The fact is, individual employees alone are responsible for having the required knowledge and skills to fulfill their job description,  understanding the context associated with it, making good decision’s while fulfilling it, and performing well within the scope of it. In all these areas employees are responsible for initiating and obtaining what they lack. Managers may choose to help in this and they may also offer grace in specific situation from time to time, but ultimately it is the responsibility of the employee.

However, sometimes the environment of an organization doesn’t allow for growth in its employees. Some managers are acutely distrusting of his employees’ ability to make decision and perform at a specific level of competence. They hover over employees giving direction and monitoring their actions. Some managers like this because it puts them in the powerful position of being the expert that knows everything and supervising the underlings that know nothing. In fact, they may specifically hire people too junior for a position so as to never be threatened. Again, some managers enjoy this type of relationship with their employees but can at times get overwhelmed and angry with constantly having to give direction.

Then there are the employees that play helpless and seduce managers into constantly intervening in their work, giving direction, and performing their quality control function. They do not want to be empowered and take responsibility. They want to be a follower. Another childish behavior is exhibited when employees screw up and want someone to rescue them from the situation. Often they will manipulate others to take over the crises and fix the problem for them.

Managers carry at least 50% of the blame for these bad behaviors. Either they instigate the bad behavior with their actions or they allow employees to get away with not taking responsibility. The best way for you, the manager, to change this behavior is to learn to play the role of a professional coach.

• The focus within the organization should never be on you; it should be about your organization, department, or project and its performance. This is what coaches do. They focus on creating the best environment for their players to succeed. They find the best talent and could care less if the players perform better than he ever could. Coaches realize they cannot play in the game and must let their players do so without constant intervention. They look for teachable moments from the bench to help players get better.

• Do not let employees get addicted to your constant help and guidance. It would be unthinkable for a player to constantly seek direction and approval from their coach while in a game. Coaches would get rid of any player who did. Managers should wean employees from this behavior by forcing them to work independently.

Susan was responsible for putting on the department’s yearly dinner.  She got the menu from the high end restaurant and needed to select a family style offering for the employees to choose from. She was scared to make the decision on her own and repeatedly asked her manager to help her. He told her the decision was hers and that people would enjoy anything she picked. Then she started asking the employees what they wanted and there was no consensus. Finally her manager sent out an email telling people that Susan needed to make the decision on her own and not to help her any more. With the deadline approaching she reluctantly chose the items from the menu. People loved the food and the dinner was a success.

• Do not rescue employees from predicaments they get themselves into. You may know the best way to get out of the situation while incurring the least amount of pain, but if you rescue them they will avoid the sting that makes sure they never do it again.

Alex was notorious for promising things to clients and putting the operations team in a bind to meet them. Finally the VP of operations, Becky, got fed up and told Alex and his manager they were not going to be rescued anymore. Alex and his manager plead with Becky for her help as it was a major client that would be very upset if things were not delivered as promised. Becky told them “it was always a major client and her team in the past had always felt manipulated into making it right for them. From now on her organization would not rescue Alex.” He was the one who promised it and he needed to work it out with the client. Operations never had this problem with Alex again.

• Help your employee only as much as they help themselves. Coaches help players only when players take the initiative to help themselves; they have to be coachable to receive any attention. Players that resist external input and don’t strive to get better get cut from the team.

Wil was always below the mean when it came to his performance. As a result, he received little to no raise in each of the last three years. Wil finally decided to meet with his manager, Reid, and asked how he could get better. Reid told him the areas he could improve in and Wil then asked for specific steps to follow in those areas. Reid knew Wil did not want to put in the effort to get better but just wanted better performance handed to him on a silver platter. Reid finally told Wil to figure it out on his own as had the top performers in his organization. Wil never improved and eventually was let go.

