How to Help Management Make a Better IT Decision

January 26, 2012 — Bruce McGraw

Decisions that directly affect Information Technology (IT) projects or IT services within an organization are not always made in the IT (or Engineering) department. That is not bad thing; it is just the way things are and how business runs.
Like what?

  • Management decides it is in the company’s strategic interest to form a partnership with another company that includes exchanging selected IT services
  • A desirable client requires all documents to be in Microsoft Word, Excel and Power Point
  • Planning which IT functions to centralize and which ones to operate independently or with greater flexibility
  • Figuring out how to balance data security and personal privacy
  • Allocating the internal IT budget to the needs of the organization

The good news is
Almost all companies and organizations ask for consultative help from IT or Technology professionals and project managers as they deliberate strategic decisions that involve IT related tasks.  Of course senior management needs to realize that the options under consideration involve IT, either directly or indirectly. If they don’t get it, you – the project manager – may need to be proactive (subtly and with political sensitivity). For example, if you hear via the grapevine — oh, yes your organization has one so get plugged in! – that the company is considering purchasing XYZ’s CRM system, you might remind your boss that XYZ’s system requires upgrading your server or that it does not work with the database that you currently have.
In asking for a professional opinion from IT, I have found that decision makers treat these expert professionals in one of three ways – hint: the first two are bad.

  • The IT professional is viewed as a deity with magical understanding and powers.
  • The IT professional is viewed as someone who does not understand the reality of managing a for-profit business. So, their opinions or recommendations are viewed with skepticism as to motivation and possible empire building fantasies.
  • The IT professional is viewed as an essential and knowledgeable team member who can provide insight into options and consequences in order to make sound business decisions.

Effectively assisting management decision making

  • Prepare yourself with facts and the opinions of unbiased outsiders – especially if, based on your previous dealings with these managers, you know that “expert” opinion is given higher value than general opinions. (see: Fear No Project post on Cognitive Science Insights into Decision Making).
  • Remember that cost is a big decision driver for senior managers. Include short term costs and long term cost implications, such as maintenance and training in answering questions and presenting information — especially critical when the initial cost may be lower for a poor decision.
  • Prepare to discuss risks and the impact of the decision on existing and planned projects and organizational strategy.
  • Do NOT become emotional, remain calm and objective.
  • Do NOT talk down to the decision makers because they are less knowledgeable about technology. It is your job to explain options, costs and risks in layman’s terms. Consider using analogies and metaphors that will resonate with the shared experience of decision makers.(See the post on Communicating to a non-technical Audience)
  • Listen closely to questions and clarify concerns before giving an answer or recommendation. Offer to collect more information if they seem to want it before making a decision. Just remember that senior managers don’t like to postpone decisions.
  • When you have done the best you can, remain quiet and allow the deliberations to take their course.  One more time, be quiet and listen.

If you have additional ideas or have been successful in helping managers make better decisions, please share your insights.

Posted in Communication, General Project Management, management. Tags: , , , . 1 Comment »

Cognitive Science Insights into Decision Making

January 12, 2012 — Bruce McGraw

Those of you who know me understand how my company relies on cognition principles and experts to make our projects successful.  Dr. Karen McGraw, the founder of Cognitive Technologies, has said on many occasions that “Cognitive is the first word in our company name because if you don’t focus first on the way people think, work and learn, technology will not make any impact.”  I try to use this guiding principle in all of my management roles and projects.

Making decisions—selecting the best action among alternatives—is a key management responsibility. The higher in the organization a person sits, the greater the impact their decisions have. Because decision making is closely tied to company profitability, the “how” and “why” of decision making has received a great deal of study from cognitive scientists and business professionals.

Project managers often are called upon to provide expert opinions to support decision makers.

Here is a possible scenario …
Your boss’s boss calls on you to present your advice about an IT related decision under consideration, such as securing proprietary data, timing the transition to a new computer system or finding a teammate or subcontractor for a proposed project. If you do not have a personal or professional stake in the eventual decision, your task is to provide factual information and perhaps a professional recommendation.
However, when you, your project or your team will be directly impacted by the decision, you would be well served to apply some of the lessons learned by cognitive scientists on factors that influence people in making decisions.
Cognitive science research tells us that the influence of what you say will be enhanced or diminished by how you say it.

