The three most misused terms in project management

Although PMI has had a glossary of PM terms in the marketplace for many years, too many people continue to confuse others (and themselves) through the use of some common terms.

Sure, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but in our profession we have a hard enough time bridging expectation gaps to make things worse by calling a spade something other than a spade.

In no particular order, here they are:

Project charter: The document that PMI defines as “a document issued by senior management that formally authorizes the work of the project to begin (or continue) and gives the project manager authority to do his job” has been confused with everything from a project plan to a vendor contract to a Statement of Work.  As the name itself implies, a charter is needed for “chartering” – it is not the plan.  The plan should follow the charter and not the other way around.

Project plan: As per PMI, the project plan is “a formal, approved document that defines how the project is executed, monitored and controlled. It may be summary or detailed and may be composed of one or more subsidiary management plans and other planning documents”.  However, if you were to ask most people what a project plan is and they will very likely say “that’s what you create in MS Project”.  Not only does this create confusion, but it also reduces the perception of the planning phase of a project to “creating the schedule”.  Forget about risks, budgeting, quality, scope, communications, procurement, human resource planning and so on.

Risks vs Issues: This has become a standard part of every risk management presentation or consulting engagement that I do.  I’ll never assume that the audience understands that a risk is “an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on a project’s objectives”.  Although PMI does provide a definition for an Issue, I prefer  to define an Issue as an event that has occurred that, if left unresolved, will impact one of the objectives or success criteria for a project.  Many times when I ask a client to describe their project risk management methodology what I will get is a review of their project issue practices.

You may wonder why I wrote an article on this – this lack of consistency and precision is a contributing factor to why project management has struggled to be recognized as a profession.  The work of associations like PMI, IPMA and others is helping, but we (as the practitioners of the profession) need to incorporate this consistency into our daily interactions.

When blind process adherence overrides common sense

Sears parts and service call center appears to be taking a page from Radio Shack when it comes to asking for unnecessary information – they have also supported my belief that the best designed process in the world cannot overcome a lack of common sense.

I needed the model number of a replacement HEPA filter for my parents’ Kenmore vacuum cleaner.  The Sears website and a variety of creative Google searches did not help in locating this information, so I decided to call Sears in lieu of visiting a store.

After hearing their opening IVR message to expect an excessive waiting period, I was pleasantly surprised to reach a human being within only three button pushes.  I was soon to discover that the IVR might have been more helpful and less irritating.

I informed the parts and service agent that I was only calling to get a part number (and not to order a replacement part) and that I had the model number for my vacuum cleaner – she asked for my name, address and postal code.

I repeated the fact that I was purely interested in a part number and was not placing an order and was again asked for this same information.  I asked her why she needed it and she indicated that it was to pull up my data to help in locating the model number.

At this point I reminded her that I did have the model number and she asked me a third time for my name and address.  I told her point blank that I did not see any valid reason to provide her with my personal information when my only query was a part number.  She finally gave up in defeat and accepted my model number.

To add insult to injury, by accident or by design, even though she did search for the part number, she could not locate a Kenmore vacuum cleaner with that model number (even though I gave her the number from the user manual).  Recognizing that there was nothing further that she could do to vex me she indicated that my vacuum cleaner model number was invalid and offered to transfer me to customer service.

Rapidly reaching the conclusion that my quest to get this information was doomed to failure, I informed her that this transfer would not be desirable, hung up the phone and will now be going in person to a Sears store.

When process non-compliance is a failure of management (instead of change management)

You’ve just rolled out a significant change for your organization only to realize that in the real world if you build it, they may not always come.

There is very little as frustrating as finding that there is not universal compliance with the change being deployed.

Where did you go wrong?  You mentally check off the best practices that were followed:

• Trying to “walk a mile in the shoes” of the affected staff
• Communicating throughout the change life cycle
• Trying to address the “what’s in it for me” factor through your change design and communications
• Actively soliciting and incorporating feedback in refinements to the change
• Involving peers of the affected staff in the change decision making

The reality is that nearly any organizational process change will not enjoy 100% success.  Regardless of how much coaching, convincing, communicating, cajoling or threatening you do, once the masses have been converted over to the new way of doing things there are always going to be a few stubborn Luddites who refuse to play ball.  The rationale or logic behind this resistance may be irrelevant – you may simply have to accept that you will not be able to win everyone over.

With some change, a lack of total compliance is merely an annoyance, but for other types of changes it can eventually cause the failure of an initiative.

A key contributor could be a failure of management – unfortunately, even in this economy, many managers feel that their job is to be “everyone’s buddy”.  This translates into their unwillingness or inability to hold their staff accountable for work activities and results.  In the case of process compliance, such behavior can be infectious similar to the Broken Window theory – previously compliant staff begin to think “if they can get away with not following the new procedures, why should I?”

When it comes to change, the best advice may be the wisdom of Spock: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”