Enhancing project effectiveness through clear roles and improved outcomes

I realize this topic is repeated so often that it is ‘almost boring.’ I have over twenty years of experience in project management. This experience is very cross-cutting, as, during this time, I have worked with dozens of Polish and international organizations to implement various projects. During this time, I have encountered different organizational cultures regarding project management – from those who do it very effectively to those with inferior control over the company’s project situation. The hallmark of the best organizations is that project roles are clearly defined and that they FACTUALLY act by the agreed principles. Before I make recommendations on how a company’s project culture can be strengthened, I will share some practical examples to understand better what we are talking about. These practical examples are not just illustrations but also engaging and interesting insights that can keep project managers, organizational leaders, and professionals involved in project delivery and management hooked.

The fictitious role of Project Sponsor

I once worked for a vast ICT company that was implementing project management standards with the help of an external consultancy. After describing these standards in a so-called “project management handbook” and training sessions, the company initiated a dozen projects. Project teams, project managers, and sponsors were established. Project charters signed by the Project Manager and Project Sponsor were created for each project with the support of the consultancy. Everything was going along like a model until the company owner said “check” for the first time. At one of the board meetings, the Company Owner came with a binder with all the Project Cards signed by the Sponsors. He took out the first Project Card, where Mr. Jacek was the Sponsor, and asked him if his project would finish in such an ambitious timeframe. Mr Jacek replied, “Can you read the deadline because I don’t remember exactly?”. The owner “After all, you were signing it this week?”. A somewhat tense situation prevailed. Ultimately, it turned out that none of the Sponsors had read the Project Charter before signing it and were unaware of what they were signing. He was told to sign a ‘receipt’ and then signed it. Before the next Board meeting, all Sponsors thoroughly read and reviewed their Project Cards and signed them again. For the next board meeting, each sponsor brought a new signed project card and was well aware of all the assumptions about the project.

Superficial and shallow project reviews

Many project delivery companies (I am not talking about construction or consulting companies, etc., that make their living from project delivery, and their revenues are directly linked to the projects they deliver) organize reviews once a week or more, typically once a month. I participated in such a review in a large, modern company. In a meeting of about 2 hours, the status of almost 40 projects was discussed – some were minor issues than projects, but more than 15 were significant projects. Statements were made at this meeting that “we can’t make it for August because …… and we have to push the end of the project to December”. Nobody asked questions. The company was very accessible to postponing projects. There were no project sponsors at this meeting – it is safe to assume they had little interest in how their projects were going.

Unclear role of the Project Manager

In cosmetics companies, pharmaceutical companies, and many in the FMCG sector, a necessary business process is creating and bringing new products to market. This process is project-based, starting from the idea through concept development, laboratory work, production, and product launch. In one such company, the managers responsible for such projects came from marketing. The problem, however, was that as the project moved into R&D and then production and beyond, the Project Manager felt that his role ended when the product ‘left’ marketing, i.e., the stage of product concept development and market analysis. This approach caused several coordination problems because no one was entirely in charge of the whole; everyone saw their part, and few saw the project from a broader perspective. It is crucial for the company’s success that project managers adopt a more holistic perspective, understanding the entire product development process and their role. This will help avoid frequent delays in launching new products and prevent the company from suffering actual losses. This emphasis on a holistic perspective in project management can enlighten and inform project managers, organizational leaders, and professionals involved in project delivery and management.

How do we clearly define project roles in practice?

The examples described above clearly show how important it is for the success of a project to define project roles clearly. The second important thing is that these defined roles must work in practice. How to deal with this:

Step 1: Develop a corporate project policy manual

This step is crucial and cannot be avoided. We need to articulate in clear, simple terms what we envision project management to be in our company. This document is of the utmost importance, while not overly extensive or precise. With their inherent flexibility, the Proince2 or PMI methodologies can serve as a solid starting point. These methodologies, while comprehensive, do not need to be applied in full. They encourage adaptation to the organization’s current needs and its level of project maturity.

Step 2: Ensure that people know what is in this manual and will use it in practice

The traditional starting point is to train people in the company’s developed project management principles. This is a necessary step and, overall, the easiest to implement. Now, the most important thing is to make it work in practice. The “Project Manager” of implementing the company’s project management principles must be found here. Someone has to care about making it work; ideally, it should be someone with a strong position in the organizational hierarchy and the proper authority. In example 1, it was the owner of the company. It is important to remember that building a professional company design culture is a process that must take some time. However, if we approach it with determination, we will see that it was worth it.

Step 3: Dedicated project management system

I realize that the basis is changing people’s behavior and that success will mainly depend on changing this behavior. Without behavior change, the manual and the system will do little to help. However, we must ask ourselves whether a system can help change people’s attitudes to project management. What such a system gives is transparency. The system keeps an eye on dates, shows delays, and shows who is responsible for what, and such knowledge becomes commonplace in the organization. People, in practice, don’t like to be the ones who ‘screw up’ things. Once there was no system, many things never saw the light of day; with a system, it’s different. So people gradually start to keep these dates. If, until now, the Sponsor may not have known what was happening on the project, such information is now available at his fingertips. At a board meeting, it will be difficult for him to say that he neglected something because he was not adequately informed. In a sound project management system, there is a schedule that keeps track of dates, there are reports, and finally, there can be automatic project reviews, which are an executive summary of the company’s management of how projects are going. If you follow airplane crashes, you know that a sequence of interconnected events often causes an accident. In the case of projects, we are concerned with success. Still, here, too, a sequence of different mechanisms (tools, the way they are used, people’s attitudes) add up to a whole, ultimately leading to a high degree of effectiveness in project management. Below are some examples of how a dedicated project management system can help positively shape organizational behavior:

• This demonstrates how projects lag behind the roadmap’s approved plan. This immediately raises the question of what is causing the project at the top of the screen to be delayed.

• The automatic project reviews show decision-makers how projects are going and the main problems. We can filter out only those projects that are in bad or medium condition and focus on them.

• Dedicated reports provide the necessary information for decision-making. If a Project Sponsor asks for detailed information, he can get it almost immediately. But they can also always look at the reports, which are always at hand.