In our last post, we discussed an opportunity to conduct an assessment of Portfolio Management suites featured from the Gartner Magic Quadrant. This was from a user point of view. Although there were many customer interviews already conducted, there is always another side to the story.

Before we start that PM Suites discussion, I want to introduce an excellent speech I heard just this morning.  The topic was compelling because it deals with right now, at this moment and the changes and troubles we “appear” to be facing.  The speaker focused the attention on an Alan Greenspan book, “The Age of Turbulence.”  Mr Greenspan talks about the single most significant event in our [meaning the world] history was the fall of the Great Wall.  The Berlin Wall.  The reason why this was so significant to Greenspan, to the speaker, to me and hopefully now to you, is the idea of “Creative Destruction.”  This concept is a natural phenomenon, but was termed by Joseph Schumpeter.  What was learned from the Great Wall falling was that the East was actually producing 35% of what the West was able to produce.  They learned that while the West was advancing in technology, engineering and management, the East was very stagnant, producing at the same capacity for the same amount of time.  This is significant and not natural. 

Creative Destruction is the impetus to build better tools.  It is change.  It is constantly challenging and improving upon.  It is innovation, industrial and everything about our world that brings us where we are today.  It is also the center of a free market and capitalist economy.  Central Planning, which is the term to define the East at that time, actually stifles creative destruction and does not allow for change.  Any time you use “stifle” and “not” to describe something, it will not have a good outcome.  In this case, it was proven and the impact profound.

With the innovative idea of re-allocating our resources to newer and more productive business, we can begin to understand behaviors and treat change a little than we have before.  It is in our nature to change.  It is in our nature to be change agents.  As Project Managers, we manage the very projects that get us to the change.  Projects, not portfolios, are the “real” change agents.  They help us to reach value creation and value realization.  This is not an easy process.  Change also causes stress.  This is why this speech was a great introduction to the “dynamic” portfolios that are part of that magic quadrant.  They provide us the capabilities to realize our value, guide us through the change and help us with the stress.

The products we will be discussing are the following:

• CA
• Planview
• Primavera
• HP

Not too long ago, I would have included the ever popular MS Project.  However, believe me, it did not make the Top 4.  So we’ll venture out and explore unchartered territory!

If you have comments that you would like to provide or experiences you would like to share about these “dynamic portfolios,” I encourage you to share them.  I will include them in my descriptions.  In the meantime, if you are finding yourself stressed out about current events and the changes that “appear” to be around you, turn off your television.  Events far great than these decorate our landscape and we have survived them all.  With great passion we will be successful through these times as well.

Reasons why change is difficult

Why does change seem to be so difficult? Because our status quo seems comfortable and we don’t really know how to go about making changes unless there is assurance that a new and better comfort will result from the proposed changes.

Company culture, rules, and environments are the result of many decisions that have been made, over a period of time, which created and maintains the status quo.

A company is started with a vision of what they want to achieve. Although some of this is verbally expressed, much of it is non-verbal. The company then populates the environment to represent a look or feel they want to embody.  Policies are put in place to enable adoption the same ethos and become part of the company story. Changes that occur must support the company story. But outside of the rules and values laid down by the Human Resource department, do we all consciously know the values and beliefs, rules, politics, and relationships that consistently represent our status quo?

What do we know or believe to get us where we are? What keeps it all in place? It’s not the rules, roles, or initiatives.  It’s some hard-to will affect more than a small handful of people: individuals going through change must maintain their internal criteria – beliefs, values, norms, politics, dreams, history – while making a change, even if it’s the change that is sought after.

Acknowledging a problem that must be fixed

When a problem is identified that we believe needs resolution – we tend to forget that the identified problem is part of a complete system that has functioned ‘well’ for some period of time. We assume that if a solution is presented, that others in the company will automatically embrace the solution and know what to do. This is not true. People, policies and relationships don’t change because something new is introduced: indeed at the point something new is introduced, the elements defined as problematic go into homeostasis to protect the status quo. We are working with a system here – one that has continually created consistency and comfort for the organization.

Whatever the change may be, no matter how small, before we’re ready to shift, we need to know that the change must match the criteria of what it’s replacing, or the new element will be rejected.

It is difficult to understand the complexity of a current situation or environment. The behaviors and decisions that were made through time created the unique brand.

The system we live in

A system, largely secret, unique, and idiosyncratic, continually makes choices that retain the status quo. These choices are based on unconscious data and past decisions.

