The Yin and Yang of Project Management and Leadership

Successful project managers not only have to be good managers, but also strong leaders.

Now the dilemma here, is that the skills and attributes of strong leaders are quite different from those of good managers.

It is very important to recognize these differences and maintain an appropriate  balance between the "yin" of good project management and the "yang" of strong leadership.


Let's examine some of these differences and the challenges that a project manager will face in trying to be both a good project manager and effective leader, at the same time.

Create the Plan/Share the Vision
A project manager needs to create a plan for their project and manage to that plan.  To also exercise project leadership, the project manager needs to share a broad and bold business oriented vision for the project.  For example, your project may be to provide an e-commerce capability for your organization, and as a manager, you need to develop and implement a plan for the project.  As a leader, you must  share the project vision at every opportunity, emphasizing (for example) how the project is an important component of your organization's strategy to transform its business model, increase revenue and enable further business opportunities.  

Control Change/Embrace Change
As a Project Manager it is important to control and manage change.  However, as a leader, you recognize that change is not only inevitable, but also desirable, as it generally reflects a more appropriate or more current need from your client.  So as well as controlling change with your "project manager hat", with your "leader" hat, you need to welcome and embrace change.

Be Rational/Be Passionate
Project Managers tend to be analytical and rational, which are excellent attributes for managing projects.  However, as a leader, you need to inspire and encourage your team, be very excited and passionate about your project and its business goals and constantly share your enthusiasm for the project with your project team.  Steve Jobs was famous for his "reality distortion field" whereby he refused to accept that something was not feasible, and in the process significantly raised the bar on what Apple was able to achieve.

Avoid Risks/Take Risks
As Project Managers, it is (or should be) in your DNA to anticipate and avoid or mitigate risks that could adversely affect your project.  However, as a leader you will also have to accept that great goals are  usually also accompanied by great risks, and will need to work with your team to conquer those risks with the same level of teamwork, skill and preparation that you would use, say, to climb a very high mountain.

Focus on Processes/Focus on Goals
As Project Managers, we are also trained to apply good processes and best practices in the planning and execution of our projects.  With a focus on processes, we can get mired in technical issues and debates and sometimes lose sight of the original project goals.  We need to quickly put back on our leader hat, and re-focus on the project's business goals.  This can lead us to explore alternate solutions that can often be a better path to those business goals.   

Skills and Knowledge/Values and Attitudes
In an interesting post on 10 Leadership Lessons from the IBM Executive School on Forbes.com a few months ago, the author described how when IBM were establishing an Executive School in the mid 50's, they hired a company to research and determine the skills common to executives so that they could in turn groom and train their managers for executive management.

It was discovered that unlike lower level managers, the executives they examined did not seem to share any common skills and knowledge.  What they shared were certain values and attitudes.

Whilst the project management skills and knowledge you need are fairly common (hello PMI PMBOK® Guide), the leadership values and attitudes you hold can vary quite widely, so look around and see what works for other leaders and embrace and develop those that you feel will be most effective for you.

What are some of the values and attitudes that you feel have helped you in leading your projects?

There Is No Such Thing As Scope Creep

A question I get asked quite often in my project management training classes and webinars is "How should you deal with scope creep".

I have a very simple answer.  "There is no such thing as scope creep.  Don't talk about it, don't write about it, don't even think about it".

What you need to talk about is scope change, and as Shrek said to Donkey in the movie Shrek 2, "Change is good".

Now this does not make sense to many project managers.  How can scope change be good?  Does this not mean that your client is trying to get some changes made to the project, without paying for them or allowing the schedule to be extended.

No it does not.  We tend to assume that is the case. Some clients may even tell us "we have no more money for this project, so just do it".

My advice is, just treat this as good input and reply,  "I understand - let us go back and examine the changes you have requested and we will let you know their impact and how we can accommodate them".

Before we go any further, let's explore why scope change is good and something to be embraced, rather than resisted. 

Scope change can be needed by your Client for a variety of reasons, such as:
-  It was missed during the Scope Definition stage
-  It is needed because of a change in business direction
-  Some project stakeholders were not involved in the scope definition and are now demanding the change.

Whatever the reason, the project is going to be much better off with the change, so we need to find a way of implementing it in a "win-win" way.

Some of the ways you can accommodate a requested change include:
-  The change is minor and can be implemented with no or minimal cost
-  The change can be easily implemented as an enhancement, or in a future phase of the project
-  The change does have a cost and impact if implemented immediately and this cost and impact should be determined.

But if the client has no more money for the project and the changes do have a significant cost, now what?

Here's a true story.  I was overseeing an important project for our company, when the project manager came to me and said "The client wants some changes".  I replied "You know our process - fill out the change request with the cost and get him to approve it".

He came back and said the client said he has no more money for the project, but needs the change.  This was an important project for us to be successful on, and even though it was fixed price, I decided we would absorb the change.  A few weeks later, the project manager came back and told me the client wants some more changes.  Again I told him to fill out the change request and submit it to the client.  This time I received an irate call from the client asking me to fire the project manager.  "He keeps coming to me asking for more money and I keep telling him we have no more money".  I said, "Don't blame the project manager.  I asked him to give you the change requests".

We went back and looked into what we could do and came up with the approach that maybe the client would accept not doing some other functions that we felt were not as beneficial, in exchange for doing the requested changes. When we submitted our proposal to the client, to our surprise he accepted it without hesitation.

So don't forget, trading scope can be a great way to accommodate scope changes without incurring additional cost.  The client benefits with the changes, and the project benefits from keeping on schedule and within budget.  Talk about "win-win".