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

2016 Project Management Institute's Thought Leadership - Benefits Realization Management

Thank you to all veterans and active duty personnel for their service. Each of you has played a large part to the safety of our country!

The Project Management Institute (PMI) recently published the new leadership series. One of the reports is Connecting business strategy and project management - Benefits realization management (BRM). While reading the report, I was reminded of taking baby steps. The report confirmed how important benefits realizatin management is to implementing strategy.

The report outlined three factors that contribute to the success of BRM.These are "managing the portfolio of projects, creating dedicated space for dialogue, and establishing the right conditions for success". Each requires a culture shift to effectively manage the organization's strategy.

Managing the portfolio of projects' objectives is to manage projects to the strategy. The project success is good but it must provide value to the portfolio which in turn should drive toward the strategy.

Creating dedicated space for dialogue is fancy speak for the C-suite needs to be engaged. Without support and sponsorship from the C-suite the portfolio will lose traction. The C-suite needs to communicate with the business owners working as sponsors. The sponsors help to translate the strategic objectives into projects.

Finally, establishing the right conditions for success is about changing the culture. Active sponsorship, project managers with the correct skills, and most importantly encouraging actively delivering bad news. All these conditions drive the re-mapping of projects to drive the value of the portfolio.

While I agree with all these premises, the report does not address programs. This is a major oversight as programs are integral to a portfolio. The program helps to drive a strategy or part of a strategy more efficiently than driving each project separately.

By not addressing programs, PMI appears to have forgotten the value of programs. This is worrisome as it delivers the wrong message.

Stay tuned for a synopsis and opinion of the other reports within the Thought Leadership Series.