How does a fish know the water is dirty? It doesn’t. Feels like home to them. How do we know we live in an outdated or counter-productive system? We don’t. Until we find some way to disengage from the system to recognize those important elements that need to be managed prior to change taking place – whether it be a new piece of equipment, or a new program, add people, move office, or even change a bad habit – we will do nothing. And, ‘nothing’ is a decision to allow the status quo to remain intact.

Before a person can change, they must discover the elements within their status quo that will need to be managed so that the change will not create a disruption. The job of supervisors is not to effect change, but to help people figure out all of the elements that must be managed to decide on and then support the change.

Facilitating change

There are a few key components to facilitate change in a company:

• Awareness -An individual or organization must know why a specific change or series of changes are needed. Why are we changing our billing system? Why do we need to implement a CRM tool? 
• Desire -Either the individual or organizational members must have the motivation and desire to participate in the called for change or changes. 
• Knowledge -Knowing why one must change is not enough; an individual or organization must know how to change. 
• Ability -Every individual and organization that truly wants to change must implement new skills and behaviors to make the necessary changes happen successfully. 
• Reinforcement -Individuals and organizations must be reinforced to sustain changes making them the new behavior, if not; an individual or organization will probably revert back to their old behavior. 

Once all of the change information is defined, the group can take a comprehensive look and make informative decisions. Until then, no action can take place.

The time it takes to come up with answers is the length of the decision cycle.

The Importance of Buy-in

For an organization to achieve change effectively, it is important that individuals in the organization that will need to make modifications to their behavior exhibit buy-in. Buy-in means that the organization as a whole understands that the changes that need to be made are ultimately beneficial to both the individual and the organization. In addition, each individual and the organization as a whole will have to work hard to make the necessary behavior modifications.  If an organization tries to make changes which are inherently bad or are not received positively by an organization, it will be much more difficult or close to impossible to implement these changes without significant resistance.

You can enhance buy-in by first explaining the changes you would like to make, citing issues with current procedures and then communicating the benefits for both the individual and organization.

For the past several years I have been concentrating my efforts on web based applications for managing corporate strategy, project and budget portfolios. Today we are going to discuss a phased approach to cultural adoption. Achieving cultural adoption is critical to the success of your implementation of any tool in an organization. It is extremely difficult to achieve, but if done correctly can be very rewarding for you business and for your managers.

As we talk about cultural adoption we need to think of ourselves as change agents. We are attempting to change an existing culture into a more standard and consistent culture for some gain. It is very exciting and important to change in order to be innovative and competitive in todays market. It could be as simple as introducing calculators for the first time and putting a plan together to get the organization off paper and pencil and on the new tool.

Now, as change agents there are some things that I need to share with you. This is exciting stuff because in doing these things achieving cultural adoption has become much easier and I am no longer viewed as someone outside of reality. I have gained respect and have proved myself effective in moving organizations forward, quickly.

Here’s how you can jump start cultural adoption in your organization:

1. First, is to educate yourself. The goal here is to find that passion and power to KNOW everything about where you are going and where you have been.
2. Second, obtain experience by doing what you are teaching. You gain credibility when you can relate to your users.
3. Next, get out of the box! You will be the target for all complaints. Expose yourself to what is true and myth. You can learn from your competitors and others using the tools and processes successfully. Know first hand what does and does not work.
4. Finally, be effective! Be influential! Do this by recognizing small wins and delivering on each deliverable and recognizing the successes.

Let’s get into the project plan. The scenario is that you are responsible to implementing a new web application for project, resource managers to manage their work, resources, budget, portfolio, strategy and cost.

First, recognize you dilemma. There is a reason that a web application is being introduced. We recognized that there were the common fears of change. There are process and communication challenges. There are data integrity issues with data in multiple locations, numbers not agreeing and numerous hours and costs reconciling that data. There are also numerous tools performing the same function causing increased spending and more incomplete information.

Now we had to determine what the goals are for the organization. Achieving visibility into IT spending was a big one for us and the driving factor for this implementation. Additionally, we wanted to align our strategies and our resource capacity. We wanted a way to manage our work and resources in a common tool with visibility into status and streamlined processes. Finally we wanted to enhance our financial planning.

Identifying an approach was important for us to communicate to our stakeholders to obtain approval. Resources, money and time would be required to make this successful. Our approach included four steps as bases for the phases to achieve cultural adoption.

We started with communicating ‘what’ is expected for project and resource managers and contributors – providing consistent roles that apply the Enterprise requirements and any additional requirements by specific divisions. You can’t help someone if THEY don’t know where THEY are going!

