Is there underperformance anywhere in your organization?
Are people getting frustrated? If so, here’s a new resource for turning the situation around – Everything’s A Project: 70 Lessons From Successful Project-Driven Organizations by author Ben Snyder.
This fast-paced book is based on three premises:
1. The ways you manage projects, people and organizational culture are inextricably linked. If you are not getting the project results you want, looking solely at project management practices is insufficient. You need to examine how your people management strategies and your culture are working for or against your quest for quality, efficiency, timeliness and cost control.
2. If you want great project results throughout your organization, the executive team needs to be deeply involved, willing to challenge sacred cows and implement systemic changes. Individual project managers do not have the authority to alter corporate culture or your organization’s approach to people management.
3. Most organizations view the term “project” too narrowly. They tend to think of R&D or IT efforts. In reality, nearly all corporate work today is in the form of projects. This means virtually all employees are project workers. Many, if not most, are using ad-hoc methods to accomplish their work because they don’t have any formal project training. If you want great results, more people need access to best-practice processes and tools.
In 70 brief chapters, he provides crisp how-to information for the executive suite, managers and project leaders. Here’s a brief sampler of the topics covered:
- 9 symptoms of poor project management.
- 5 things that keep team members from delivering high quality, on time and on budget.
- 3 actions to ensure your vision becomes reality.
- 4 ways to create and preserve a vibrant corporate culture.
- 7 tenets for project success.
- 4 aptitudes of good project managers.
- 3 forms of organizational drama and how to eliminate them.
From our perspective, there is worthwhile content in this book. The drama section, for example, clearly reflects organizational problems in a generic format. And the reader receives good checklists.
Ultimately good project management breaks down into identifying and communicating the goals of the project, assigning roles, and building and maintaining good relationships. What often lacks, however, is a collective agreement developed by team members that identifies the non-negotiable codes of conduct that ensure high levels of commitment and accountability with in the group structure, process and dynamics.
Copyright TIGERS Success Series
By Dianne Crampton
TIGERS offers a complimentary business membership program for leaders desiring a scalable, cooperative, quality-focused and friendly work environment that spikes commitment and loyalty from employees. TIGERS® Success Series, Inc. is a team development consultancy that has served leaders and their teams since 1989. TIGERS® helps leaders build teams of employees that are as committed and engaged in the success of the organization as the leaders are.
