The Chicken Little Syndrome

“The sky is falling, the sky is falling!”  Ah, the overreaction, the storm that breaks up the calm, or the person who is just trying to get noticed.  Whatever the cause, the Chicken Little Syndrome (CLS) can hurt your credibility as well as cause disruption and productivity loss for the organization.  What is the Chicken Little Syndrome?  This is taking a small fact or occurrence and blowing it out of proportion so that it becomes the center of attention to executives.  Many times the motivation behind it seems pure.  However, it also can be truly dangerous.

In my seminars and lectures, I always talk about “getting to the data.”  If I have more data than you and can speak intelligently about the data, then I have a higher chance of winning a conflict.  Just like anything else, data can be manipulated and misused.  Look at the poor egg.  I don’t know if they are good or bad for you anymore.  It seems every month a new study is released that states and proves the exact opposite of the study before that one.  It is a mystery!  So data can literally become the great chicken and egg debate……Squirrel! (That was for those loyal followers from my seminars ;)

Back to Chicken Little, Wikipedia states, “The Merriam-Webster Dictionary records the first application of the name Chicken Little to 'one who warns of or predicts calamity, especially without justification’ as dating from 1895.”  So the Chicken Little Syndrome is someone who takes a small fact, issue, or data point and uses it to warn of impending doom without understanding what the data point really is.  I see the syndrome almost on a weekly basis and sometimes more often than that.  When it really can become fun is if the data points are theoretical.  For example, take estimations of a work effort.  The first key word is “estimate.”  This word alone implies a guess.  There are tons of theories on how to do estimates.  My favorite estimation theory is PERT or Program Evaluation and Review Technique which was started in 1957 by the US Navy.  You can read more about PERT here.  At the end of the day and regardless of the theory, it is still an estimate.  What is great about an estimate is regardless of how much time and effort you put into the models, it will always be an imperfect value.  Whenever there are imperfections or data points that are open to widening levels of interpretation, the Chicken Little Syndrome can rear its ugly head.

Personally, I always feel that there is something behind the Chicken Little Syndrome.   Something else that may not be right on the surface, but it is the true issue of the prediction of doom.  For example, a consultant is working with an organization to build a work estimation model.  He or she works with client for an extended amount of time and designs an extremely comprehensive model that is +/- 7% accurate.  The model is accurate, but also requires the end user to track large amounts of different data points to help feed back into the work model.  A second consultant comes in and looks at the model and suggests a different way.  The different way is +/- 10% accurate but greatly reduces the amount of time the end user spends capturing the data.  The core team chooses the easier model and accepts the additional 3% of inaccuracy as an acceptable risk.  The first consultant feels strongly that the way it was designed originally is the best way.  To disprove the second consultant, CLS takes over.  The second consultant creates a specific case of where the model that was originally created is much better than the model in play.  This turns in to charts, graphs, and presentations stating that the sky is about to fall.  This grabs the attention of the executives which just finished a hefty investment in creating a system around the second model.  Doubt, worry, and panic sets in.  Meetings, conference calls, and many side conversations are generated based on the CLS.  This causes the second consultant to come in and defend the model that he or she created.  Instead of working in the existing system and focusing on the use of that tool, time is spent debating and validating models.  It becomes a war of presentations.  CLS has taken over the center stage and hours and hours of time are spent trying to prove that the sky is fully intact.  In the end, the first consultant was potentially only looking for validation.  There was time and effort and a great amount of good work placed into the model.  No model was truly right or wrong, they both had advantages and disadvantages.  However, because of the CLS, the organization is forced to choose.  Since the organization had to choose, this means someone won and someone lost an argument.  This is a dramatization, but a great example of what CLS is.

Another form of CLS is also called “blamestorming” or “issue deflection.”  Essentially, this occurs when there is an issue that someone causes or a major mistake is made on a project.  Instead of confessing to the issue or admitting fault, the person contracts the Chicken Little Syndrome.  The person launches into a meeting and creates a great hubbub about something in the complete opposite direction of the issue that he or she had caused.  Maybe a grandiose statement is made.  Sometimes it is just a downright lie.  Regardless of what is said, the intention of saying it is to create a commotion and take the attention off of them and place it elsewhere with the hopes that the original issue will be resolved or go away.  This just creates distraction and ultimately hurts the organizations, relationships, and often people.

I have also seen forms of CLS where the person sees everything as a personal battle.  It is as if the whole company is conspiring to interrupt the individual’s workflow.  These are the ones that every conversation is them discussing how they gave an ultimatum, or had to stop someone from destroying life as we know it.  Each story consists of what an idiot everyone else is and how they alone saved the day.  Usually, it is about everything in their lives.  Work, relationships, fights with the mailman, how the cable company is personally trying to rip them off, etc.  It is a defensive and hurtful posture.