Shifting from a manager who parents their employees to a coach is very difficult. It is best accomplished with group support, encouragement, and advice. Role playing and reviewing past situations in the group is invaluable. It could take a few years to make the transition depending how deep you are into parenting your employees (which actually isn’t that long if you plan on being in management the rest of your life). So, find or put together a group and make it happen. It’s your responsibility.

To escape this tiring predicament, we often establish biases or predispositions that help us select what information we take in and process and what information we ignore, deciding what we ignore has little bearing on our previously established conclusions.  In other words, we like to take in a little information, think about it, draw a conclusion and never reflect back on it again. In the extreme, we make judgments that specific people, organizations, or things are always good or always bad; or, we establish specific principals that tell us to always do this or don’t do that. Again, this behavior makes navigating through life easier.

The problem is people, organizations, things, and actions are not always good or always bad. There is some amount of good in a bad organization and some amount of bad in a good person. In addition, no principal is applicable to all situations; everything is constantly changing and as a result, so is the degree of good and bad.

Now let’s bring this into the real world. If you work in a business unit of a company, it is not appropriate to say your IT department is worthless. Nor should those in the IT department say Apple products are made exclusively for idiots. Republicans should not declare all Democrats are mindless and liberals should not say all conservatives are fascist. Your co-worker is not always lazy, your spouse is not perfect, and not everything your favorite celebrity does is fantastic.

When it comes to your principals you may decide to break the law or not donate to a charity; love others by pushing them away or take a punch without fighting back. And don’t deceive yourself, you have lied in some way or another and will do so again.

Exiting early or never entering the critical thinking process when encountering a new piece of information or situation reduces your future possibilities or exposes you to additional risks. Why? Because, if you ignore the new data and proceed along with your predispositions, you are choosing to engage in the future with blinders on. Simply put, if you think Jim is always right and he tells you something that is flawed then you are at risk. If Susan always over exaggerates and she tells you how beneficial something is then you miss out. Not to mention, you may never learn anything new.

We have to constantly hold the tension of believing that at any point in a situation something or someone has the potential to be good or bad or present us with new and beneficial information. We have to engage the situation and stay in the critical thinking process, all the while keeping an open-mind. There are two things you can do to help in this:

• When it comes to passing judgment practice syndical optimism. Look for the good in what appears to be bad and the bad in what appears to be good. For example, every criticism of you has good and bad in it and every organization does some things well and others poorly.
• When it comes to principals practice inquisitive protectionism. Hold tight to your principals but look for reasons for the situation to warrant a different action. It may truly be best for you and others if you do.

There is actually a lot of grey in this world if you look for it. It makes life a lot more interesting, attractive, and unexpected. Remember, all you have to do is engage your environment, hold the tension, and stay in the process.

The continuum of team performance is very broad. Most of us do not really know what a high performance team looks like and the average employee has never been involved in one due to their rarity. However, most employees can spot a low performing team in a heartbeat.

Why is it so rare to witness or experience a high performance team? Well, many factors have arisen in organizations that inhibit their existence: virtual employees that allow for little face to face interaction, matrix environments that encourage allegiance to home organizations instead of project teams, and resource management philosophies and tools that strive for partial assignments and attention. Plus, the price of creating a high performance team is immense. Tremendous amounts of resources and time is required to create them.

But, with the correct environment and resources, the benefits of high performance teams are invaluable due to their ability to generate contributions that are greater than the sum of their individual team members. It is all about synergy. Synergy motivates team members through support from one another, generates better solutions through diversity, and sustains performance through shared efforts. Two great examples of successful high performance teams are revealed in the movie “Miracle on Ice” that details the journey of the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team to a gold medal and the more recent book “Lone Survivor” that describes the training and events of a specific Navy SEAL team.

Many factors contribute to teams reaching the high performance level: a single well understood vision; appropriate levels of autonomy; acceptance of diversity in skill, personality, character, and work style; strong individual performance; and a mindset that puts the team’s interest above their own are the biggest contributors.

