Simple-minded Organizations Create Project Failure
Go to https://www.sebasolutions.com to learn more about Dr. James Brown, project management and leadership speaker.
Having lived in Florida 30 years, I have had encounters
with all kinds of snakes and even had a five-foot
alligator that occasionally sunned itself by one of
my palm trees. I asked my new neighbor how long
he had lived in Florida. He replied that he had lived
in Florida before and this surprised me because he
leaves his garage door open hours at a time. I told
him that I have already caught four small snakes this
year in my garage with glue traps and I keep my
garage door closed, only leaving a very small crack
on the side of the door at its base, because like
most garage doors it doesn’t seal perfectly. He
thanked me, but still keeps his garage door open
for hours at a time. I have no doubt that he has
multiple snakes somewhere in that garage and
one day he and a snake will find each other and
after that day, I suspect he will keep his garage
door closed.
There are individuals and organizations that
cannot learn from the mistakes and experience
of others, they must experience it for themselves.
Organizations that can learn from the mistakes and
experience of others are smart and those that have
to find a snake for themselves are simple-minded.
The character of these simple-minded organizations
is that they cannot learn until there is actual pain.
They can’t learn unless they personally experience
the bad outcome.
Project management is not complicated. However,
to excel at project management it does require
thinking, upfront planning, and discipline. Thinking,
planning and discipline is difficult for some
organizations especially when there is always an
important meeting or emergency to be handled
and any type of activity is viewed as progress.
The tenets that generate a successful project
management culture have been around decades,
if not centuries.
Unfortunately, that tired, overused,
worn out axiom “There is never time to do it right,
but always time to do it over” holds true in a lot of
organizations and they don’t want to properly invest
in upfront planning, the schedule is too tight for that,
there are not enough resources for it.
Sadly, a lot of project failure results from
organizationally self-inflicted wounds.
.
It is not always the customer that causes the biggest
challenges for many project managers, the biggest
challenges frequently come from the “friendly fire”
generated by their own organization's culture and
stakeholders. A project manager must always find
different communication methods to show
stakeholders the consequences (pain) of
circumstances (decisions, lack of decisions,
unrealistic goals, inadequate resources, etc.) well
before the circumstances arise.
This does not mean the organization will act and
when the organization doesn’t listen and the bad
circumstances occur, the project manager should
gracefully, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, remind
the organizational leaders the situation could have
been avoided. When the organization stubs its toe
on an avoidable obstacle it’s the project manager’s
job to keep “accidentally” stepping on that toe to
remind them we could have avoided this and let’s
not do it again. This is simply holding the organization
and leadership accountable.
Project managers need to be delivery focused for the
project but they also must contribute their part to
help change the culture of simple-minded
organizations to a smart organization. This type
of change is not immediate and usually doesn’t
occur after one mistake but after many and a
history should be maintained showing this over
time with the consequences of each and where
the problems are systemic. Intentionally,
accidentally, step on those toes, say “oops” and
then graciously apologize.
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