Top Tips For Senior Managers
Develop a robust attitude to Risk
This tip has been given the top slot very deliberately as effective risk management is the key to successful portfolio management.
In most project management methodologies risk tends to be viewed in a very negative sense. It is generally defined in terms of something that might occur to adversely affect you achieving your goals. Accepting the view that risk may not always have an adverse impact, it may be more accurate to say that risk is not necessarily something going wrong - it is simply something turning out differently to how you expected or planned for. Indeed risk and uncertainty go hand in hand. This view allows the possibility that risks can be turned into opportunities if managed effectively. Risk management is therefore fundamentally about taking better decisions.
We recommend our Risk Management infoKit which guides you through analysing, planning for and managing risk in your organisation.
Most education institutions tend to be inherently risk averse and view risk as something to be avoided at all cost whereas leading edge and entrepreneurial companies see the opportunities to be found in a high risk environment. The risk averse mindset often results in the expectation from senior management that a Project Manager's role is to remove risk. Managing risk is most definitely not the same as removing it and risk management is undoubtedly easier in the right type of supporting culture. There are a number of management attitudes frequently encountered in the sector that run counter to effective risk management and do themselves introduce risk to the success of projects and programmes. Carnegie Mellon Institute has identified seven management principles essential for effective risk management.
Risk won't go away simply because we choose to ignore it or fail to plan for it. If we can start to create project and programmes with risk factored into them we stand a greater chance of turning risks into opportunities and creating new opportunities as an organisation.
Develop a flexible approach to Planning
Central to the JISC infoNet approach to managing projects and programmes is the concept of the 'Sliding Planning Window'. This means only planning ahead so far as is feasible and sensible at the time. It is also known as Rolling Wave Planning.
At the start of any project or programme there will be much that you don't yet know. A common failing (especially amongst the risk averse) is to try to plan a project in minute detail from beginning to end hoping to eliminate uncertainty and hence risk. This isn't possible. A detailed plan takes a lot of time and effort to develop and maintain. A plan that is too detailed too far ahead will simply consume resources and become inflexible. You must view the plan as a flexible framework and be ready to adapt and change it as the project progresses. It is no good sticking rigidly to a plan that isn't working and ploughing ahead in the wrong direction. An example of how you might think about planning is to imagine you are captaining a yacht that needs to get from A to B. You know where your objective (B) is but the optimum route to get there may vary from hour to hour as wind and weather conditions alter.
A major problem with this is that senior managers often feel they have a responsibility to ensure that Project and Programme Managers have a detailed plan at the start of a project and they then 'freeze' that plan at too early a stage. This advice is not intended to provide any kind of justification for poorly planned projects where scope creeps and timescales drift; it is simply stating that, in the real world, even the best planned and managed projects will have to cope with uncertainties and changes.
This is where effective risk management and project management can help us run projects in the 'real' world. Too often plans are formulated on the basis of an ideal situation where everything goes according to plan. This may be a result of naivety, optimism or what could be termed 'Macho Management' - a push for what a senior manager sees as the ideal without taking account of the risks involved. This manifests itself in pressure to prepare and 'freeze' plans too quickly and pressure to deliver too early. The more expensive the project/programme the more likely this is to occur. A flexible approach using the Sliding Planning Window can help to reduce risk and ensure a successful outcome.
Develop the readiness for Change
We can however offer you a wealth of advice and experience from the sector in the form of our Change Management infoKit.
As a sector we are undoubtedly getting better at managing the mechanics of running projects and programmes. However, along with our attitudes to risk and planning, our ability to introduce change is a key area for improvement. This is especially true of major initiatives that include an IT component. We may resolve the technical issues effectively but many initiatives do not achieve the desired benefits because we do not adequately prepare staff for the change.
Sadly this is one area where we aren't able to offer you a ready solution because the most effective way to manage change will depend on your organisational culture and the type of change you are trying to introduce.
