The World Is Becoming More VUCA...Influence Without Authority • Organizations are getting flatter...

HOUSTON, TX, USA | 5–8 NOVEMBER 2017

#PMOSym

PMO17BR103

The Adaptive PMO: Enablers of Effective Project Management Today

Tim Wasserman, Chief Learning Officer

Strategy Execution

PMO17BR103PMO17BR103PMO17BR103

Outline for Today

• The world today

• The growing importance—and challenges—of project execution

• A leadership model for leading project-based work

• Five critical actions for PMO Leaders

• Q&A

The World Is Becoming More VUCA

Polling Question: How Long Can Companies Expect

to Survive Today?

• What was the average lifespan of a company on the S&P 500 in

1958?

• What is the average lifespan of a company on the S&P 500 today?

– 49 years

– 37 years

– 26 years

– 18 years

– 11 years

©2017 Duke Corporate Education and TwentyEighty Strategy Execution

61

18

Corporate Lifespans Have Declined…

Dramatically

Senior Leaders Are Feeling the Pressure

of CEOs expected the level of complexity to increase over the next five years

of CEOs, LESS THAN HALF, feel prepared to handle this complexity

64% of CEOs said their businesses were more volatile, uncertain and complex

79% 49%…and only

Source: IBM Global CEO Study: Capitalizing on Complexity, 2010

VUCA Is Impacting the Project Environment

Source: PMI Pulse on the Profession 2017Source: PMI Report Navigating Complexity 2013

23%Medium Complexity

37% Low Complexity

HIGH COMPLEXITY

41%• Research reveals that the average

BUDGETS for HIGHLY COMPLEX PROJECTS are nearly TWICE AS LARGE; more dollars at risk for highly complex projects


Project-Based Initiatives Are Growing

Source: PMI Job Growth and Talent Gap Report 2017-2017

The volume of initiatives and the number of people leading project-based work will continue to grow

2027

87.7M65.9M

33%INCREASE

10 YEARS

2017

“2.2M jobs per year for the next 10 years…”

Projects Are Becoming More Important…

and Failure Risk Is Increasing

Source: Why Good Strategies Fail. EIU. 2013 Source PMI Pulse on the Profession 2017Source: PWC 4th Annual Global Portfolio and ProgrammeManagement Survey

Where Projects and Project Leaders Are Being Stressed

Organizations must embrace a shift in

their organizational planning and

execution processes to improve their

overall adaptabilitySources: PWC 3rd Annual Global Portfolio and Programme Management Survey, 2012Source: PMI Report Navigating Complexity 2013

TOP TWO:Characteristics of complex projects

Multiple stakeholders

Ambiguity of project, features, resources, phase, etc.

57%

48%

TOP TWO:Reasons for complex project failure

Re-prioritization

Change in strategy

47%

41%


What are the implications for

your PMO and your role?

Polling Question

The Implications We See

Source: PMI Pulse on the Profession 2017Source: PMI Report Navigating Complexity 2013

Increased business

complexity

Growth in project-

based work

Increases in strategic

projects

Greater project

complexity

Greater risks for

organizations

Increased

opportunity for

project leaders

Traditional PM Tools: Necessary, But Not Sufficient

Adaptive Skills

• Driving collaboration and influencing

faster and across more boundaries

• Innovating by owning problems and

designing solutions for emerging

challenges

• Flexibility in knowing when to and how

to change process to accelerate

performance

• Engaging and developing members in

the context of projects

TOMORROW

TODAY

Essentials are still important, BUT leaders now need adaptive skills to succeed

Essential Skills

• Project management effectiveness is

facilitated by mastering hard skills

• Building a solid plan

• Managing schedule, scope and

performance

• Establishing effective routines

• Maintaining accountability

Our POV: The SELF Model Provides the

Integrating Framework for Adaptive Execution

Adaptive Strategic Execution: Addressing the Challenges

Aligning Work With Strategy (CSIA)

Building Effective Teams

(LET)

Design Thinking for Results (new)

Influencing

Without Authority (MWA)

Making Sense of Complexity

(new/LSE/ECP)