  1. Do some homework about the decision maker. Either based on your experience or the observation of others, try to determine:
    1. What types of information sources the person “values”. Some people are persuaded by academic research and published data, while others disregard “ivory tower” recommendations. Some managers may be motivated by industry standards and best practices. Other managers may prefer information sources that reflect innovation and outside-the-box thinking.
    2. Are there other managers whose opinion affects the decision maker’s preferences? (Sam really distrusts Joe and would not want to do anything that Joe recommends.)
    3. Do the manager’s past decisions reflect the desire for high risk / high reward or slow, measureable progress?
    4. Does the decision maker want quick results or long term impact?
    5. Are there issues outside of the question at hand that are important to the decision maker, such as customer needs, security, worker satisfaction or the environment? (All managers care about cost)
  2. Remember cognitive biases and their impact on processing information (see Does Your Organization Have Cognitive Biases that Influence Management Decisions?)
  3. People generally prefer the decision option that requires the least amount of cognitive effort (“Examining cognitive functions with fMRI”) reports cognitive science researchers from Carnegie Mellon. This may explain why some managers find just saying “no”, easier than actually weighing alternatives or committing to actions. The research further suggests that individuals expend less cognitive effort deciding in favor of a small “for-sure” gain over a potentially risky, but higher-value, gain. “Conversely, the cognitive effort expended in choosing a sure loss was equal to the cognitive effort expended in choosing a risky loss.”
  4. Frame the discussion by choosing descriptive words that resonate with the decision maker’s view of herself or the world. According to George Lakoff, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, people often make decisions based on the way they cognitively represent (or frame) a potential action. Lakoff calls these metaphors and they are the associations one makes to certain words. For example, because of unconscious frames, some people are more persuaded to “become fit” than to “exercise”. Some managers want to “Win the fight”, while others prefer to “protect our assets or position”.
  5. Even though cognitive scientists study differences between the decision-making influences in men and women and have research findings such as, “…women perceive greater risk across many real and hypothetical scenarios relative to men…” (Scientific American, September 20, 2011), beware of changing words or stories based on assumed differences in gender or cultural cognitive style or stereotypes. I would not do it.

An interesting thought piece by Gary Williams and Robert Miller published by Harvard Business Review in 2002 entitled “Change the way you persuade”, suggests some words and concepts may be more effective when making recommendations to managers based if you consider their decision-making style. Based on 1600 interviews with executives, the authors divided decision making styles into five categories: charismatics, thinkers, skeptics, followers and controllers. Here are a couple of their suggestions:

Decision Making Style

Persuasive Words and Concepts
Charismatic Use words like, “proven”, “easy”, “results”; use simple concepts and visual aids that focus on benefits and features. Acknowledge risks. Keep presentation short.
Thinker Have lots of data from different, but relevant, sources. Complexity is okay. Do not emphasize risks. You may be better off just giving them information and letting them reach a conclusion.
Skeptic Establish your bona fides first. Tie your recommendations to those of someone they trust. Expect disagreement and questions. Willing to take risks based on the recommendations of a trusted individual.
Follower References and testimonials can be helpful. Emphasize success others have achieved when following this recommendation. Provide instruction on technical issues. Help them feel confident that they are making the right decision.
Controller Do not emphasize risks, focus on benefits. Provide details to backup recommendations. Do not push for a quick decision.

So are do you know how you make your decisions?  Are you watching for other cognitive clues from staff and stakeholders?

Posted in Best Practice, Communication, Leadership, management, Project Management. Tags: , , , , . Leave a Comment »

How is the PMBOK like Wikipedia?

October 28, 2011 — Bruce McGraw

When you are stuck in traffic, you have free time — just kidding — for random thoughts to bubble up into your conscious mind. On one such occasion, I found myself considering the similarities between the construction of articles on Wikipedia and PMI’s Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK).

At first, these two entities may not seem to have much in common, but bear with me. A wiki is a Web site developed collaboratively by a community of users, allowing any user to add and edit content. The best-known wiki is Wikipedia, formally launched on 15 January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, using concepts pioneered by Ward Cunningham. The idea behind a wiki was to create an information repository where anyone — hopefully with domain expertise — could add topic content, which could in turn be edited or commented on by others. The result of the collaborative input should provide useful and valid content on a wide range of topics. Today, Wikipedia has over four million articles.  And Wikipedia is also has an administration and governance model for administration, oversight and management of the content.

Wikis are not limited to Wikipedia. Projects use wiki tools to build a reservoir of project documents and facilitate collaboration among project staff, especially when they work in separate locations. The Twiki Workspace project, for example, provides a set of tools to manage projects, facilitate collaboration, and maintain project documents, forms and policies as well as supporting social networking on the project. The core software can be downloaded using open sources and the tools are available for purchase in bundles for 5 users or 25 users.

So, what does this have to do with PMBOK?

