This story shows the result when there is a lack of integrity within the team process. One of the many people I have gotten to know over the years is a PM buddy of mine; called Harry H. Harry swears this is a true story.
Harry’s boss had technical (not business) responsibility for all of the design projects for a division of a major technology corporation. He called Harry in one day and said, “Go look at the Project X schedule and see what date they can really make. We are meeting with MIC (Most Important Customer) next week and I want to know what to tell the staff before the MIC meeting.”
Harry found the team the next day. They were already in a schedule review. Harry spent a couple of hours looking at their schedule, which showed month “so and so” as the finish date. He asked a bunch of questions and they all agreed month “so and so” was “aggressive but doable.” Harry then this reported back to his boss.
The next week Harry was in a review that the division manager and his staff held in preparation for the meeting with MIC. When the project area business manager went through his summary foils on Project X the schedule commitment date he noted was two months earlier than what the project team and Harry had agreed to the previous week. He made no mention of that fact to the staff.
They all had text pagers at the time, so Harry started texting: his boss, the project manager he had met with, the assistant project manager, everyone. “This is the wrong date, right? We cannot make it,” Harry texted. No one would reply, so Harry stood up and said to the division general manager, “This date is not what was agreed to and is too aggressive, we won’t make it. You at least need to know that.”
Harry’s boss then paged him, “Let the politicians handle this,” after which much discussion ensued. Finally, likely angry with all of them, the division general manager assigned the area business manager an action to figure out what the correct date was and the meeting was adjourned. Harry then lost track of that thread, was excluded from any further meetings, and was not involved with that project any further, in any capacity. All he had done was tell the truth, correct? Didn’t people need to know or was Harry simply naïve?
Harry was unable to tell me for a fact what date they told MIC the next week. Harry did find out that the project eventually was several months late to even the date they had agreed to in the team review, much less the more aggressive date. And he also learned that the corporation subsequently lost the business of that customer, a huge blow.
And both his boss and the area business manager involved left the corporation unhappily within a few months of that event. What price truth? Pretty high for all involved.
The point to me is obvious, but let me state it. Who were these guys fooling and why did they not tell the truth--at least among themselves--much less to the customer? Had there been real trust, true accountability and a transparent communicative culture within the staff would the same results have occurred?
All rights reserved, 2008, Executive Team Leadership, LLC
Friday, April 25, 2008
Blog 2: Thoughts About Girl Scouts While Not Watching Duke in the Final Four
Many of you know that I am a nut about Duke University basketball. My Dad started this rooting for Duke thing because of all things, get this: When he was growing up in rural North Carolina, Duke was a major football power. Not so now, of course.
Duke hosted a Rose Bowl in 1942 (due to fears of West Coast invasion) and played in major bowls like the Orange, Cotton and Sugar Bowls.
This time of year I am usually avidly analyzing brackets and worrying/watching Duke’s basketball team, coached by a great motivator, strategist and leader of teams, Mike Krzyzewski.
But not this year. Duke didn’t make it out of the first weekend, their lack of an effective inside big man fatally taken advantage of. So I spent my next two weekends with the Girl Scouts. And was better off for it.
I believe in the Girl Scouts. Frances Hesselbein, the CEO instrumental to their renaissance a few years ago, was the keynote speaker at a Leadership Conference I attended two years ago. She spoke quietly and passionately of how they successfully implemented the goal of being “relevant” to all girls, not just the traditional suburban girls.
So I haven’t been surprised at the positive energy, diversity and creativity that surrounds the activities my daughter gets involved in. Most businesses would do well to motivate their employees half as well as are these Girl Scout volunteers.
First weekend, she and I went to what was called the “Best Beau Dance.” This is mostly an excuse for these girls to get together and scream while eating snacks, drinking lemonade, doing the limbo and dancing. Emphasize dancing. My daughter sure loved it. I have rarely seen her so happy. I must confess she enjoyed dancing with her fellow girl scouts the most. And disco was king when I was in college! Hard to figure. There is evidence, I have heard, that girls make better life decisions if they do 1:1 activities with their dads. Confidence and self-esteem are increased.
This past weekend the entire family attended what was called “Thinking Day,” one point of which was to hear about the diversity of Girl Scouts around the world. Each troop dressed up in native garb, prepared food and presented facts about a particular country, during which all girls had lines/roles. No one was left out.
Values of inclusion, appreciation for diversity and other cultures, self-confidence and self-reliance were displayed, providing a foundation for the girls to be happier people and more able in the future to drive their own agendas at work and home.