So, in today’s environment, what can you hope for out of your teams? It depends on your organization and your team’s practices. If no inhibitors exist in your organization and you are practicing traits that encourage high performance then you can expect some good results. But, if your organization and practices are inhibited then the best you can hope for is that some work will get accomplished and little negative impact will result from it.

This is a clear case of the solutions intended to create benefits in other areas causing unintended consequences. All of these efforts to optimize resource utilization are undermining the performance of teams and individuals. What is actually meant to create efficiencies is causing inefficiencies. This isn’t being done intentionally; it is just a just a human system error that has to be played out. Unfortunately, you may be stuck in the middle and there is nothing you can do about it. All you can do is work to the best of your ability with the team and environment you have.

Hang in there.

Your right, a good project management methodology will benefit your organization and its employees immensely. Performance levels of newbies and experienced PMs will rise and supervising them will become a lot easier.

Deciding that you need a methodology is the easy part though. Developing one or customizing an off the shelf version is a monumental challenge. As with all process, identifying what data needs to be captured is fairly simple. Forms and templates can be easily created, in fact, this is usually where creators of project management methodologies start. They develop very detailed project charters, scope statements, project plans, Work Breakdown Structures (WBS), change control forms, etc. However, this is also where the creators get jammed up and leave out important parts of the methodology. During the majority of the project’s lifecycle, with all forms and templates complete, PMs need to know what to do on Monday morning when they come into the office.

The day-to-day work is when PMs are faced with tasks that were supposed to start but didn’t, tasks that were scheduled to be completed but need more time, and new tasks that need to be added to the pile of existing ones. Because of this the schedule will need to be revised to reflect the new reality. Strategies and actions will need to be developed to try and get the project back on track or more in line with the project’s triangle flexibility guidelines. Plus, all the stakeholders will want to know the new current status of the project. This is where a cyclic routine is needed to provide some structure to the ad hoc nature of project management.

A project management methodology with lots of forms and templates that ask for the minutest level of useless detail will die a slow death and benefit no one. Project managers do not have an issue with rigorous methodologies as long as they are practical and beneficial. If all you give them is rigor and little help, then, come Monday morning they will reject or placate it.

A first step in creating your organization’s initial project management methodology should be to hunt around and grab an off-the-shelf version. Most likely it will be thorough enough for your initial draft and if it is a popular one the initial kinks will have already been ironed out. Don’t start with Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) though. It is far too detailed for the beginner and consists of a set of forms, templates, and job aids that do not have an integrated cyclic routine for the Monday morning PM. Do try customizing it by cutting out anything that is not highly valuable. Instead of using a committee to do this, grab two or three star PMs and let them make the decisions. Also, don’t try and achieve perfection in one fell swoop. Start with an understanding that you will have numerous revisions in the first two years of the methodology’s existence. Take the initial draft, use it for four months and ask what could be better. Then revise it and go another four months and do the same. With every version give multiple examples of what you are asking for. Don’t leave the PMs wondering.

It’s also imperative that you select a project management software tool to standardize with. No project management methodology can exist and grow on its own. Here again, start simple. Microsoft Project’s single user version is a great starting point. Use only the most valuable feature at first then add others as time goes on. Major enhancements can be added later, even with components from vendors other than Microsoft.

As you move through the maturation process you will begin integrating the software tools, forms, and templates into a nice cyclic routine. Soon you will realize that not all projects need to follow the same level of rigor, causing you to declare that smaller projects do not need to follow this or that.

At this point you will have a rigorous methodology that provides tremendous value and  you will be able to say to yourself, “I have a good project management methodology and I’m raising the performance level of my PMs because I’ve standardized on best practices and know what is expected of everyone.” Wouldn’t that be nice!

We’ve seen numerous organizations on this path: Blockbuster, Palm, AOL, and newspaper companies. Even the Arlington National Cemetery fell to this problem after the public found out they had misidentified hundreds of buried remains. Separate investigation reports pointed to the lack of established policies and procedures, a failure to automate records, and long-term systemic problems. Thankfully we have also seen many other organizations overcome obsolescence and remain relevant: Napster, Netflix, Google, and Facebook.

