In the book "On the verge of failure" Mats Tyrstrup reports his research study on everyday management within Ericsson. The study was realised over a three year period and addressed 60 managers and project managers.
Tyrstrup's study shows that while some projects met the goals and results intended, just as many projects led to results that had very little to do with the original goals. The results achieved were divergent.
The requirements put upon a project manager to handle the divergence and the sliding of ambitions therefore becomes much greater. There is no possibility to plan uncertainty and risks. Flexibility and being prepared for change are the keys to success. Projects are driven forward by events and are characterized by constant rescue work. "There is no right way from the beginning" says Staffan Sjstrm at Scania, Project Manager of the Year 2005, "You have to learn to love divergence. Right decisions have to be made in real-time. Do the right thing now!"
Unfortunately, a very common experience is that as a project manager you can freeze and stem changes regarding the demands of the client, but the client will still carry through a change of expectations. As a project manager, you will measured up against these new, and sometimes unconsciously changed, expectations.
More active clients
If the project's conditions are in constant change there has to be a better, faster and more continuous communication between the client and the project manager. How can we create the active and interactive teamwork which is necessary in many projects?
A committed steering group is one solution, but is often too slow in the decision-making process, and how often do you really encounter committed steering groups?
In some cases amendment councils have been created within client-driven IT projects. Here the client, or the client representative, meets with the project manager and daily operational decisions are made. Decisions that are made concerning greater divergences are always anchored in the steering group.
Do we choose the wrong project managers?
Mats Tyrstrup talks about improvised leadership and claims that leadership to a far greater extent is practiced step by step along the way, or even retrospectively!
We require more and more from the project managers. They have to know how to interpret divergences, i.e. what happened or was about to happen, and then explain this to the client and to the project group. How do occurred events affect the project and ourselves and how should we move forward?
Is it maybe so that the burnout that we sometimes see in project managers and co-workers is a result of not enough analyzing the project manager's tolerance towards stress and his/her ability to handle the insecure, maybe sometimes even fear?
This is the reality I want us to learn to understand and accept. We have to remove our focus from trying to create an image of the business in the form of static models, and instead learn how to handle the business adapted to each situation in the practical work. By giving the project managers ability to work improvised and handle divergence, we might even get them to love the unpredictable.