I noticed as we left how good everyone seems to feel when leaving these activities. Contrast that to how I feel when Duke makes an early exit from the NCAA tourney. But I hear they signed a great 6’10” big man, so next year should be a different story!
All rights reserved, 2008, Executive Team Leadership, LLC
Duke hosted a Rose Bowl in 1942 (due to fears of West Coast invasion) and played in major bowls like the Orange, Cotton and Sugar Bowls.
This time of year I am usually avidly analyzing brackets and worrying/watching Duke’s basketball team, coached by a great motivator, strategist and leader of teams, Mike Krzyzewski.
But not this year. Duke didn’t make it out of the first weekend, their lack of an effective inside big man fatally taken advantage of. So I spent my next two weekends with the Girl Scouts. And was better off for it.
I believe in the Girl Scouts. Frances Hesselbein, the CEO instrumental to their renaissance a few years ago, was the keynote speaker at a Leadership Conference I attended two years ago. She spoke quietly and passionately of how they successfully implemented the goal of being “relevant” to all girls, not just the traditional suburban girls.
So I haven’t been surprised at the positive energy, diversity and creativity that surrounds the activities my daughter gets involved in. Most businesses would do well to motivate their employees half as well as are these Girl Scout volunteers.
First weekend, she and I went to what was called the “Best Beau Dance.” This is mostly an excuse for these girls to get together and scream while eating snacks, drinking lemonade, doing the limbo and dancing. Emphasize dancing. My daughter sure loved it. I have rarely seen her so happy. I must confess she enjoyed dancing with her fellow girl scouts the most. And disco was king when I was in college! Hard to figure. There is evidence, I have heard, that girls make better life decisions if they do 1:1 activities with their dads. Confidence and self-esteem are increased.
This past weekend the entire family attended what was called “Thinking Day,” one point of which was to hear about the diversity of Girl Scouts around the world. Each troop dressed up in native garb, prepared food and presented facts about a particular country, during which all girls had lines/roles. No one was left out.
Values of inclusion, appreciation for diversity and other cultures, self-confidence and self-reliance were displayed, providing a foundation for the girls to be happier people and more able in the future to drive their own agendas at work and home.
I noticed as we left how good everyone seems to feel when leaving these activities. Contrast that to how I feel when Duke makes an early exit from the NCAA tourney. But I hear they signed a great 6’10” big man, so next year should be a different story!
All rights reserved, 2008, Executive Team Leadership, LLC
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Blog 1: What Are these Blogs All About?
Integrity, Accountability and Transparency in a team context are the basis of my executive coaching business, Executive Team Leadership, LLC. Yes, I realize that many executives, small business leaders, leading technical contributors and project managers (my target markets) look on abstract words like these with disdain.
Yet it is exactly these words--when turned into actions that yield quantifiable results within teams--that have generated the best successes in my 25 years within engineering, manufacturing and product development teams.
Clearly, the challenge is in showing the value of these words in action. How to approach this? Certainly through personal interaction via power-point briefings and the like. If you know a business or technical group that would like a free talk on this theme, let me know. And I will also spread the word through my website.
But most importantly, the word will be spread through these short blogs, no more than one page of text (“stories from the project management jungle” blogs may be a little longer). Ultimately they will be posted on my website, currently under construction. Please feel free to pass them along to interested parties.
I hope to be the center spoke of a community of people who are interested in reading and commenting on these blogs. So please send your comments and ideas.
I intend to thread several themes throughout these blogs. They are:
--Leadership in its various (good and bad) forms. Leadership (IMO) is one of the single most overused and misunderstood words in the business world.
--Teams. Business, sports, family, political, spiritual and other team types. Nothing much gets done in this complex world without teams, yet people struggle mightily in the business world and elsewhere to find functional teams to help them meet their dreams and goals.
--Diversity. In an increasingly global business world, we all need to be more aware that the best solutions come when a myriad of viewpoints are included in the decision making process. Sounds so simple…
--Balance. Achieving excellence in all key aspects of life: work, family, self, with significant others.
--And, of course, Integrity, Accountability and Transparency will be there.
That’s a wrap for now! Hope you enjoy the blogs and can participate.
All rights reserved, 2008, Executive Team Leadership, LLC
Yet it is exactly these words--when turned into actions that yield quantifiable results within teams--that have generated the best successes in my 25 years within engineering, manufacturing and product development teams.