If you want to be relevant you need to innovate. When people think of innovation they think of big market disrupters that are totally new and fresh with lots of pizzazz. In organizations seeking relevance this is not the case. Innovation is incremental improvements, unique ways of doing the same thing, and performing the same function but with a different set of problems.

OK, you get that you need to be innovative, but you want to know how to take your first steps towards it. The most important first step is realizing innovation cannot be commanded it must grow out of a favorable environment. Variance in actions, style, and attitude must be allowed for innovation to flourish.

Let me give you an example of how important this is. Everyone knows that Singapore’s cities are meticulously clean with safe streets, minimal congestion, and well-behaved citizens. Government officials are very proud of this but back in the late 1990’s they recognized their cities lacked spontaneity and artistic creativity. They launched a campaign to audition and hire street performers. They then let actors, jugglers, and musicians that played American folk songs loose on the streets. Needless to say, it did little to boost their cities creativity and innovation because their overall governmental policy allowed for very little variance.

Here are some specifics that will help you create an environment that allows variance in action, style, and attitude.

• As a leader you need to get uncomfortable. You need to exert less control and encourage employees to push the norms. There should be much less focus on avoiding failure and more on trying new things. Tell employees what you want and then let them get it done in their own unique way. Grow thicker skin and encourage employees to openly challenge you.
• Make sure a portion of your key employees love change. This can be tested for with psychological assessments such as Myers-Brigg. These employees will want to change for change sake and will come up with lots of ways things should be different. They can be very hard to manage because you have to give them room for their ideas but they won’t be so difficult that they will cause your organization to wander. If you don’t have employees of this character then find them. It is pivotal.
• Look for things your organization seems to hold onto because they are easy or require no effort to have around. Confront people that nay-say ideas because they have been tried before. Ask how your organization can do things differently even if they are not necessarily broken. Randomly pick something and ask your staff to change it and make it better.
• Play with new technology even if you don’t currently have a need for it. Allow employees time to think, ponder, and conduct “what if” experiments. Make sure everyone is an expert at searching Google. Bring in experts from other companies, inside and outside of your industry, to talk about what they do. This will add fuel to your innovation opportunities.
• Get close to your internal or external clients. Fully understand their environment and the day-to-day issues they encounter. Don’t focus only on the areas of their organization that you contribute to. This is where you can find special ways to help them get better. See if they will let you sit side saddle with them for a day (they can call it take your provider to work day).

There is no other path to becoming and remaining relevant. If you want your organization to have an extremely powerful value proposition then you have to innovate. This is not easy and will not happen over-night. Most importantly, it requires you, as a leader, to change in order to create change in your organization.

If you are finding that accountability is still lacking be careful not to assume that the team member doesn’t care when they don’t deliver, as most genuinely do care and feel committed to both the project manager and the project. Instead, consider these top five reasons for missed accountability:

1. Underdeveloped time-management skills. An employee might lose focus, dawdle, or forget various tasks.
2. Inadequate job-estimation skills. An overly optimistic team member may agree to complete a particular task without truly understanding its scope, thus underestimating the amount of time it will take to complete the task.
3. Lack of project-domain expertise. For instance, an expert in a certain discipline may be able to complete a specific task in one week, whereas a novice may require two weeks to successfully complete the task because of countless reworks.
4. Failure to understand a task or activity’s priority in relationship to other work. This typically occurs when individuals can’t grasp their current duty’s impact and how it relates to the “big picture.” They view this project element as unimportant when it’s actually crucial to success.
5. Poor attitude. It’s rare, but sometimes employees simply don’t care, put forth effort or feel a sense of “project passion.” For instance, one worker simply might dislike the project manager. This is most commonly manifested in passive-aggressive behaviors, such as putting on “a face of cooperation and concern” and then undermining the project manager’s efforts in discreet and subtle ways.

