Tag: project design

“Corruption in public projects and megaprojects: There is an elephant in the room!” – re-post

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As announcements of unprecedented economic responses rolled on, public procurements worked in an emergency regime. Economic relief plans opened the door to opportunities. Opportunities put to test both the business integrity and the integrity of public institutions. International organisations – such as Council of Europe, OECD – started publishing warnings of corruption risks across industries.

I have not managed investments and/or big infrastructure projects yet, although many years ago I was in charge of overseeing a portfolio, which included a number of infrastructure projects. I remember the complexity of those projects and, in consequence, how high maintenance they were. There was no corruption involved, as reported later by auditors. Yet, my state of alert was constantly high. And understandably so. Seven digit invoices, delays, explanations and justifications, demands for additional budget were some of the red flags. Plus, rubber boots and dusty construction sites came in a package.

The article “Corruption in public projects and megaprojects: There is an elephant in the room!” by Giorgio Locatelli, Giacomo Mariani, Tristano Sainati, Marco Greco equips project managers with a number of valuable insights, both at the planning and at the implementation phase. As the executive summary of the article states: “This paper leverages the institutional theory to introduce the concept of “corrupt project context” and, using the case study of Italian high-speed railways, shows “the impact of a corrupt context on megaprojects.”

In addition to that, the article analyses the salient facets of corruption and characteristics of projects which make them more or less prone to corruption. One can use them as red flags. Authors raise an important number of issues, which are to be paid attention to, in particular as the topic of corruption can still appear as highly controversial in some project management contexts, in particular in times of emergencies.

“Corruption in public projects and megaprojects: There is an elephant in the room!” by Giorgio Locatelli, Giacomo Mariani, Tristano Sainati, Marco Greco, published in the International Journal of Project Management, volume 35, Issue 3, April 2017, pages 252-268, available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263786316301090

Managing the “No”

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Learning to say “No” can be a vital skill for a project manager. Learning to deal with “No” on the receiver’s end is equally important.

There are many “No”s a project managers finds him/herself obliged to deal with. It could be a “No” to additional funds, or to budget revisions, or to deadline extensions. Or a “No” from a service provider to a request to speed up the delivery. Or a “No” from a team member.

How do you deal with “No” on the receiving end? Is it “I do not take “No” for an answer? Or “How could you, after all I’ve done for you?” Or “Wait until your boss learns about it!” Or a blanc staring, Scarlett’s style?

With experience, you’ll learn to anticipate “No”s coming your way and you’ll deal proactively with it.

Here is a story:

The project sponsor asked for a project on three sites in three different countries. Each had a resident rep of the sponsor. As we started work, the representative of the sponsor on one of the sites changed and with him – the expectations.

We re-entered into negotiations, with some heavy weights on our side. During an intense exchange, it became clear that we are moving nowhere. They said “No” to all our proposals. We dropped that site. We still kept the two other project sites with plenty of opportunities to do good. It also freed some of our resources, thanks to which we launched a regional platform.

We kept the loyalty of our clients from the dropped site. And to compensate the local stakeholders for the lost opportunities, we invited them to the other sites to benefit from the products we delivered.

Couple of years later I met the sponsor’s rep and it gave me great pleasure to share all the good things we did on the other two project’s sites and the regional spin off.

Top five most frequent questions in time of crisis

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These past two weeks, I have been contacted for advice on what to do with projects in these new and unexpected circumstances. Crisis management, here we come.

While my advice and tips matched the variety of situations the projects were in, I noticed several common take aways:

1. Damage control and remaining in control are strongly interdependent. Analyse what you can control and acknowledge that you cannot control the pandemic and its extent. Unless you are a project manager in a hospital in an epicenter.

2. Analyse your project’s work plan/charts and be honest about what can be done in the period announced by the authorities if your country is in a confinement/quarantine. Have a plan B and be ready to change it, as things evolve. Communicate it well to all concerned: sponsor, stakeholders, providers, consultants.

3. Check all your contracts, the obligations part in particular, both yours and the other parties’. Now it’s the time for forgotten or overlooked things to come to light. Get the help of your organisation’s lawyers, if needed. Check the clauses on causes for suspension and delays for payments. Notify the other party, if required so. For new contracts, check what you can agree on and sign electronically.

4. Now it’s the time to move online if you have not done it yet. There is a variety to choose from, from Trello, Monday, Basecamp to Zoom and clouds. Make the technology work for you.

5. Teams will watch you for cues. So, control yourself, by distinguishing your fears from facts. Acknowledge team members’ fears. Offer a mirror of calm. Help when you can. Summon all your empathy and compassion.