Clearly, the challenge is in showing the value of these words in action. How to approach this? Certainly through personal interaction via power-point briefings and the like. If you know a business or technical group that would like a free talk on this theme, let me know. And I will also spread the word through my website.
But most importantly, the word will be spread through these short blogs, no more than one page of text (“stories from the project management jungle” blogs may be a little longer). Ultimately they will be posted on my website, currently under construction. Please feel free to pass them along to interested parties.
I hope to be the center spoke of a community of people who are interested in reading and commenting on these blogs. So please send your comments and ideas.
I intend to thread several themes throughout these blogs. They are:
--Leadership in its various (good and bad) forms. Leadership (IMO) is one of the single most overused and misunderstood words in the business world.
--Teams. Business, sports, family, political, spiritual and other team types. Nothing much gets done in this complex world without teams, yet people struggle mightily in the business world and elsewhere to find functional teams to help them meet their dreams and goals.
--Diversity. In an increasingly global business world, we all need to be more aware that the best solutions come when a myriad of viewpoints are included in the decision making process. Sounds so simple…
--Balance. Achieving excellence in all key aspects of life: work, family, self, with significant others.
--And, of course, Integrity, Accountability and Transparency will be there.
That’s a wrap for now! Hope you enjoy the blogs and can participate.
All rights reserved, 2008, Executive Team Leadership, LLC
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Tales from the Project Management Jungle(tm): The Three Letter Agency Story
When I had been a Program Manager for only a couple of years I was assigned an interesting project as part of a corporate joint venture which brought together capabilities from different parts of the corporation to create a solution requested by a major three letter agency (not the one you think).
We were given a contract, after much discussion between the agency and corporate VPs, always with the admonishment from the customer that “there isn’t anymore money, don’t ask for more money.” I was brought in only after the contract was awarded (first warning flag) and told to “hit schedule, budget and maintain scope.”
As I was new to being a Program Manager, I was very motivated. I weekly charted to the hour the tasks each person was working on, and did other things trying to see how the project was really going. We kept the headcount down and the people motivated by a variety of positive mechanisms. The two key designers were junior engineers and they could get some OT pay--they didn’t really have anything else to do--so they were happy enough.
But, with several months to go, I could see we were going to run out of money before we finished the agreed-to scope. My personal analysis was beyond that of the standard contractual reports. The standard reports showed everything was ok. This is not at all unusual. Engineering task managers tend to be overly optimistic and the last 15% is notoriously hard to predict in development work.
Some of my conclusion was based on intuition, some from knowledge gained by working on these kinds of development jobs for several years, and from knowing about that last 15% of a project. I talked with my management, convinced them this was the reality.
Development work brings high risk. As the contract was a cost plus fee agreement, my corporation would not ask for fee on any overrun but also would not “eat” the overrun itself. I knew the customer would be concerned but thought they would at least appreciate being told the truth early enough to do something about it. After all, they could cut scope or would have the time to find more money. I thought the worst thing to do was to wait until the end when it would be obvious and then they would not have time to react or make any decisions. As they were the customer, I felt they had the right to know “now” and to make decisions.
So I called up the contract manager and told him. Thus “detonation” number one occurred, i.e., he turned the telephone line blue with his frustration. Within a few days I found myself in their headquarters building in Washington, DC.
Let me set the stage. There were at least 10 three-letter-agency people at the table. And there was me, the only representative of my corporation at the table. There were two account representatives from my corporation sitting in the back of the conference room--not at the conference table—distancing themselves from the “mess” but still there to support their customer. I would turn around and wave occasionally for support, and if they couldn’t divert their eyes quickly enough they might wave or smile tight encouragement back at me.
Then I started. “We have done everything we can to hit the target number,” I told the room, then explaining what measures we had taken to control costs and manage smartly. General wary nods. “I thought you would want to know the following as soon as possible. Here is the data.” I explained what I had been doing and how I formed my conclusion. “I am sorry. We are going to run out of money before we finish…”
An explosion of voices interrupted. “Detonation” number 2. “Your VP said… Unacceptable… What about your monthly cost reports, none of them showed a problem. Your company can pay. I am going to talk to...” This went on for what seemed like a really long time but was probably only a few minutes.
I waited. I was solid in my belief that what I was doing was right. I was sharing with them the truth as I saw it.
When they finally ran down I started again, without emotion. “We are going to run out of money. Cannot change that. Thought you would want to know so you could something about it.” “Detonation” number 3. Even meaner and nastier than the previous time.