Perhaps one of the least enjoyable aspects of the project manager’s job in regards to failed accountability is analyzing the mishap’s implications and determining its root cause. The breakdown could simply be a fluke; or something or someone, including you, might truly be responsible. But remember, your mission is not to determine fault for the sole purpose of blame.

Consider the 1986 tragedy of the space shuttle Challenger. NASA collected data and immediately set to solving the reason why the explosion occurred, dismissing the media’s probe for who was to blame. That’s not saying individuals weren’t responsible for the disaster. However, if the engineers and scientists had sat around dwelling upon blame, they may have never been able to uncover what happened and how to avoid such future tragedies.

Once you have identified the root cause in a situation of failed accountability, you must establish another agreement. In addition to that agreement, what was originally promised is still required for your project’s success. But, this time you must more frequently check up on the project’s status to adequately monitor this second agreement.

Sometimes, despite numerous attempts to uphold accountability, a trend of missed commitments develops with individuals. While these situations may seem hopeless, remember, it’s your job to boost the team’s commitment level to achieve project results. Options include:

• Motivation – The least aggressive approach to boosting employee commitment, this approach is reasonably effective but requires extra effort on your part. Coach the individual on their skill deficits and help them deliver on their commitment. Or consider offering additional enticements to increase the team member’s desire to deliver as agreed. Either of these approaches will enhance the relationship between you and the team member.
• Coercion – Capable of producing immediate, noticeable results, this tactic can strain the relationship between you and your team member. For example, if you’re unhappy with a team member’s work, you might give this worker a poor performance review. A project manager can also coerce change by complaining to the team member’s boss if that person doesn’t work directly for the project manager. Another great approach is publicly discussing the situation, revealing the cause for the failed accountability without using a tone of blame. This tactic puts peer pressure on the team member to take ownership of the situation and change it.

If motivation and coercion fail, and the negative trend continues to plague the project’s success, look for a different environment in which that troublesome employee may work or inflict the least amount of damage to the team’s productivity. The key is to reduce the impact or totally eliminate the source of accountability failure. Some project managers might think it’s OK to intimidate (physical threats or extreme verbal confrontations) someone into job commitment, but keep in mind that it’s illegal to do so. If you’re even tempted to follow such a path, remember that a better option is to seek the employee’s termination or an in-house transfer.

As the project manager, you must master the art of accountability. Despite challenges, you do have the ability to deliver on the expectations of your executives. When you’re feeling trapped, hopeless, and uninspired by your responsibilities as project manager, don’t give in. Instead, take the appropriate steps to successfully hold people accountable – it’s a big clue into how good project managers become great ones.

It’s sad but true. Project managers are at the mercy of others when it comes to producing a finished product, on time, and within budget because they don’t produce the product themselves.  Project managers actually coordinate and integrate the work of others into something bigger, the end product. Getting team members and suppliers to be accountable for their piece of the project puzzle is paramount for project success, but this is easier said than done. So, what usually happens is project team members are late, over budget, and deliver less than what is required. This in turn causes the project to be late, over budget, and with an end product less than what the client wants as well. As a result, project managers are not being accountable for their project results, causing them to catch heat from their management. The process of establishing and holding people accountable can be a source of tension, frustration, pointed words, and angst. As tough as it may be, there are steps that can be taken with project team members, suppliers, and management to maximize the opportunity for success.

The definition of accountability is being responsible to someone or for some activity. It’s commitment — an agreement between two parties, one providing something to the other that is either tangible or conceptual. To build a healthy agreement you must set clear expectations, provide complete and accurate information, and remain open to negotiation. If any of these components don’t exist in an initial agreement between two parties the opportunity for success is greatly diminished.