Is there an antidote for CLS?  I am not sure.  It can be combatted in a couple of ways.  First, be savvy to what is really happening.  See if you can identify and work with the person that appears to have CLS and see if you can determine the root cause.  Make sure that they do not see the issue as a battle.  The other way to combat it is to call the behavior out for what it is.  Ask for the motivations.  Ask why they feel so strongly about their statements.  See if you can get them to discuss openly what is really happening.  A great technique to do this is the “5 why” technique.  This technique is a way to help try to identify the cause/effect relationship of an issue.  You can read more about that here.

If you feel like you are about to expose the next grand conspiracy or are trying to deflect blame or a mistake off of you, take a step back.  Are you creating a bigger issue than what it really is?  Could there be alternative solutions?  Is it possible the data you are referencing is not correct?  Make sure you are being objective before you raise such a large issue.  If I asked you to name someone that contracts CLS often, most of you reading this can come up with a name almost immediately.  Sometimes, these people just want to be appreciated for doing a good job.  Sometimes it is their insecurities.  Whatever the cause, nine times out of ten, there is a cause.  Find it and you too can stop this horrible disease.

No day but today!

Rick

R2 Website 2.0

How do you portray what project management is or better yet, what project management consultants do in fifteen seconds or less?  That was the question that I was trying to answer.  Like many small businesses, I originally setup my website.  I am also very active in social media through Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and of course, this blog.  It was time to upgrade the website and reintroduce the new and improved rsquaredconsulting.com.  Our new home page blends my speaking engagements, twitter activity, and blog posts all on one page while showing what it is that we do.  We wanted to be able to get across the services that we provide without the client having to hunt and peck.  It was time to call in the experts!

I contacted longtime friend Chase Morrow who currently runs IT Rockstars in Birmingham, AL.  We rolled up our sleeves and got to work.  I am very happy with the end result.  The home page came out exactly as I had hoped and Chase and his team did terrific work bringing my vision to fruition.  So please, check out www.rsquaredconsulting.com and take the new website for a spin.  Please let us know what you think!  When you are done, check out the link for IT Rockstars and see if they can assist you in the same way they did me!

Rick

Advice to Pass: My Mother’s Favorite Sayings

I apologize to my readers for not posting anything in the last couple of weeks. My mom passed away recently and as you know by now, each event is a learning opportunity. As we were gathering for the service and meeting with the pastor, he had asked my brothers and me to reflect and talk about some of our mom's favorite sayings. He asked what were things that we would hear around the house and things that she said that we will never forget. Here are some of those sayings:

If you seem to have a problem with the whole world, maybe it isn't the world with the problem. Ever feel that way? That it seems the whole world is coming down on you? I definitely know the feeling. When my mom would say this to me, it was not something that I really wanted to hear. Especially at that time! However, when I would think about it, I would be experiencing a defeatist attitude or just overall having a grumpy day. This saying would make me step back and think about how I was approaching the day. Believe it or not, it helped.

Someone needs to go back to their room and have an attitude adjustment! This was another famous saying that you didn't want to hear. Again, a grumpy day was taking over. We would go back in to our room and begin. It would first start with a mumbling of, "I don't have an attitude problem, she has the attitude problem." I would then trail off. Pretty soon, I would forget about what I was mad about in the first place and lo and behold, the attitude adjustment would work!

If you want someone to learn a behavior or skill, make them care about it. My mom was a saleswoman and seminar leader as well. She always would tell us the story of how motivation truly works. She would tell the story this way:

Ask somebody to learn how to play the tuba. Most likely, they will not or they will say that they can't. Now, take away their family, or home, or something that they hold dear. Tell them that they can't get it back until they learn how to play a specific song on the tuba. Amazingly, they will learn how to play the tuba.

The moral of the story is that unless they care about learning, doing, or being a part of whatever it is you want them to do, it won't happen. Find a way to make them care, and you will get results.

My mom had tons of sayings and knowledge nuggets that she passed on. I know my brothers and I are successful due to the drive, determination, and work ethic that she helped form in us. She will be missed. Rest in peace.

Rick

The Iron Triangle of the PMO: People, Processes, and Technology

Project management has always been fond of the "Triple Constraint" or the "Iron Triangle." In traditional terms, the sayings represent the three constraints on a project: cost, schedule, quality. It is often taught as the iron triangle because if one shifts, one of the other sides must also shift in order to stay balanced. For instance, if schedule is the constraint and you are behind schedule, you either add staff (cost) or reduce scope (quality) to bring the date back within the constraint. As I continue to work with executives and their PMO's, the iron triangle for the PMO is people, process, and technology. Company after company continue to make significant investments in one of the three areas and often neglect the other two. For instance, a company will purchase Clarity, but then not hire project managers thinking that the tool will fix their issues. Another company may make significant investments in creating the process but then not hire enough project managers to complete the process. Each time this occurs, the company will then question the value of the investment. Just like in projects, the PMO must make investments and measure their success on the three sides of their triangle.

Process
In most of the organizations that I work in, they have some sort of governance or process that is documented. Many times, these have been purchased from various consulting firms and consist of templates and mandates of which documents are completed when. As outlined in an earlier post, "What About My Capacity" I outline how to quickly determine the amount of work it takes to complete the project management process. Companies are often frustrated at the lack of information or quality of information that they receive during project reviews. Their answer is to create templates and mandate the completion of the templates. However, they ask people who are not familiar with the concepts or the templates to fill them out. This is akin to handing somebody who finished high school math a tax form and expect the same results that a trained accountant would give them. An investment in the process is a key factor in the creation of a successful PMO. However, the process alone can't fix your issues.

