consume effort; superficially they can be classified as ‘unproductive’. In reality, effective planning contributes significantly to the efficient delivery of the project and its value to assist in the efficient execution of the work being planned is significant.

Excessively detailed planning though is usually counterproductive. Value judgements are needed to assess the point at which adding more detail or rigour becomes ‘planning overkill’ reducing the overall value of the process and conversely, how much detail can be safely removed from a planning processes to improve overall productivity before insufficient planning starts to cause problems.

Adapted from Firdman, H. E. (1991). Strategic information systems: Forging the business and technology alliance. McGraw-Hill, New York.

Adapted from Firdman, H. E. (1991). Strategic information systems: Forging the business and technology alliance. McGraw-Hill, New York.

Ensuring the methodology is seen as ‘productive’ is essential for it to be generally accepted and supported by your stakeholders.

Once the existing methodology is optimised and firmly in the ‘authorised and productive’ segment, the next area is to examine unauthorised processes that aid productivity and progressively incorporate these into your methodology. The ‘unauthorised and productive’ quadrant is where you find genuine innovation and opportunities for organisational gain.

Summary

No methodology works ‘out of the box’ they all need customisation and tailoring. However, the effort is worthwhile. OPM3 has demonstrated standardised processes that incorporate best practices can provide significant benefits to an organisation (see more on OPM3).

The challenge is balancing systemised processes with the need for adequate flexibility to deal with the circumstances of each unique project. An effective project management methodology needs core components, scalable components and optional components designed to meet the needs of your organisation.

Following the defeat of the Prussian armies by Napoleon at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt in 1806, the concept of ridged process-oriented command and control structures has been progressively replaced by the concept of ‘auftragstaktik’, or directive command. These ideas were originally championed by Major General Gerhard von Scharnhorst and were formalised by German Generalfeldmarschall Helmuth von Moltke who was the chief of staff of the Prussian Army for thirty years from 1857.

The core concept of auftragstaktik is ‘bounded initiative’. Provided people within the organisation hierarchy have proper training and the organisational culture is strong, the leader’s role is to clearly outline his/her intentions and rationale. Once this is understood, subordinate personnel can formulate their own plan of action for the tasks they are allocated and design appropriate responses to achieve the objectives based on their understanding of the actual situation, exploit opportunities and mitigate problems.

The investment necessary to achieve this capability is not simply a question of financial and material resources – time is critical both for the training of individuals and the development organisations. In von Moltke’s army, a junior Prussian commander exercising his initiative on the battlefield was most likely drawing upon a variety of resources at his disposal including:

1. his understanding of his commander’s explicitly stated directive that would have provided him with an appreciation of the situation, a specific task, and a description of the commander’s intentions;
2. his beliefs about his organisation, his role within that organisation, and the degrees of freedom available to him in the exercise of that role;
3. his expertise in the technical aspects of the military profession and
4. his understanding of his commander and his peers.

These latter aspects are captured in the notion of ‘implicit intent’, would provide him with the basis for his course of action and bound the solution space available to him.

A General may wish to defend a city, a Brigade Commander defend his designated sector and within the sector, a Platoon Commander may be tasked with establishing a road block which involves one of his NCOs establishing a strongpoint. The General does not need to instruct the NCO on how to site the strong point, camouflage it or man it. At each level, good leaders will think ‘two levels up’ and provide oversight ‘one level down’. The process is not random, Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) define how specific tasks should be accomplished and ‘bounded initiative’ allows the individual leader to optimise the SOP for the specific circumstances he or she encounters to best support the overall intent of the commander. Von Moltke emphasised that he wanted to ‘steer’ initiative in the right direction.

These concepts are closely aligned with the human resources approach to management, which developed in the 1950s and 60s and emphasise a symbiotic relationship between individuals and organisations where ‘democratic leadership is the most effective means of managing’ and ‘openness and participation are the most effective means of demonstrating democratic leadership’.

On very small projects, a project manager may be capable of directing and controlling the work of everyone in the team. However, as soon as the team or the technology grows beyond a relatively simple system direct ‘command and control’ becomes impossible and attempting to impose a ridged hierarchy based on formal instructions will lead to inefficiencies. Effective leaders need to establish clear guidelines and a system of protocols, chain of command, and standard operating procedures so that everyone in the project team knows what they to do and who is accountable. The overall action of the team is unified by the leader’s intent; within this space sub-teams and smaller work groups are allocated their individual missions and tasks within that higher intent. Once this framework is in place, properly trained team members can go straight into the performing stage of their activity.

This alternative to ‘command and control’ developed by the Prussian military in the 1860s allows a far more effective and efficient use of resources. Auftragstaktik is not an easy option, the team needs better leadership, better training and the willingness to engage in taking ‘bounded initiatives’ but overall it offers a much better way of achieving the project’s objectives.