Let’s examine the elements of good accountability practices through a personal example, painting your house:

You’re no professional painter, so you hire someone, painter Pete. Pete shows up at the agreed-upon time – so far so good. You relay the house’s history of paint jobs, and express what you envision for this job in regards to colors, detail, prep work, and timeframe for completion. You relay project particulars like the neighbors have forbidden placement of ladders on their grass when painting the sides of your house. Also, you don’t want him painting when your guests are in town visiting you for two days next month.

Pete then explains his expertise and how he can meet your needs. He sounds like the kind of worker you’d like to hire, so he gives you his initial bid. It’s more than you budgeted for, so you ask him if he can lower the cost. But for a lower price, he says he can only paint the house’s body, and you’ll have to paint the trim. You need to save money where you can, so you agree to these terms and the lowered price, and hope he follows through as promised. Before he parts, you tell Pete you’ll monitor the work daily.

In establishing this agreement, you’ve set the foundation for holding Pete accountable. You have:

1. provided complete and accurate information by giving him the house’s history and  your neighbors’ restrictions. This is crucial because when either party withholds or provides misleading information, the planned course for action becomes invalid and commitments cannot be met.
2. set clear expectations by outlining items such as the related costs, timeframe, and project direction. Expectations are pivotal to accountability and are usually expressed in terms of time or deadlines, cost, and scope (what the final product should look like). Pete must finish the job in two weeks and for $4,000.
3. remained open to negotiation. It’s only after you’ve provided accurate, complete information and stated your expectations that Pete will be able to offer an estimate. At that point, he must be allowed to negotiate so that when the agreement is set, he takes ownership in his choices and final decisions. Without negotiation, it would be absurd of you to demand that Pete paint your house to a certain level of quality, within a specific period of time, and for a price tag of your choosing.

As in this personal example, when you’re a project manager you’ll want to ensure success by setting guidelines and then reinforcing them with some additional steps:

• Provide team members with an understanding of the project’s envisioned “big picture,” by clearly communicating their role in making that big picture a reality. When employees realize how their efforts, no matter how small, contribute to the big picture, they’ll respect and take ownership of their work, and feel motivated to see it succeed.
• Keep an eye on assignments and progress by obtaining periodic statuses based on a level of reasonable trust. For example, if a project manager knows a team member is reliable he will take a hands-off approach to track the team member’s progress. However, you might need to “babysit” less-competent team members who are given the same assignment. If too much trust is shown when it isn’t warranted, team members may slack off on the job. If too little trust is shown when it isn’t warranted, they’ll feel you’re nagging for no reason. Both situations lead to decreased employee morale, possibly resulting in a distrust of your integrity, which will ultimately undermine the good intentions of the established healthy agreement.
• Infuse staff with the desire to commit to the assigned job or activity by offering valuable incentives. To enhance bonds with the project manager, sometimes care and appreciation can be given to teams in advance of an upcoming request. They’ll connect better with the project manager and feel obligated to perform at maximum capacity when the opportunity presents itself. Ideas include a box of donuts, coveted tickets to a show or sporting event, or a gift certificate to a favorite restaurant.

In the next post (part two) we will talk about what to do when you have followed the guidelines above and commitments are not being upheld.

What directors do not fully know is that these unforeseen events are not due to poor risk management skills but poor fundamental project management skills. This is what happens behind the scenes on a miss managed project: The project manager gets surprised when he becomes aware that his project’s schedule or quality of the deliverable is missing the mark. In an effort to draw attention away from himself, the PM creates a story based on events that could not have been seen and therefore mitigated. These stories are not total fiction, they often contain a good portion of fact but are told in a manner that supports the project manager’s position that he was the victim of these unforeseen events.

What probably happened is the PM did not have a handle on the details of what the project’s current state was. He also did not pay attention to the future work that might be impacted by the current reality. As a result, the current reality was vague and its impact on the future was even more so. In this situation everything becomes a surprise.