PeopleThe right people in the right positions can make a tremendous difference in the quality of project management. I will state it as plainly as I can for the record: projects should be run by trained project managers. It is that simple. As an example, you are at a car repair shop because you have something wrong with your engine. You are told that the mechanic that is going to fix your car will not be able to fix it for 4 hours. Right then, a 17 year old kid walks up and says, "I know about cars, I can fix it." Do you wait for the trained mechanic even though it means waiting four hours or do you let the kid fix it? Most of us would wait. Why? We want someone who is trained, certified, and warranties the work. We also want someone with experience. You want experience and training. This is true for many professions: Teachers, Doctors, Dentists, Surgeons, Executives, Accountants, Home Builders, Engineers, Architects, etc. This is true for just about every profession.......except project management. I have worked with organizations that have invested many millions of dollars mandating processes. These processes require the project managers to complete forms, risk planning, project scheduling, etc. The process is so important that it is mandated. Then when they roll out the process, they do not have enough people to complete the demand for project management. This forces them to select someone who is not a project manager to complete the work. However, if the work is completed with poor quality or the results do not add up, it is the profession of project management whose value is questioned. Not the people performing the task, but the profession itself. In some cases, I have seen resources that cost three or four times the amount a project manager would cost to complete the activities. These people do so begrudgingly and will readily admit they don't want to do that type of work. I have seen organizations lose highly valuable resources because they were making them do activities outside of the job that they were hired to do. Why do we invest so much in a process, but do not invest in the people to complete the process? Or better yet, we think that if we by the right product, it will solve our issues.

TechnologyI have completed over 70 project and portfolio management technology implementations. I have worked with Clarity, Microsoft Project, Planview, Primavera, Daptiv, @task, and others. These are all great tools. However, they do not solve your project management process or people issues. What they will do is make your poor processes run faster or expose the lack of quality of information. They are compliance tools that help make your processes and people efficient. If the project manager you have selected on a project has never really written a project schedule or been trained how to do so, why do we think making them enter it into Clarity is going to make it better? I will give you the number one reason why PPM tool implementations fail: lack of executive mandate. Unless the executives prove that they are in the tool, looking at the data, using the data for decisions, and mandating compliance, then the tools just become another process that project managers (or the people selected to do project management) must fill out. I have taken over many failed PPM tool integrations. In each case, the executives were never really looking at the information or making sure that the information within the tool is accurate. I worked with one organization where they spent a significant amount of money purchasing and installing the tool. They never trained their project managers to use the tool properly because they thought that the cost was to high. In three months, the data was so disjointed that the project managers held a meeting and decided that the tool was too hard to use. So they all agreed that they would use the tool as a project reporting tool, but would maintain all plans and schedules outside of the tool. The executives never really checked the tool because they were using printed reports that came from the tool. The tool had become an afterthought. The next question then become, what is the value of the tool? In other organizations, they will say that the tool was the wrong tool and will consider purchasing yet another tool to try to do the same things. This tool then is not implemented properly so they will question the value of project management itself. It is a downward cycle that happens in roughly 70% of the clients that purchase the tools. They think that the investment in technology is going to solve their issues. It just exposes them.


PMO Value: Process, People, and Technology
Unless there is investment in all three branches, the PMO will usually either fail or become a non-strategic resource. To build a successful PMO, the following must occur:

• People - If project management is important to the organization, then invest in project managers. Stating that you do not have the funds to hire a project manager and then turning over the duties to someone who costs three times as much is not only a waste of money, it is provides poor quality. Invest in the right people and the right training.
• Process - Do not just invest in templates and mandates. Make sure the investment is made to educate the executives on the value of project management and the value of the proper process of project management. Dr. James Norrie in the book "Breaking Through the Project Fog: How Smart Organizations Achieve Success by Creating, Selecting and Executing On-Strategy Projects (Jossey-Bass Leadership Series - Canada)" has the best answer to the value of project management that I have heard to date: the value of a project manager grows exponentially the earlier you involve them in the process. The other key to proper process is to ensure the right amount of governance to the right amount of projects. There should always be some sort of tier system within projects so that the process to complete the governance of the project does not cost more than completing the project itself.
• Technology - Invest in technology that will enable the organization to enforce compliance, each roles data builds on the other roles, and provides key decision metrics to executives. The technology should be invested in that streamlines the process, stops duplicate entry of information, is the single source of the truth, and provides value add activity. If you are entering the same information into three different systems or the system that you are entering information in is not the single source of the truth, then we are adding cost for process, not for results.

I have seen many organizations spend tremendous amount of money on one or two of the sides of the triangle while neglecting the others. To be successful, the three sides must be balanced to an organizations needs and ample focus should be placed on all three.

Be strong and stay true to your principles,

Rick