The seven habits of mentally strong project managers

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Over the last two decades, I worked with numerous project managers from different industries and the ones who are rock strong share a number of things in common. Now more than ever these habits will be tested and new ones will be developed. I’ll leave these ones below for now:

1. Mentally strong project managers practice self-awareness. They know that mental strength is their choice which requires commitment and a big sense of humour. They prefer self-irony to ego.

2. As they are building on self-awareness, they remain pro-active. They will pick up the phone first. They own the mistakes and failure. They act responsibly towards the team, the client and the sponsor.

3. They practice humility. They are humble enough to acknowledge that there are things they cannot control. They will however take seriously damage control. They refocus their attention on the things they can control and take the team through this. They care about what the team and the client thinks. The rest is a facebook thread to them.

4. They say “Hello, gorgeous!” to the unexpected, and projects by definition are plentiful of those. They know that even with the best of planning skills, there is a great deal of unchartered waters. Mentally strong project managers are as flexible as a willow and turn adversity into opportunity to bring return on investment.

5. They are best pals with risk management. They will ponder, calculate, analyse, involve others. They will put people first and thus sleep well at night.

6. They put relationships first. They know that reports, deliveries and milestones will become past. Relationships last.

7. They keep things in perspective and share it with others. They will respond to a colleague’s call for help and give the best of advice they can.

The perils of copy-paste in projects

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“Just copy-paste from other projects’ documents” was a response I heard quite often, at the start of my journey in the project management world. It was usually coming in response to a concern from a project team which lacked data or status information. I still hear the same kind of response sometimes. With much regret, because such a response goes against the tailor-made approach and contextual project management. Evidence shows that it is a no-no in development management.

Every organisation has project management methodologies. There are formalities, templates, procedures to follow and rightly so. There is also the reality on the ground and the context the project will be implemented in. Making these two tensions meet and lead to a positive outcome might require finding an answer equivalent to “Give to God what’s God’s and give to Caesar what’s Caesar’s”.

If the project team was to follow the copy-paste advice, the stakeholders’ analysis and needs assessment would not matter. The stakeholders voice will be silenced. As a result, there will be no (or very limited) partners’ commitment and ownership of the project and its results. Will this bring the change the tax-payers gave money for? Highly unlikely. Will this be professionally fulfilling for the project team? I know the answer. You may want to find it yourself.

I truly believe any project is unique and requires a unique approach in both design and implementation. The context will demand it. So will the project team’s professionalism, accountability and integrity. Yes, it will take time and resources. With good planning, commitment and couple of tips it can be done.

Do’s in conceptualising:

  • Determine the project’s boundaries
  • Put together a classic literature study list (it is also nice to go back to the student-mode)
  • Place all materials on a shared drive for the team to have access to 24 hours a day (particularly helpful for remote teams)
  • Put together a stakeholders registry and decide on interviews modalities
  • Apply participatory methods when talking to people: they will feel empowered and gladly share their knowledge and aspirations
  • Stay aware of biases and assumptions, your own and others’
  • Bring in the data
  • Decide how the differences between the team members’ assessments will be dealt with in full transparency and with integrity

Do not:

  • Search for the truth: it is neither practical nor realistic. Accept a degree of subjective
  • Discard what does not support your idea. It will boomerang. Try not to get it wrong
  • Stick to the story just because of the evidence you collected at some point in time. Stay prepared to change your story if new evidence appears.

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Need more arguments against copy-paste, see the story of the “expert” – found to have “mastered” the “art” of cut-and-paste in respect of the same evidence for several different cases https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48444605

 

“The Power of No: Because One Little Word Can Bring Health, Abundance and Happiness”, by James Altucher and Claudia Azula

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The book is centered around stories told in turn by authors. These are personal stories and examples. I read the book in 2015. I find it continuously relevant in professional and personal environments.

Any project manager finds him/herself overwhelmed with demands and requests. The book offers tips on how to regain the control of your project. As they say, “it is you who manages the project, not the other way around”.

The-Power-of-No

Of the tips of interest, I collected for instance:

– how to say No to stress;

– how to get unstuck;

– what thoughts are useful or unuseful or how to separate yourself from your brain;

– burn the excuses (“I cannot change”, “I have too many responsibilities”, “what would they say”….);

– “no-complaints” diet.

I loved the concept of “Homo luminous” this book introduced. The book suggests quite a few practices/exercises to make it happen. Gratitude is one of them. This part inspired me to start sending hand-written Winter Holidays cards, to express my gratitude to anyone who has done me a favour or was of good service and/or made a difference in a project.