This continued on for a couple of hours. They would dive into the details of the data I had. They would bring up my VP’s name. They would accuse me of being a poor manager, not driving the team hard enough. They would frequently mention how important the project was to their mission. They even brought up our CEO’s name once or twice.
This went on for several more rounds. They continued to release their not unreasonable frustrations. I believe they were testing me for any weakness, any wavering of my story, and trying to see if I would commit my company to pay for any overrun.
I just stayed on the same points: “Here is the data. We are going to run out of money. What would you like us to do?”
It may have been at detonation 4 or 5 that one of the key three letter managers jumped up, cursed, and left the room. He had been key to the original contract agreement and felt the most ownership of the agency managers.
Only half jokingly I asked, “He’s not going for his gun, is he?” Some of these folks, including that gentleman, did have guns.
Only half-jokingly as well, they replied, “We’re not sure.”
Finally this concluded and I left. “Bloodied but unbowed,” as they say. The sales representatives even took me to lunch, patted me on the back and said I had “done about as well as could be expected.”
I left convinced I had done the right thing in telling the truth as I saw it. I knew we had run a good project. The budget was just too tight for what was being done, and the development task too difficult. I felt telling them the truth this early would give them the time to truly decide what was best for them.
I flew back home and after a few weeks the agency came up with the requested dollars. We finished the job for the amount requested, to the agreed scope and schedule.
About a week after the job concluded I went to my VP and said “Well, that was fun! Really learned a lot. How about a new challenge and customer?” He agreed and I moved on to a new contract.
A few days after that I got a phone call from the agency contract manager, “Doug, we hear a nasty rumor!”
“Yes, Joe (I’ll call him Joe, because I honestly can’t remember his name--blanked it out most likely--it might even have been Joe) it’s true. I am going on to another customer.”
“Well, gosh Doug. That’s disappointing. Was it something we said? Because honestly you’re the best PM we ever had at your company.”
I paused for a few seconds, nonplussed. Then I said, “Wow, Joe. I can’t imagine how you treated the bad ones!”
This story may seem humorous now, but it surely wasn't humorous in the least at the time.
The point is this. It is best to tell people what they need to hear even if they act like--at that moment--that they don’t want to hear it. This increases trust in the overall relationship and helps people feel better about the work experience. After all, when the project above was successful, the customer seemingly appreciated being told the truth. They would have been much angrier had I stayed silent until we ran out of money and then a mad scramble ensued.
Sadly in my experience people often don’t tell the truth. Instead they often tell others only what they are contractually obligated to say or tell people what they think they want to hear, or only enough to lead them to the conclusion they want them to arrive at in such a way that they can't be accused of lying later. Many corporate leaders who have fallen into trouble in the past few years try to toe this line. Maybe there are often very good reasons why people do these things.
But to me, integrity based decisions are solid (logical?) and allow me to sleep at night.
Was I naïve? What if things hadn’t worked out “well”? Did I risk my nascent career for “ethics”?
All rights reserved, 2008, Executive Team Leadership,LLC
We were given a contract, after much discussion between the agency and corporate VPs, always with the admonishment from the customer that “there isn’t anymore money, don’t ask for more money.” I was brought in only after the contract was awarded (first warning flag) and told to “hit schedule, budget and maintain scope.”
As I was new to being a Program Manager, I was very motivated. I weekly charted to the hour the tasks each person was working on, and did other things trying to see how the project was really going. We kept the headcount down and the people motivated by a variety of positive mechanisms. The two key designers were junior engineers and they could get some OT pay--they didn’t really have anything else to do--so they were happy enough.
But, with several months to go, I could see we were going to run out of money before we finished the agreed-to scope. My personal analysis was beyond that of the standard contractual reports. The standard reports showed everything was ok. This is not at all unusual. Engineering task managers tend to be overly optimistic and the last 15% is notoriously hard to predict in development work.
Some of my conclusion was based on intuition, some from knowledge gained by working on these kinds of development jobs for several years, and from knowing about that last 15% of a project. I talked with my management, convinced them this was the reality.
Development work brings high risk. As the contract was a cost plus fee agreement, my corporation would not ask for fee on any overrun but also would not “eat” the overrun itself. I knew the customer would be concerned but thought they would at least appreciate being told the truth early enough to do something about it. After all, they could cut scope or would have the time to find more money. I thought the worst thing to do was to wait until the end when it would be obvious and then they would not have time to react or make any decisions. As they were the customer, I felt they had the right to know “now” and to make decisions.
