it all started in seattle , take two

© 2007 Lean Project Consulting, Inc., www.leanproject.com

It All Started in Seattle,Take Two

Shifting Project Management Paradigms

Hal Macomber, Project Reformer


Underlying Theory Is Obsolete

• 2002 PMI Research ForumLauri Koskela and Greg Howell

• Management as Planning• Input-Process-Output• Thermostatic Control – Set it and

Forget it


Where Do We Start?

• Search Amazon for books on leadership:– Leadership is an Art– Monday Morning Leadership– Primal Leadership– 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership– The Leadership Pipeline– …and 62,650 others!

• Let’s go back to the beginning…


Why the Interest in Theory?

It is with the intent of explaining past behavior and predicting future behavior that we are

interested in theory.


• Frederick Taylor – “The Principles of Scientific Management” (1911)– Work methods, measurement and

simplification

• Henri Fayol – “General and Industrial Administration” (1916)– Synthesized various tenets of organization

and management

Foundations of TraditionalProject Management


Underlying Assumptions

• Principles exist which if implemented by any organization will ensure efficient operation and administration

• There is one best way• Organizational intelligence is resident

only in management


100 Year Old Theory:Successful Management

Requires 5 Basic Functions

1. To forecast and plan the future and to prepare plans of action

2. To organize the structure, people, and material3. To command activity4. To coordinate, unify, and harmonize effort5. To control to assure policies and plans were

followed

Henri Fayol, circa 1900, France


Fayol’s 14 Principles

1. Specialization – division of labor

2. Authority with responsibility

3. Discipline4. Unity of command5. Unity of direction6. Subordination of

individual interests7. Remunerations

8. Centralization9. Chain/line of

authority10. Order11. Equity12. Lifetime jobs

(for good workers)13. Initiative14. Esprit de corps


IPO Theory Is Incomplete

• Reductionism, breaking larger work into smaller pieces, misses the interaction of people with people as they go about doing their work

• Application to human interaction and information processes ignores conversational action


Traditional Project Management“Command and Control Model”

• Management foresees future state of world(goal state)

• Centralized planning is performed to articulate steps needed to take current world state to goal state.

• Directives are issued to implement plan in real world.

• Control is exercised by monitoring progress against plan and issuing additional directives as needed to keep to plan.


Planning Model of Activity

Current State

Goal State

Intermediate State

Intermediate State

Model World

Real World

Plan

Implem

entation

Planning

Current State

Goal State

Intermediate State

Intermediate StateAction

Planning

Planning

Plan

Implem

entation

Plan

Implem

entation

Action Action


Project Management per PMI®

Initiating Processes

Closing Processes

Management

Everyday

Activity


Leadership in theTraditional Context

Mainly involves external motivation of workers towards the imposed goal through use of incentives and punishment


The Essential Shift

The work of business is making and keeping commitments.

- Fernando Flores


Linguistic Acts: Grammar of Action

Statement of fact. Includes an offer to provide evidence.

“All tasks were completed as promised.”Assertion

Offering an opinion with or without any basis for the assessment.

“We are making good progress.”Assessment

Statement of commitment to provide something specific by a specific time.

“You can have the crane at noon.”Promise

Calling for a statement of commitment.

“Please deliver the submittal on Thursday.”Request

Creating a space of action.”We will put a man on the moon and bring him back safely in this decade.”Declaration

DefinitionExampleAction


1 2 3 4 5

6

7

98

A: Request

A: Withdraw

B: Withdraw

B: Reject

B: Promise

A: Reject

B: Assert

A: Declare

A: Declare

Conversation for Action(From “Understanding Computers and Cognition” by

Winograd and Flores

Conversation for Action


Conversation for Action


Conversations for Action

• Interplay of requests and promises directed towards explicit cooperative action

• Conversation as a ‘dance’• Request with conditions of satisfaction• Five possible responses

– Accept conditions, i.e. promising to satisfy them– Reject conditions– Ask to negotiate a change (Counteroffer)– Originator withdraws request– Originator modifies request


Conversations for Action

• At each state of conversation there is a small set of possible actions determined by previous history

• Relevant acts are linguistic• What is not said is listened to as much as

what is said• Conditions of satisfaction are not objective

realities• Does not say what should be done or deal

with consequences


New Management Perspective

Management is that process of openness, listening, and eliciting commitments, which includes concern for the articulation and activation of the network of commitments, primarily produced through promises and requests, allowing for the autonomy of the productive unit.

- Fernando Flores, 1982


100 Years Later:Management as Designers of

Systems of Coordination of Action

• Management is that process of:– Openness– Listening– Eliciting commitments

• Concerned for the:– Articulation of the network of commitments– Activation of the network of commitments

• Produced through:– Promises– Requests

• Allowing for the autonomy of the productive units

Fernando Flores, 1982, Berkeley, CA


Management in the New Paradigm

• Design of organization– Means of communication between sub-

units– Structure of physical, political, and

cultural setting of action

• Manager is designer, coordinator, and enabler of autonomous activities


Leadership in the New Paradigm

• Ability to make apparent the opportunity for a better future.