Applying these concepts does not reduce the importance of the normal project management artefacts such as the schedule and cost plan; what changes is the way these artefacts are used. In a decentralised management structure, the Project Plan defines the guidelines and framework the team will work within rather than attempting to prescribe how they will work (for more on this see: Project Controls in the C21 – What works / What’s fiction).

The second element is a couple of radio features discussing the evolution of mankind in particular the key point some 100,000 years ago when our ancestors developed trade and probably saved themselves from extinction. Followed by the development of agriculture some 10,000 years ago followed by cities that allowed the time for arts and science to flourish.

Arguably, the shift from low density, low interactive populations of hunter gatherers to the relatively high density, high interactive communities of the late Stone Age and Early Bronze Age facilitated the emergence of early civilisations in the Middle East, Indus Valley and Central America some 3 to 4,000 years ago.

The third element is a book on ‘The Lunar Men’ a group of natural philosophers, scientists and business men that largely kick started the industrial revolution in the UK Midlands (Birmingham) in the 18th Century. This group were the last of the European ‘renascence’ which itself was based on the ability to communicate effectively assisted by the development of printing and inter European communication.

All of these leaps in knowledge were based on the ability to interact and communicate in a more effective way than was previously possible. The supporting elements are improvements in trade and commerce and the ability (in latter times) to overcome entrenched opposition to new ideas. A modern example of this phenomenon is Silicone Valley and the massive leap in the way the world interacts caused by the development of the Personal Computer.

Waves of innovation seem to be partially serendipity, you need the right people and the right ideas, but this is helped by the quality, density and flexibility of the communication network between them. Discussion, argument, collaboration and competition in an environment that allows multiple independent threads to develop concurrently seems to be the catalyst for literally changing the world. Based on this construct, my prediction is the next massive wave of innovation is likely to come out of China.

The one statistic that for me sums up where China is going is the 60 million qualified university graduates that enter the workforce each year. Many of China’s Universities are world class and the concept of an annual intake of new graduates entering the workforce that is three times the total population of Australia speaks volumes for the skills, innovative capability and sheer energy being generated in this vast economy.

The region I visited was the Yangtze River Delta. This region has always been a major industrial centre and the emergence of Shanghai as the economic capital of China has simply accelerated its development and expansion. Today, this part of China has double the foreign trade of the entire Indian economy and represents 25% of China’s GDP.

The China I saw actively encourages innovation and technical development, has effective communication and a very large talent pool. All that is needed is a little serendipity and who knows what may be developed. In the same way efficient steam engines created the industrial revolution (Watt and Boulton were both Lunar Men) and the PC created the knowledge revolution anything may be possible (and predicting the outcome in advance is nearly impossible).

There are alternatives – the internet allows everyone to communicate so location is no longer a central issue to collaboration; and the major limitation on the Renascence was the entrenched interests of the Church and secular authorities. However, overall I feel the next major wave of innovation cannot be far away what it looks like and where it starts are open questions but slashing access to quality education and limiting the desire to learn certainly won’t help the UK or Australia be in the forefront.

On a smaller scale, every organisation can help its people innovate by creating the right environment for ideas to emerge.

The Expo is simply enormous. The site covers a total area of 5.28 square kilometres spread along both sides of the Huangpu River in downtown Shanghai; it includes gardens, wet lands, paved walkways and 100s of new and renovated buildings.

In the two months since opening the Expo has hosted over 20 million visitors and expects over 75 million before closing in October. On busy days over half a million visitors are on the site. Everywhere you look on the site there are queues but the organisers keep things moving, the officials are polite and helpful and the crowd rubs along without friction, maybe even enjoying the experience. From a stakeholder management perspective, expectations are managed and information is readily available, particularly if you speak Mandarin – international visitors are not likely to exceed 5 million.

The China Pavilion dominates the site and is a wonderful experience. For locals to visit the pavilion, someone has to join the queue outside the gates at 6:00am to so when the gates open at 9:00am they can be near enough to the front of the next queue at the China Pavilion to receive some of the 50,000 tickets issued daily to allow them join another queue for 2 to 3 hours to get inside to see and experience the exhibits.

I was more fortunate, the hosts of the CIOB conference were able to arrange VIP access but I can understand why the Chinese pavilion is worth the wait. Its exhibits really are wonderful. There are over 200 countries and international organisations represented, ranging from Tuvalu to the USA; the World bank to the International Council of Museums, as well as numerous major corporations and most Chinese provinces. Almost every pavilion had its queue! In a long day I only managed to see a small section of the total experience but could start to appreciate the overarching purpose of this great festival.

My visit to the Expo was a once in a lifetime experience. If you can’t make the trip personally, you can be a virtual tourist on line at http://en.expo.cn/. Either way World Expo 2010 is well worth the visit.