So I called up the contract manager and told him. Thus “detonation” number one occurred, i.e., he turned the telephone line blue with his frustration. Within a few days I found myself in their headquarters building in Washington, DC.
Let me set the stage. There were at least 10 three-letter-agency people at the table. And there was me, the only representative of my corporation at the table. There were two account representatives from my corporation sitting in the back of the conference room--not at the conference table—distancing themselves from the “mess” but still there to support their customer. I would turn around and wave occasionally for support, and if they couldn’t divert their eyes quickly enough they might wave or smile tight encouragement back at me.
Then I started. “We have done everything we can to hit the target number,” I told the room, then explaining what measures we had taken to control costs and manage smartly. General wary nods. “I thought you would want to know the following as soon as possible. Here is the data.” I explained what I had been doing and how I formed my conclusion. “I am sorry. We are going to run out of money before we finish…”
An explosion of voices interrupted. “Detonation” number 2. “Your VP said… Unacceptable… What about your monthly cost reports, none of them showed a problem. Your company can pay. I am going to talk to...” This went on for what seemed like a really long time but was probably only a few minutes.
I waited. I was solid in my belief that what I was doing was right. I was sharing with them the truth as I saw it.
When they finally ran down I started again, without emotion. “We are going to run out of money. Cannot change that. Thought you would want to know so you could something about it.” “Detonation” number 3. Even meaner and nastier than the previous time.
This continued on for a couple of hours. They would dive into the details of the data I had. They would bring up my VP’s name. They would accuse me of being a poor manager, not driving the team hard enough. They would frequently mention how important the project was to their mission. They even brought up our CEO’s name once or twice.
This went on for several more rounds. They continued to release their not unreasonable frustrations. I believe they were testing me for any weakness, any wavering of my story, and trying to see if I would commit my company to pay for any overrun.
I just stayed on the same points: “Here is the data. We are going to run out of money. What would you like us to do?”
It may have been at detonation 4 or 5 that one of the key three letter managers jumped up, cursed, and left the room. He had been key to the original contract agreement and felt the most ownership of the agency managers.
Only half jokingly I asked, “He’s not going for his gun, is he?” Some of these folks, including that gentleman, did have guns.
Only half-jokingly as well, they replied, “We’re not sure.”
Finally this concluded and I left. “Bloodied but unbowed,” as they say. The sales representatives even took me to lunch, patted me on the back and said I had “done about as well as could be expected.”
I left convinced I had done the right thing in telling the truth as I saw it. I knew we had run a good project. The budget was just too tight for what was being done, and the development task too difficult. I felt telling them the truth this early would give them the time to truly decide what was best for them.
I flew back home and after a few weeks the agency came up with the requested dollars. We finished the job for the amount requested, to the agreed scope and schedule.
About a week after the job concluded I went to my VP and said “Well, that was fun! Really learned a lot. How about a new challenge and customer?” He agreed and I moved on to a new contract.
A few days after that I got a phone call from the agency contract manager, “Doug, we hear a nasty rumor!”
“Yes, Joe (I’ll call him Joe, because I honestly can’t remember his name--blanked it out most likely--it might even have been Joe) it’s true. I am going on to another customer.”
“Well, gosh Doug. That’s disappointing. Was it something we said? Because honestly you’re the best PM we ever had at your company.”
I paused for a few seconds, nonplussed. Then I said, “Wow, Joe. I can’t imagine how you treated the bad ones!”
This story may seem humorous now, but it surely wasn't humorous in the least at the time.
The point is this. It is best to tell people what they need to hear even if they act like--at that moment--that they don’t want to hear it. This increases trust in the overall relationship and helps people feel better about the work experience. After all, when the project above was successful, the customer seemingly appreciated being told the truth. They would have been much angrier had I stayed silent until we ran out of money and then a mad scramble ensued.
Sadly in my experience people often don’t tell the truth. Instead they often tell others only what they are contractually obligated to say or tell people what they think they want to hear, or only enough to lead them to the conclusion they want them to arrive at in such a way that they can't be accused of lying later. Many corporate leaders who have fallen into trouble in the past few years try to toe this line. Maybe there are often very good reasons why people do these things.
But to me, integrity based decisions are solid (logical?) and allow me to sleep at night.
Was I naïve? What if things hadn’t worked out “well”? Did I risk my nascent career for “ethics”?
All rights reserved, 2008, Executive Team Leadership,LLC
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