Symptoms of poor project management display themselves in several specific ways. Here are a few:

• Not breaking down the deliverables into a detailed set of tasks
• Not identifying the dependencies between tasks
• Not knowing what tasks have been fully completed
• Not knowing how much more remains to be completed on incomplete tasks
• Not curtailing scope expansion based on the project’s scope statement
• Not adjusting future estimates based on estimating error trends
• Not adjusting future work based on current reality and its impact on project completion
• Not tracking external dependencies
• Not knowing if the promised availability of partial resources is being met

If we apply the risk management process to the risk above it would go like this: Risk identification tells us poor project management is a potential risk, risk assessment tells us the potential impact is extremely high, and the risk mitigation plan is to ensure PM’s practice good project management fundamentals.

This is easier said than done, but still very doable. Five actions must be implemented to ensure PM’s practice good project management fundamentals:

1. Project managers must receive training in the fundamentals. The training must cover project planning, execution and control, and it must be sufficiently thorough to give them the practical understanding of the concepts.
2. There must be a standard methodology that project managers can follow. It must be appropriately balanced between planning, execution, and control, and it must be detailed enough to give them a routine to follow that will help overcome the practices of poor project management defined above.
3. Project managers must have access to software tools that enable them to easily follow the training and methodology provided.
4. Project managers must deliver management reports on a routine basis that are metric driven and allow management to verify that good project management practices are being followed as well as an accurate status of the project.
5. Management must support the practice of project management. This is much more involved than you think. It means acquiring a working knowledge of project management fundamentals so you can talk the PM’s language. It also means giving PM’s the time to do their job right and not asking them to take a short cut or disregard portions of the methodology.

In over 12 years of coaching PM’s on live projects, every other week for six month sessions, Systemation has very rarely encountered unforeseen project risks that result in project failure. The reason is that the five actions above were instituted within the PM’s organizations and were sustained long after the six month sessions ended.

Next time a PM plays the victim and blames unforeseen risks audit him. You will learn that most likely it isn’t unforeseen risk that hurt his project; it is poor project management.

There are four key behavior traits that contribute to building strong relationships. You need to be trustworthy, care about the other person, be committed to excellence in your performance, and bond through adventure. Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

Be Trustworthy
It is important for you to do what you say. When you commit to something others listen and then watch. They want to know if you can be trusted to deliver on your commitment or if you will just blow it off. When delivering something will you deliver it as requested and on time or will it be incomplete or late.

Others also want to know if you are going to attempt personal gain at their expense. They will watch how you go about getting things you want, looking for methods or actions that take advantage of others. Even if they are not involved, it will be a tell tale sign that they need to watch their back when working with you.

Care About Them
People want to know if you care about them as a person or see them as an object, a means to an end. No one wants to be viewed as a resource for someone else’s consumption. They want to be known as a unique individual with life experiences, emotions, and a choice in their work demands. Showing someone you care about them requires showing respect regardless of their position in the company and gaining general knowledge of who they are and what they like and dislike.

In practice this means scheduling a meeting or conversation instead of just dropping in or calling. If you can’t schedule in advance, do not interrupt an ongoing conversation, politely wait and then ask if it is a good time to chat. Before you discuss any business ask them about their personal life. When you are first building the relationship, ask general questions about their past and current experiences. Topics could include family, hobbies, vacations, pets, past jobs, etc. As time goes on, you can ask more specifics questions, but wait until you sense trust developing between the two of you.

Another way to show you care is to reflect back the information you receive. If Sally tells you she has a big vacation starting tomorrow, then make sure you ask her about it the next time you see her. If Bill tells you his dog died, don’t forget about it and then ask him if he took his dog to the park two weeks later.

Commit to Excellence
Very few people like to work with low performers. You can’t help but get a little slimed from someone else’s deficiencies and poor results. Working with a person like this can require twice the effort and time of a competent worker. This is why your work attitude and quality affects your work relationships. Committing to excellence means showing initiative and not waiting for someone else to point work out to you. Having a can-do attitude signals you are not afraid of a challenge and that you will carry your weight when times get tough. Remember to be thorough and complete when you declare something finished. This will not only make you pleasant to work with, but it will also inspire others to follow your commitment to excellence.