• Create organizational environment conducive to building trust necessary for individuals to connect their interests and innovate together.


Stuck in Newtonian World

Early last century, Frederick Taylor applied Newtonian physics, the science of his day, to management. One hundred years later, as Mr. Snowden, Director IBM, laments, “We haven’t yet grown out of this.”

Mark Buchanan, Power Laws and the New Science of Complexity Management, Strategy+Business, Spring 2004


Competing Paradigms

Periods of revolutionary change begin with anomalies that the established paradigm is unable to explain, leading eventually to the development of a competing, and ultimately victorious new paradigm.

- Thomas Kuhn


AEC Project Work:Current Perspective

• People come together as strangers, or they don’t come together at all

• Highly fragmented and specialized skilled labor

• Reductionist and deterministic• Seek certainty over clarity


AEC Project Work:A New Perspective

• People work collaboratively• Project roles based on talents and

interests• Iterative and refining planning

practices• Seek clarity over certainty


Characterizing Leadership

• Fayol– Determining futures– Motivating workers

• Carrot• Stick

– Encouraging the subordinating of interests & intentions

– Master skill: order-giving

• Flores– Co-creating futures– Building trust

• Cultivating commitment-making

• Deepening relatedness

– Uncovering and aligning interests & intentions

– Master skill: listening


Cultivating Commitment-Making

• The problem of trust is not the loss of confidence but the failure to cultivate commitment-making - Solomon & Flores

• The Aim: Commitment-making as the predisposition among team members

– A context of accountability for the greater goals/promises of the project

– A habit of making and keeping commitments • Your Action:

– Invite team members to make requests, promises and offers

– Explore the basis for promising reliably


Reliable Promises

• Access to competence to perform• Knowledge-based estimate to do task• Capacity and authority to allocate• Authority to say no• No private unspoken conversations in

conflict with promise• Responsibility


Seeking Clarity Over Certainty

• The future is uncertain and unknowable• Projects, in spite of our speculation, are

never deterministic, rather they are stochastic

• In matters involving people we can never be right or wrong, only effective or ineffective

• By embracing uncertainty we have the opportunity to continue to create our future as the future unfolds


Peter Drucker on Promising

Unless commitments are made, there are only promises and hopes but no plans.

-- Peter Drucker


Develop Acute Listening

• Effective (masterful) listening is effortless

• Becoming effective takes practice• Build on your strengths


Top Ten Listening Skills

10. Stop talking. 9. Put all your energy into listening. 8. Notice your own filters when listening. 7. Don't argue mentally. 6. Inhibit your impulse to immediately answer questions. 5. Adjust to the situation 4. When in doubt about whether to listen or speak, keep listening. 3. Don't assume you have to do anything but listen. 2. Work at listening. 1. Listen generously with a willingness to be influenced

- The Project Leaders’ Studio™


Ten Rules for Project Managers

10. Adopt practices for exploring a variety of perspectives. 9. Stay close to your customer. 8. Take care of your project team. 7. Keep your eye on the overall project promises. 6. Build relationships intentionally. 5. Tightly couple learning with action. 4. Coordinate meticulously. 3. Collaborate. Really collaborate. 2. Listen generously. 1. Embrace uncertainty.

- Reforming Project Management


Learning, Listening, & Action

GuidedDevelopme

nt

Commitment

Conversations

Master Skill

ActionListening

Learning

Leadership


The Leadership Journey

• It is about mastery• It is always about engaged action• It always involves your learning and others• It takes a commitment to practice even

when no apparent progress is visible• It cannot be done alone


Project Leadership BibliographyFive Essential Books

• Building Trust, Robert Solomon & Fernando Flores

• Embracing Uncertainty: The Essence of Leadership, Phillip Clampitt & Robert DeKoch

• First, Break All the Rules, Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman

• The Blind Men and the Elephant, Mastering Project Work, David A. Schmaltz

• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni


Project Leadership BibliographySix Essential Papers

• A Language/Action Perspective on the Design of Cooperative Work, Terry Winograd, Human-Computer Interaction 3:1 (1987-88), 3-30.

• Competing Construction Management Paradigms, Glenn Ballard & Gregory Howell, Construction Research Conference, ASCE, 2003.

• Leadership and Project Management: Time for a Shift from Fayol to Flores, Gregory Howell, Hal Macomber, Lauri Koskela, & John Draper, IGLC-12, August 2004.

• Managing Project Uncertainty: From Variation to Chaos, Arnoud De Meyer, Christoph H. Lock, & Michael T. Pich, Sloan Management Review, Winter 2002.

• Predicting the Unpredictable, Eric Bonabeau, Harvard Business Review, March 2002.

• The Underlying Theory of Project Management is Obsolete, Lauri Koskela & Gregory Howell, Project Management Research Forum, PMI, 2002.