‘How’ to do what’s expected – project and resource manager training classes and workshops. Designed to communicate ‘why’, ‘when’ and the impacts.

Apply practices and training to “their” work.

Quality monitoring to ensure accuracy of all work, resources, budgets and schedule are available in web app.

Our scope included all associates and we also included contractors. However, we did break up subject areas of concentration. We included Portfolio, Project and Resource Management. Within in each area, we broke down even further to ensure all topics were covered to enhance knowledge. In portfolio management, Methodology, Schedule and Budget definition are included. In project management, methodology, governance, budget definition, resource leveling and resource assignments are included. And in resource management, utilization, forecasting, budget definition, assignments and time entry.

As in any project, assumptions were made. Because we are introducing a tool for managers to use, we assumed that the PM knowledge and skill are in practice. We assume that managers are:

• Creating and tracking assignments
• Managing resource capacity
• Managing schedule dates and impacts
• Recognizes variances
• Communicates with project schedules

We also assumed that we have executive level by in. They must support the tools and processes presented and proposed and that they have no interest in becoming part of the popular statistics around project over-runs, unfunded projects and out dated deliverables.

Finally, what you have been anxiously waiting for! The phases. The phases model our approach. These iterative phases are more effective because they allow you to deliver on each phase and show success.

1. Roll Out Kick off Communication – High level of what is expected
2. Foundational knowledge – Details of what is expected, when and why – Methodology, governance and budget – includes responsibilities and Gate instruction. Foundational knowledge is the bases of all adoption. When you plan to build a building very tall and strong, you start with a very deep and strong foundation. This should be thought of the same way.
3. Training – Functional demonstration – ‘how to’ and identifying potential interdependencies for resource and project management and contributors.
4. Utilization and status reporting

Supplying objectives allows you to stay on track and informs your audience what you intend for them to take back from your effort. An example of objective for the foundation knowledge is to understand the Governance process.

Have a general understanding of Change Control Process. Have a general understanding of how the new web app will be used to support the processes.
Focusing now on the Training phase – because it is the very key to ensuring cultural adoption, let’s break the training phase into some manageable pieces. Identify your audience, determine the capabilities and the organizational readiness of your users. You may find that hands on training will be more beneficial than a presentation. You may find that your users are more successful with job aids than 400 page manuals. Determine what kind of support they will need and that you can provide. This could include mentoring, coaching and reviewing schedules for guidance and workshops.

All of the training classes should have a purpose. Beginning with the foundational training – the purposed should be to bridge the gap between project/resource managers and the governance process to promote cultural adoption. Provide an overview of the budget and how it impacts schedules and resources. Training for project managers and resource should also bridge gaps. Providing skills, techniques and practice will also stimulate cultural adoption. Providing purpose to the mentoring sessions will also ensure cultural adoption. Bridge the gap between knowledge and reality. Address real life issues and situations. This will require that YOU are educated and have experience!

The Implementation schedule should be very lean. Dragging out an implementation can make the organization anxious and frustrated with duplicate work. The roll out should only last 6 months. Realize and communicate, however, that cultural adoption is a personal process and the time it takes to be adopted cannot be mandated. This will be dependent on attitudes by all. Be prepared to be a cheerleader.

Finally, monitor and measure your success. Monitoring can be as simple as randomly selecting schedules to:

• Review task list for traceability
• Review the use of resources

And randomly selecting resource utilization screens to

• Review Utilization by team
• Review assignment by team

Our measurement was based on a 2 sigma quality goal. We plan to have:

• 95% of project schedules have manageable task lists in PV
• 95% of resources level loaded 3 months out
• 95% of projects baselines are within 15% of last approved budget

Some of the successes that we have experienced are: that a group of 3 people were able to train 400 users (PM, RM, contributors and budget coordinators) that impacted 267 projects. This was in one state and our most recent merger. It took 6 months from charter to triage.

Instantly we had increased visibility into work that was being performed, but was unfunded and not approved.

• We are getting better/more accurate data on actual costs related to our work.
• Gained global visibility into work schedules.
• Eliminated need for PM to provide copies of their schedules to managers.
• Managers have more accurate and up-to-date data.
• And for our PMO, we have identified project management skill and process gaps.

Both of which are initiatives for the PMO to ensure better processes and concentrate on enhancing PM skill.
I want to thank you for allowing me to share my success in obtaining cultural adoption. I hope that my suggestions enable you success as well. Remember, that a little risk planning will save a whole lot of fan cleaning!