Soft and Hard sides of Project Management

For last two decades at least, there has been a detailed discussion about soft side of project management including cultural issues or simply the human side of project management. The idea has been to make research about various issues related to success or failure of any project. Soft side of projects is somewhat not measurable or hard enough to be felt. Team tussles or cultural differences along with communication and human resource management are four important issues related to soft side of projects. 

However in this discussion about soft side of projects, the hard side of projects i.e. the success was undermined. Instead the term lessons learned became a fashion. Now the world is full of lessons learned but is left with less number of solutions learned. 

It is difficult to manage soft side of a project, true - but using the hard side i.e. goals, procedures, deadlines and control can help projects to be successful. The bottom line should be that no hard side of any project should be bargained for the sake of soft side's survival. Yes the soft side is critical but achieving a well declared target could be more important. 

Instead of using the soft side issues to figure out hurdles in reaching target, the soft side should be modified in a way which paves the path to reach the target. The hard side should provide the outer boundaries in which all soft sides can be managed and not the vice versa. The only exception could be some social projects where purpose is not to achieve a certain target but just to stir up the beneficiaries. 

Project Managers' Biggest Fear

Many of us may say that a Project Manager's biggest fear is failure of a project. Others may come up with ideas of delay or team tussles. However the biggest fear of a project management is the fear to delegate. Delegate is a key to success of many project managers and also a path towards failure.

Project managers fear delegating considering, only they can do the said job in perfect manner, the other will not be able to do with perfection and may be other won't do the way it should be done. These three simple fears have three simple solutions. Find team members who are better than you. This fact is highlighted by Guy Kawasaki (#SVBCEO) in his speech about, '12 Lessons I learned from Steve Jobs'. Secondly train your team members, invest in them prepare them to perform better and lastly tell them clearly how a certain activity is to be done.

Analyse yourself before choosing a Career

It is quite well said since centuries that 'do what you do best'. However the main question for people of this age is to know what they can do best? Under highly competitive conditions and availability of knowledge every one is almost expert in every thing. Still one can notice that people who were able to pinpoint their 'best skills' became highly successfull through utilizing those skills.

Unfortunately most of us either cannot locate the skill we do best or we have to ignore this discovery in order to stick to what we have been doing or what we need to do for everyday life. As a result we end up being utilized below our potential or simply doing something we never intended to do.

There are many behaviour tests or aptitude tests one can use to understand himself/herself. One of them is 'compass' test as described by Paul H Brisk in his book, 'Creating Your CV as a self marketing tool'. 

The book is wonderful guide for all those who are either embarking on their career or intend to search new waters. Knowing your traits right is first step but equally important is going in right direction with patience.

Simplify the Documents

It is expected that all team members might have gone through the project documents before the commitment meeting was held. However the project document approved by the sponsor is generally not very understandable by the individual team members.

Therefore it is highly recommended to have implementation procedures simplified and made usable by the team members. The most important issue in most of the cases is the lack of information about different procedures towards acquisition of necessary resources to perform certain activities.

Not many people will go for reading the thick procurement manuals but would instead leave it to time when they’ll need any such activity. In order to overcome the delays caused by misunderstandings or lack of knowledge about different procedures a simplified document could be prepared and circulated.

A very feasible option could be to have one person hired exclusively for knowledge management who keep the updated records of different project activities at any time and also find and provide solutions to those who ask for them. This needs someone committed and trained, and it cannot be delegated to just anyone from the team busy in other activities.

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Where is Common Sense??

Common sense is the most important gift given to creatures by their creator. Even among wild animals one can find this skill while they make their rest places or perform their daily courses. Common sense is the only sense which keeps one cool minded during most complex situations. However unfortunately this sense is no more common, especially among Project Managers.

The reason behind extinction of this gifted skill is in fact availability of too much knowledge in the world. Now people give a damn to their common sense and look for some thing 'sophisticated'. Similarly in the projects whole team including their manager develops complex tools to implement and monitor the project activities. Due to these complexities they forget the real purposes of the project most of the time.  Being lost in these complex details they never find enough time to stop and think, 'if this makes sense also or not?'

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What a Project is NOT!

Project is not a routine work, neither it is repeated each and every day. Even if same set of activities are repeated either time frame, place of implementation, or team members would be different. Therefore no two projects are same.

Project is not the path leading to problem from solution. It is never the implementation of a solution and thus designing activities accordingly to find a problem at some place. Many times a solution is promised through some project proposal and people involved try to find/create a problem in order to execute the planned project.

In the hope to solve one problem sometimes a new project simply replaces the whole system which was not required at all which leads to wastage of resources. Although the new system may work well in the initial phase, it may bring its own problems with passage of time thus raising a need for some new project to solve the new issues.

It must be noted if the solution provided by the proposed project is not related to the original problem or it creates its own problem or addresses some other problem and then proposes a solution.

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HEY! Culture in Project Management

Hey culture as defined by author is present in almost all countries but is dominant especially in the eastern culture. The culture of Hey means ‘in principal ok but we’ll see later’.

The person who is not familiar with this Hey culture takes it as a sign of acceptance and readiness to move ahead but this ok is accompanied with many hidden ‘buts’.

During a project meeting or even informal communication with any project team member the project manager asks her for a certain job. The answer would be generally Hey. It is taken as commitment and sign of agreement by project manager alien to Hey culture. Project manager becomes happy that the problem would be solved or activity would be done.

But after a long time if she finds out that problem is still there or activity is not started even yet, the concerned team member is consulted. Team member’s answers may include, Oh I forgot it completely; Can you tell me details again; I am going to do it now.

In addition to these common excuses another two most important answers of the team member could be; I agreed but thought that we will discuss and finalise details later but you never came for that, and second answer as, you did not ask me to do it right then- you just asked if I could do it or not.

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