Building highly effective distributed and diverse strategy

execution teams

Building the influence required to effectively and

efficiently redirect the work activity to optimize strategy

execution

Making sense of thecomplex context within

which the strategy mustbe executed

Aligning strategy with work activity to reduce the

strategy-execution performance gap

Applying design thinkingto improve strategy

execution results

Reconfiguring the work

activity to deliver optimal business value in executing

the strategy

Managing stakeholder relationships to ensure

successful strategy execution

Driving and influencing the

change required to execute

the strategy

Make Sense of Complexity

• The world is growing ever more complex

• There are more variables, variety and variation present than ever

before

• PMO leaders need to understand in what environment their

project managers, teams, projects and organizations are

operating to be able to reframe what they think, rewire what they

do and reconfigure how they respond

A Number of Variables Affect Organizations

Four Operating Contexts

CUR:COU:EN:000 ver. 1.0©2017 Duke Corporate Education and

TwentyEighty Strategy Execution

SimpleContext

ComplicatedContext

ComplexContext

ChaoticContext

Low

OUTCOMEPREDICTABILITY

ENV

IRO

NM

ENTA

LC

ERTA

INTY

High Low

Hig

hLo

w

Checking the engine pre-flight

Flying a plane

Dealing with an air traffic control

emergency

Dealing with volcanic eruption in Iceland

Influence Without Authority

• Organizations are getting flatter and more networked

• Non-hierarchical organizations are able to effectively sense and

respond to changes in their operating environment

• PMO leaders must be able to lead work and direct strategy

and actions without always having formal authority to make

the call. The need to incorporate attitudes and behaviors that

emphasize informal influence when managing up, down, across

and/or out

Leadership From the Center Is Vital


In a VUCA World,

Leadership From the “Center” Is Vital…

Does NOT Mean

Manipulating the weak managers

Avoiding the harsh, punitive customer

Saying yes when no is a better response

DOES Involve

Seeing the relationship as a partnership

Finding common ground

Agreeing on goals and expectations

Managing ongoing communication wisely

Delivering results

Strategic Influencing Defined

Build Effective Teams

• An increasing volume of work is getting accomplished by teams—

formal or informal

• Being a technical expert is necessary, not sufficient. Team and

talent development skills are required

• PMO leaders must be able to lead highly effective teams,

especially in unstable and often distributed situations. They

must be able to build, coach and lead diverse and distributed teams

that are high performing, resilient and responsive to complex work

and volatile contexts

© Duke CE / 23

The Team Performance Curve

Source: Kaatzenbach, J., Smith, K., The Wisdom of Teams, Harper Collins, 1993

Working group

Pseudo-team

Potential team

Real team

High-performing team

Real Team Attributes

Source: Kaatzenbach, J., Smith, K., The Wisdom of Teams, Harper Collins, 1993

Committed

to a

common

approach

Mutual

accountability

Small

number

Complementary

skills

Committed

to a

common

purpose

RealTeam

Leaders Manage the Team-Building Process

Source: Barrows, E., & Marshall, E. Building Effective Teams, DukeCE & Strategy Execution ASEP Course

Structure

GovernanceDirection

Relationships

Team

Performance

Leadership

Results

Context and Culture

Actions to Drive Team Performance

Drive and Influence Change

• Paired with VUCA is almost constant change; organizations literally must

change or die

• Changes to organizations—their structures and operations—will persist and

take place during the life of complex projects. The more complex the project,

the higher the likelihood of failure

• PMO leaders need skills that help organizations develop the

capabilities to navigate the uncertainty caused by complex

environments. Participants learn the science behind how individuals

respond to change, and receive tools to reduce resistance and increase

engagement in a change process

© Duke CE / 28

The Challenges of Change Need to Be Considered

CH = D x M x P > C

Change Dissatisfaction Model ProcessCost of the

Change

Source: Beer, M., Organization Change and Development: A Systems View, Goodyear Publishing, 1980

The likelihood ofchange in a

situation is a function of…

The dissatisfaction with the current

state

The process that will help guide the

change

The model or vision of the

future

The personal cost of making the

change

Leaders Need to Understand and Accommodate

the Change Required

• VUCA-level change is generally

transformational change

• A clear change vision and

direction need to be provided

• PMO leaders need to be able to

enable the creation of new

capabilities not previously resident

in the organization

© Duke CE / 30

Managing Critical Relationships

• In order to thrive, leaders must manage critical relationships

• Trust-based relationships form the basis of effective interactions in the

work place—enabling project success

• PMO leaders need to know how to work with internal and external

stakeholders to achieve the most optimal outcomes by focusing on

diagnosing stakeholders and their behavior, overcoming obstacles and

conflict in relationships and negotiating for beneficial outcomes

© Duke CE / 31


Source: Duke Corporate Education, Influencing and Collaborating for Results, 2005

Leaders Must Engage Key Stakeholders


Fundamentals of Building Relationships

The Project Aristotle Study

• Google conducted the “Project Aristotle” data study to try to find out what made

the perfect team

• Their hypothesis: In perfect teams, everyone “likes” each other—with good mix of

introverts, extraverts, friends, etc.

• Data showed: team composition did not matter!

– No correlation between team membership and team success

• What does matter? How people interact!

– Equality in conversational turn-taking

– Ostentatious listening—physical cues that you are listening

• These create psychological safety

In Closing, What Can You, as PMO Leaders, Do Back

in Your Organization?

• Identify who the architects, translators and doers are in your

organization

• Seek clarity and alignment of expectations of each

• Determine how much of your role should include being a translator

• Assess your capabilities in the five critical areas and choose two to

focus on

• Identify which capabilities your project managers need to be better

“center-leaders”

Learn more at strategyex.com/ASEP

Tim Wasserman

Strategy Execution

Ed Barrows

Duke CE

Questions & Answers

The World Is Becoming More VUCA...Influence Without Authority • Organizations are getting flatter...

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