From its beginnings in 1981 when the PMI Board of Directors approved the development of a book detailing procedures and concepts necessary to support the profession of project management, the effort was a “collaboration”. Twenty-five volunteers from local PMI chapters wrote the sections of the report. Review and comment on the evolving standards was solicited from organization membership through a series of circulated working drafts and workshops. The process to reach “A Guide to the Project Management Book of Knowledge” took several years. I wonder if they could have finished more quickly if they had had a wiki.

So the bottom line is – many executives who think the PMI PMBOK is a standard for Project Management do not realize that it is just a book of best practices that is put together by a group of PMs.  Remember that when you are implementing your processes on your project – you always need to apply the right processes to the type of project you are managing!

Posted in Collaboration, Communication, Content Management, PMBoK, Project Management. Tags: , , , , . 4 Comments »

How to improve team communicators

September 22, 2011 — Bruce McGraw

I cannot count the number of times in Fear No Project that I have mentioned communication and the important role effective communication plays in project success – well actually I could count the number of times using search software, but that isn’t the point. As mentioned in “The Secret to Effective Management Communication – Practice, Practice, Practice,” the PMBOK considers communication so important to project management that they devoted an entire chapter (Chapter 10) to communication.

Most often project communication is discussed as a project manager’s skill. However, the need for good communication does not stop at the top of the project. Everyone working on the project needs to be able to communicate effectively with peers, management and customers. Moreover, almost everyone can learn to communicate better.  I cannot believe the number of projects and teams these days that are terrible communication groups!

I believe the first step in communication improvement is to create a focus on listening, talking, writing, and presentation tasks. Of course, you can have training classes and people can participate in activities that promote speaking skills, such as Toastmasters. However, I am suggesting that organizational leaders, including project managers, make a point of rewarding good communication and giving feedback to poor communicators that may help them improve.

Getting started
It goes without saying – but I will say it anyway – as the project manager, you need to serve as a role model of active listening, maintaining open body language and speaking skillfully, while keeping in mind the knowledge-level and biases of an audience (“When Facts Are Not Enough – 10 Tips for Communicating to a Non-Technical Audience.”)

Second, make it clear that you (and the organization) value good communication skills and don’t tolerate bad communication behaviors. Provide guidance through dress rehearsals for presentations and peer review of written documents. Add “whys” to your suggestions to facilitate generalization and meaningful feedback.

Third, make communication skills part of performance evaluations. Here again, explain what is expected, why good communication effects performance scores and provide guidance to help the team member improve. During meetings, gently correct or act as a translator, when it is apparent that communication is breaking down.  Evaluate speaking, writing and listening as separate areas when you give feedback.

When suggestions are not enough
Not everyone on your team will change their communication behavior based on your modeling and feedback (trust me, I know!). For those individuals, you may want to require training in communications. Sometimes feedback from strangers or professionals can help an individual learn new skills or change behaviors better than an immediate supervisor. (For example, think about how your adolescent son or daughter chose to improve their nutrition because the basketball coach told them to, even though you have been saying the same thing for months to no avail!) Here are a few more suggestions I have used:

  • Enroll your employee in a communication seminar offered by the organization or through an outside workshop. Make this required training and track it on the performance review.
  • Look for signs of improvement, even if not completely successful, and praise the effort.  Keep a little file or index card for each employee to track specific events.
  • Assign the individual to attend presentations by others and report findings as well as evaluating delivery. Use this discussion to point out why the presenter’s communication failed or succeeded. You can also use a YouTube video of a speaker to do the same thing.
  • Have the employee do a peer review on another team member’s deliverable document (Hopefully a good one) and ask for an assessment.
  • If the communication seems to be a greater problem due to presentation anxiety, separate communication and presentation into two skills sets to be learned. When written communication is improved, there may be a carry-over effect into presentations, especially if there was concomitant (connected) practice in presenting information created by others.
  • If the employee fails to improve his communication skills, as project manager you must make sure that their problem does not become a project problem. Plan to spend more time peer reviewing or editing their written communications. If they are slated to give a presentation, require practice sessions. If the presentation is to senior management or customers, send along a translator who can add interpretive comments or sooth down ruffled feathers.

Even where people are taking all the right steps to be good communicators, we have many other barriers that get in the way:

  • Team members are on a virtual team and not located in the same place
  • The team is comprised of individuals from different countries, languages and time zones
  • Email is the main form of communication and collaboration – and not effective
  • The team is a “shamrock” staffed project – comprised of individuals from different companies and organizations, including employees, contractors, part timers, and temps

So given that barriers can exist outside of the people working on the project, if we don’t focus on good communications at the person-to-person level, we can really be in trouble from the start of the project.

What is your experience in improving communication?  Do you have any links to good articles or suggestions?

Posted in Communication, Leadership, Project Management, Virtual team. Tags: , , , , , , . 3 Comments »
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