project followership

Copyright SDA Bocconi NASA PM Challenge 2011

Project Followership

Prof. Marco Sampietro [email protected]


Agenda

•  Project Followership: Introduction

•  Project Followership along the Project Life Cycle

2


Followership

•  The ratio of leadership to followership books is 120:1 (Bjugstad, 2004)

•  One of the reasons followers haven’t been researched is that there is a stigma associated with the term “follower” (Bjugstad, 2006).

•  One-third of all executives are followers in some fashion. Yet, rarely did any of the executives concede that they were followers (Williams and Miller, 2002)

•  Management and organizational behavior have been dominated by the concept of leadership, which has assumed a romanticized, larger than life role as a result (Meindle, 1987)

•  Leaders only really accomplish something by permission of the followers (Depree, 1992).

•  Followers motivate themselves (Huges, 1998). •  A key to motivating followers is the concept of having them

realize how important their function is in a broad sense (Blanchard and Bowles,1998) .

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Project Followership: boundaries

•  Project Followership is mainly targeted at team members that: –  Do not manage projects but participate to projects –  Manage project activities, sometime alone, other times

in small teams –  Mainly provide technical competencies –  Do not work full time on projects –  Do not need to know “everything” about project

management –  Sometime, they do not want to be project managers

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Project Management and Project Team Members: the current situation

•  The project management discipline is still based on a top down paradigm: –  Traditionally, the project manager manages the team –  More recently, the project sponsor supports the project

manager

•  Project Management training follows this dominant paradigm

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Project Followership: What is it?

•  Project Followership is a new project management approach that puts project team members at the center of the stage.

•  Project Followership aims at actively and proactively involving project team members in managing projects.

•  Project Followership aims at increasing the satisfaction of project participants, by supplying the knowledge and the tools to fully understand their role in a project environment.

•  Project Followership aims at increasing project performance, by creating more effective relationships between project team members and project managers and by promoting positive behaviors.

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Agenda

•  Project Followership: Introduction

•  Project Followership along the Project Life Cycle

7


Project Followership along the project life cycle

8

Time

Reso

urce

Usa

ge

Conception Planning Execution Transfer and Closure

Control

Change

Risk Management

Scheduling and Estimating

WBS

Requirements Analysis

Kick off meeting

Lesson learned


Kick off meeting

9

Low participation


Kick off meeting

10

Low commitment


Kick off meeting

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Technical approach Project Followership • Waste of time. It is not strictly related to my work, I can read the meeting minute to get directly to the point.

• Opportunity to ask clarifications, to understand how my work fits into the project. • Opportunity to modify the project before is too late. • Ability to understand the choices made at the C level. • Opportunity to “sell” myself.



12

How it should be



13

How it is sometimes



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Technical approach Project Followership • People that should provide requirements are not able to do so and it seems that they do not speak my language.

• It is my duty to translate business requirements into technical requirements.

• If requirements are incomplete, I will define them by myself. I know our business.

• Making mistakes during this phase will lead to huge reworks in the future and even to project failure.


WBS

15

I know what to do…


WBS

16

Interesting, lets see some detail…


WBS

17

Interesting, lets see some detail…


WBS

18

Technical approach Project Followership • Why spending time on planning tasks that are not related to mine?

• Understanding the big picture helps my tasks too.

• I have spent a lot of time speaking about technical aspects not related to my tasks. We did not spent enough time to discussing my technical problems.

• There is a huge difference between identifying the Work Package and writing a To Do List. • Micro-planning lead to inefficiencies.



19

I think we will still be within the tolerances…



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Technical approach Project Followership • Trying to provide good estimates is useless, since the project schedule will change many times and priorities change every day.

• Providing good estimates increases the stability of my agenda. • In addition, my colleagues consider me a reliable person and my reputation is improving.

• The project manager should manage the interfaces between the activities, otherwise why we are paying him/her?

• Understanding the activity network facilitates the communication with my colleagues. Reworks and conflicts are reduced.


Risk Management

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Panta Rei Approach Reactive Approach


Risks Management

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Technical approach Project Followership • Risks happen, is a fact. We have to live with them.

• Risks may happen but many of them can be managed before they have a negative impact. A proactive approach creates a more stable environment. It is easier to organize my agenda.

• I cannot tolerate emergencies, they make me crazy. It seems that the project manager is adding complexity, and not reducing it.

• Projects are dynamic environments, it is impossible to completely stabilize them, it is their nature.


Changes

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Positive or negative change?


Changes

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Technical approach Project Followership • Changes depend on lack of knowledge of the Project Manager.

• Projects are dynamic, changes are necessary and they are not always related to mistakes.

• If changes are related to my activities, I am the only person that can accept, modify and interpret them. I know what is the best.

• A change can be negative at the activity level but can add value at the project level. Before judging it, it is better to look at it from different perspectives and ask for clarifications.


Control

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I will deliver perfectly on time!


Control

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• Technical approach • Project Followership • Inserting data related to the activity status is a waste of time. I know where I am. The Project Manager should trust me.

• Calculating the work done and work left increases my ability to estimate and thus my ability to organize my activities. • Having data on the other activities permit me to better plan my work.


Lesson Learned

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It is not the single activity, is the interface


Lesson Learned

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Technical approach Project Followership • I do not see the point to share my mistakes (if any) and my best practices. I know my job, I am able to improve by myself, if necessary.

• I have a lot of experience but taking time to systematize it is not so common and can lead to new and interesting discoveries. • The optimization of a single activity does not lead, automatically, to project success. Lesson learned are helpful to reconsider the project as a system and to see how, sometimes, mistakes derive from “local best” decisions.


Conclusions

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•  Project Followership is not the opposite of Project Leadership, it is complementary.

•  Project performances depend on the contribution of all the subjects involved in the project.

•  Project Followership aims at creating more involvement and more awareness of the Project Team Member role.

project followership

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