Managers faced with difficult decisions can learn a lot from today’s events. My thoughts on several key issues are:

1. Ethical dilemmas are always difficult and need decisions. As Henry Kissinger said: “Competing pressures tempt one to believe that an issue deferred is a problem avoided, more often it is a crisis invented”. There is no right answer to a dilemma, every option has a downside. Leaders choose a way forward and live with the consequences.
   [See: Ethics and Leadership]
    
2. When you do decide on a course of action, don’t hide the issues that created the dilemma in the first place, explain your reasoning and acknowledge both the greater good and the consequential harm. When a Deputy takes over from her leader there are inevitable questions of loyalty and trust, honest reasoning lets observers understand the reasons for the decision.
    
3. Conversations and transformational negotiations lead to better outcomes than win-lose transactional negotiations but often you need to make the first concession to start down this path [see: Win-Win Negotiations]. The Government and the mining industry were locked in a head to head battle over a new tax. In the space of 5 hours the new Prime Minister had unilaterally cancelled government advertising over the issue and offered open negotiations. The mining industry had reciprocated and suspended their advertising campaign. The negotiations may or may not reach a consensus (no one like having their taxes increased) but both sides are likely to end up with a better outcome if the transformational negotiations work.
   [See: Negotiating and Mediating]
    
4. In a disagreement over principles, you only need to achieve your objective; you don’t need to destroy the other party. The former Prime Minister has been offered a position of his choosing in the new government. If accepted, this means his talents and knowledge are still available to the team. Reluctant allies are better than committed opponents.

It’s certainly been an interesting day watching a really effective communicator in action in action; I feel as though I have learned a lot.

The Honorary Secretary of the APM Contracts and Procurement SIG, Gerry Orman states ‘soft skills are merely a form of manipulation’; and suggests including them in the knowledge framework for the project management profession will result in the dumbing down of our emerging profession. He also asserts the role of the project manager is to fulfil a contract, not deliver the project so apparently people leading the delivery of internal projects within organisations are not project managers!

Apart from the difficulty of defining projects in terms of one sourcing methodology, writing contracts, Orman seems to conveniently forget the thousands of contracts that end up in the courts each year because of the breakdown in relationships within the contract. Stakeholder management is a key skill for project managers, including identifying, prioritising the project’s stakeholders, and then developing effective communication within relationships that work (for more on this see WP1007 The Stakeholder Cycle). The success of the construction phase of Terminal 5 at Heathrow was largely due to BAA’s focus on the ‘soft’ skills needed to develop and sustain the integrated delivery teams that created the success. This was a revolution in procurement and supply chain management and led to this project being celebrated as the most successful construction project in the UK (for more on this see my presentation to the CIPS Australasia Strategic Procurement Forum in Auckland).

The same argument applies to most project management artefacts. The most perfectly developed schedule is totally useless if the information it contains is not communicated to the people who need to work to the plan; communication is a ‘soft’ skill. But communication on its own is not enough! The people receiving the communication need to understand the message and agree to use the schedule in the coordination of their work. This is unlikely to happen if the people have not been involved in the schedule development which requires more stakeholder engagement and communication, consensus building and a range of other ‘soft’ skills (see: Communication in organisations: making the schedule effective).

Putting it another way, developing an effective schedule that is useful because it is actually used to manage time on the project demands the project manager and/or project scheduler engage effectively with the people who will be responsible for implementing the schedule. This requires interpersonal, contextual and behavioural competencies.

Orman also states professional skills should be unique to the professions, examinable in a written exam and uses the medical profession as an example. Two members of our family recently completed a multi year journey to become qualified anaesthetists. Over the years there were many written examinations but there were also searching interviews and clinical assessments along the way and years of ‘apprenticeship’ under the direction of more senior professionals to ensure they were competent as well as knowledgeable. If medical professionals need more than book learning and written examinations why should project managers be any different?

Project success is achieved by persuading people in the project team to enthusiastically and collaboratively work together to achieve the contracted output. Developing a motivated team capable of achieving this requires a range of ‘soft’ skills including leadership, motivation, communication and conflict management to name a few. Organisations cannot do work; it is the people within the organisation that do the work and management is about directing and leading people!

Answering the question, what is more important, the ‘hard’ skills of scope management, scheduling and cost planning or the ‘soft’ skills of motivation, communication and leadership, is difficult. My feeling is the synergy of ‘hard’ skills powered by ‘soft’ skills will create a far more powerful engine for success than the sum of the two parts in isolation. Successful project managers need both capabilities either within their person or within their leadership team.

If we ignore stakeholders and the ‘soft’ side of our project management skill set we severely reduce our ability to meet our client’s requirements for on time on budget and on scope delivery. ‘Soft’ is not a synonym for easy!