Do project and program managers need to be experts in the industry or sector they work in? While many would say yes, others argue that a competent and experienced project or program manager can lead initiatives in any area.

I would agree with the latter—with one caveat. Project and program managers who lack experience in a given field must be willing to do research and fill any knowledge gaps to make their efforts successful.

Research is the key to staying current. As a program or project manager, you must be able to ask subject matter experts smart, targeted questions. By arming yourself with the right information, you’ll be able to challenge assumptions and better navigate schedules, risks and other issues. And raising these questions will also drive creativity and innovation.

There are several online tools that I often use to conduct project–related research, including:

Google Scholar: This is a good tool for Boolean, or combined keyword, searches. It returns a list of reputable articles, books, abstracts and court opinions from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other websites. For most results, the title, author's name and abstract can be seen, but the full piece is behind a paywall.

Semantic Scholar: This engine—still in beta—has artificial intelligence built into the search, which is amazing. For those who have used EBSCOhost or ProQuest as a student or an academic, Semantic Scholar will look somewhat familiar. It’s based on Boolean searches as well, but, unlike Google Scholar, 99 percent of the returned articles are available as PDFs.

Semantic Scholar also lets you narrow your search. For example, you can search based on author(s), limit the search to a certain publication timeframe and only review articles in certain journals.

Depending on the search, some articles can also be sliced and diced by topic. For example, when I did a search on neuroscience and leadership, I was able to pick articles on certain areas of the brain. Even more fascinating, I could filter down to the type of brain cell discussed.

These are two of my go-to tools. Where do you turn when conducting project research and preparing to lead an effort in a new field?  

Originally published on PMI's www.projectmanagement.com

Project Management on the Brain

By Wanda L. Curlee

Could neuroscience be the next big thing for the project management profession?

Today, there are many theories about leadership, management, and psychology, yet, no one is quite certain how the brain works in concert with these theories—or even if it does.

In the pursuit of more information, neuroscience—including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) —is being used to study what the brain activity of business-minded individual’s looks like during thought and during motion. (This technology can map new neural pathways as they are created—pathways that can be created until death.)

Already this scientific field is creating new fields of study across the business landscape. Neuroeconomics, for example, is “the application of neuroscientific methods to analyze and understand economically relevant behavior such as evaluating decisions, categorizing risks and rewards, and interactions among economic agents,” according to Dr. Zainal Ariffin Ahmad, a professor in the Business Research for Applied Innovations in Neurosciences (BRAIN) Lab at the Universiti Sains Malaysia’s Graduate School of Business.

There’s also neuroaccounting, neuroethics, neuroleadership and neurogoernance.

With portfolio management still in its infancy, neuroleadership and neurogovernance could potentially assist portfolio managers. By extracting knowledge from the sciences of neuroleadership and neurogovernance, PMI could differentiate itself and its body of knowledge from the various other project management associations and standards.

By using cutting-edge knowledge about how the human brain works to help create standards, PMI could move project management closer to a profession such as medicine. When the standards of the profession are based on empirical scientific knowledge, rather than good practices done on most projects most of the time, project management could become even more science than art.

What do you think? Can and should neuroscience be part of the future of project management?

Originally published on PMI's projectmanagement.com

Outsourcing and Trust

Recently, Peter Tarhanidis, published a blog on outsourcing. The blog was on projectmanagement.com in Voices on Project Management. The blog was right on target for having a successful outsourcing program. However, there was a major aspect of outsourcing that was  not addressed. Outsourcing can degrade trust within the organization that is being outsourced.

People are the foundation of an organization/company. When a part of the company or an entire organization is outsourced there are employees involved. The employees may initially hear about the outsourcing via informal means such as the company's grapevine. Once the grapevine is acknowledged by the company, the employees are worried.

Worse yet, some companies have been known to notify affected employees to report to a conference room and they are presented a package. This is the first notification of being outsourced. You ask what is the package. It advises the employee they have 48 hours to make a decision to go to the outsourcer or to resign. Sometimes the salary is dictated with a radical decrease in pay and benefits that have eroded. Panic and anger ensue

What would employees think about the company they are being outsourced to? Can you imagine what the employees are thinking? This was unethical! What could the leadership of these two companies be thinking? They decided to outsource our work and us and still expect us to go to the same job everyday at a reduced salary and benefits!

How are the employees that were not outsourced feeling? There is mistrust on their part as well. They are thinking that they could be next. Trust is again eroded. The remaining employees are also quite uncomfortable. Why? They are now working with the outsourced employee who is doing the same work for reduced pay.

Once the outsourcing takes place, those employees that elect to stay with the outsourcing company now are disillusioned, have no trust in leadership, believe there is a lack of ethics within the company and probably are looking for a new opportunity, or maybe even decide to quit. They most likely are embarrassed and ashamed because they now have to do the work in front of employees who have stayed with the company that outsourced them.

Outsourcing may help the bottom line but is it important enough to erode trust, ethics, and maybe even the quality of work? I will always say no, it is not worth the value that a good employee provides a company. Can you imagine running a project with employees that have no trust? I can't.

Incorporating Millennials

 

Millennials get a bad rap. Some think they are lazy because, let's face it after college they go live with their parents and do nothing. They always have some device in their hand. Don't be so quick to judge. This generation of young adults are the most educated of the last five generations. Many  have a graduate degree.

Think about the economy when the millennials graduated. Nobody was hiring. It was hard to find a job let alone a brand new graduate with no job experience. My take is that companies are short sighted.

Everything we do today involves technology and being able to get the tasks done in a responsible and ethical manner. Recently, I attended the UT Dallas PM Symposium. There were several presentations on the various generations and how to encourage collaboration between the generations and how to integrate the millennials into the work environment. Conrado Morlan was quite informative. He had many good ideas about integrating millennials.

One of the suggestions he had was to give the millennial the big picture. Millennials want to understand how their work fits into the organization. So, if you have a millennial in your portfolio or in your project explain that their task must be done on time because it affects tasks down the road. If the millennials task is late then potentially the entire project/program/portfolio is now behind schedule. A client will be upset which may delay or minimize payments and eventually could give the company a bad name which also affects the bottom line. Explain how a portfolio works to provide value to the company's strategies.

Millennials love technology. Work with the millennials to increase the technology savvy within the portfolio. Give the millennials tasks and then step out of the way. If they do not know how to solve believe me they will develop a work around by researching and blogging with other millennials. Develop a relationship and trust with the millennials on your team. You will be surprised at their competencies and willingness to push the company in the correct direction!

Internet of Things (IoT) may Fundamentally Change Project Management

Project Management Podcast at with Cornelius Fichtner

Episode Number 337

The way that an IoT project is changing project management is not just because anything and everything can be and will be internet enabled, but also because the project management software we use will be more interconnected and developing these IoT devices will require us project managers to get a better handle on research and development, which can be extremely nebulous in the internet of things.

In a nutshell, Wanda Curlee says that IoT project management is heading our way and even if your projects are not internet related today, they will be in the future, She has no doubt that you will be managing an internet of things project.

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