Bond Through Adventure
Adventures are not all good or all bad; they are a mixture of both. In a work environment they are always experienced with a group of people, and have a general beginning and end. Adventures never kill us nor take us to nirvana and they usually have a central theme. In our personal lives adventures may be vacations, kids sports teams, neighborhoods, community efforts, etc. In work environments, they may be projects, departments in transition, recessions, building moves, working with a very difficult person, etc. Adventures almost always develop deeper bonds because they are shared experiences that we get to survive together, laugh and cry about, reminisce about, and to some extent relive the emotions again.

The key to reaping the benefits of bonding through adventure is by creating adventures in your day-to-day work environment. This starts with identifying the themes of your group adventures, highlighting the highs and lows you experience, acknowledging things will change and the adventure will end, and enforcing the group experience of it.

Each of these key behaviors requires multiple interactions over time to make a difference. There is no pill you can take to instantly have strong work relationships. In the beginning, ten good interactions may take you a level deeper in your work relationship with someone, but one bad one will set you back a level. Over time grace becomes more a part of your relationships and good and bad interactions become less pivotal to the relationships strength. Strong work relationships will not only make you more productive, they will make you a lot happier too.

Every project is launched with an explicit or implied priority scheme for the project triangle. This priority scheme establishes which side of the project triangle is most flexible (lowest priority) and which is least flexible (highest priority) when it comes to leveraging one side to benefit another. In fact, all project planning efforts use a priority scheme to create the initial estimates of what is going to be built, how long it will take, and how much it will cost.

The majority of projects start with scope being the highest priority and therefore time or cost must flex to meet the demands of the scope. Sometimes the number of resources is limited, making time the most flexible; this is when the project end date is determined by planning efforts and not stakeholders. In other situations where scope is the highest priority, the project’s end date may need to be within a 6 month window; this is when the number of resources and money need to be readily available to accommodate the scope and time.

Many different factors determine the priority scheme for projects. If the project deliverable is aimed at beating your competition to market, then time will be the highest priority. On these types of projects cost will be identified as the most flexible side of the triangle. If the project is going to use an iterative methodology for development, there too, time will be the highest priority. Each iteration will be time-boxed to accommodate the development approach, and the number of resources will be held somewhat steady forcing scope to flex the most. In tough economic times, cost will be the highest priority. This is also true of projects that are funded by grants. In each of these situations scope will be the most flexible because there usually is a time frame the project needs to be completed in.

It would be nice if priority schemes remained the same over the life of a project, but unfortunately they don’t. Some of the changes may be driven by external fluctuations in the business environment: economic cycles, competitor behavior, customer demands, etc. These can happen from time to time; however, the vast majority of priority changes happen because of the specific time in the project lifecycle: major intermediate milestones or project completion. Take for example a project with the scope as the highest priority. As the project nears completion, the stakeholders often become impatient and want the major deliverables sooner than later. Now, all of a sudden, time is the least flexible and cost is the most. In iterative developments, as they come to the end of the time-box, it may be most beneficial to make scope the least flexible and time the most. This is because it may take longer to pull out features than to keep them in and finish them late.

Decisions made on projects based on priority schemes usually are critical in nature. For this reason they need to be explicitly agreed upon and communicated. When the project is being planned there should be an agreement with stakeholders about which side of the triangle is the most flexible and which side is the least. Remember, as the project progresses the prioritization can change. It’s not as though there is a specific point in time when the prioritization scheme changes, it usually is discovered over the course of many decisions. But, when it becomes clear, the recognized change needs to be agreed and communicated amongst all project stakeholders. As with all projects, the more clarity people have regarding the project’s environment, the more consensus you will have when making decisions and the quicker the project will be completed.