leading

1

leading projects
in changing environments
2

• Founder, Accelinnova
• President, Evolutionary Systems
• Director, Institute of Collaborative Leadership

Pollyanna PIXTON
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Overview

• Challenges
• Embracing Change
• Planning
• Execution
• Project Management
• Project Leadership
• Summary

4

project leadership challenges
5

Standish Group Study, reported by CEO Jim
Johnson, CIO.com, How to Spot a Failing Project
6

• Improved Results
• Better Tools
• Trained PMs
• Adaptive Methods
• Breaking projects into small chunks
• Delivering features fasterfor user feedback

7

Never or Rarely Used 64
Always or Often Used 20
Sometimes 16
Rarely 19
Often 13
Never 45
Always 7
Standish Group Study, reported by CEO Jim
Johnson, XP2002
8
deliver the right product

• Build Trust?

9
meet market windows
10
meet customers changing needs

• Protect Team Boundaries

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• The way you will thrive in this environment is by
  innovating innovating in technologies,
  innovating strategies, innovating business
  models.
• - IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano
  

12

Leaders must
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deliver business value
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increase
productivity

15

develop effective solutions
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innovate!

• Leadership Influence

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• On both sides of the business model

sales
costs
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get more done by doing less

• Get more done by doing less

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lead in the marketplace
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• Its no longer enough to respond to change today
  organizations must lead change or be left
  behind.
• - Pollyanna Pixton
• 
  

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How ?
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Leadership Tools

Strategy
Collaboration
Cultivate Innovation
EmbraceChange
Decisions
Real Options
Delivery
23
Leadership Tools

Strategy
Collaboration
Cultivate Innovation
EmbraceChange
Decisions
Real Options
Delivery
24
Purpose Based AlignmentEveryone inline with
company goals

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Strategy

• Traditional strategic planning starts at the
  top and cascades down
• Can be incompletefor project teams and daily
  decisions

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Strategic Development

Mission
Vision
Values
Strategic
Strategic Intent Strategy Purpose
Long-Range Goals
SCO / 5Q
Annual Objectives
Action Plans (what, who, when)
Tactical
Individual Business Objectives
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Strategic Development

Mission
Vision
Values
Strategic Intent Strategy Purpose
Strategic
Long-Range Goals
Start Here
SCO / 5Q
Annual Objectives
Action Plans (what, who, when)
Tactical
Individual Business Objectives
28
Purpose-Based Alignment

High
Innovate
Do We Take This On?
Market Differentiating
Achieve and Maintain Parity
Who Cares?
Low
High
Low
Mission Critical
29
Purpose-Based Alignment

High
Intellectual Capital
Partner
Market Differentiating
Dont Do More Than Others
Dont Do It
Low
High
Low
Mission Critical
30
Start Up

• Exercise Pick a project.

Pick a project.
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Purpose-Based Alignment

What is the purpose of your project?
High
Innovate
Do We Take This On?
Market Differentiating
Achieve and Maintain Parity
Who Cares?
Low
High
Low
Mission Critical
32
Strategy

• Decision Filters
• To make daily decisions
• Schedule projects
• Which features to develop

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Whats On Your Billboard?
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Strategy

• The Five Questions
• Whom do we serve and what do they want and need
  most?
• What do we provide to help them?
• What is the best way to provide this?
• How do we know we are succeeding?
• How should we organize to deliver?

35
Leadership Models

Strategy
Collaboration
Cultivate Innovation
EmbraceChange
Decisions
Real Options
Delivery
36
Projects
Balancing Project Portfolios Doing Things Right

• Why Projects Are Different

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Project Differences

High
Bulls
Colts
Simple, young projects.
Agility to handle uncertainty
Process definition to cope with complexity
Need agility
Tight Teams
Skunks
Uncertainty
Cows
laissez faire
Complex, mature market
Dogs
Need defined interfaces
Dogs
Low
Low
High
Project Complexity
- Todd Little
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Partitioning

Colt Project
Bull Program
Dog Project
Cow Project
Remember Loose Coupling and Strong Cohesion
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Project Complexity

• Team size
• Mission criticality
• Team location
• Team capacity
• Domain knowledge gaps
• Dependencies

40

additional complexities?
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Project Uncertainty

• Market Uncertainty
• Technical Uncertainty
• Project Duration
• Dependents

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additional uncertainties?
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Reduce Uncertainty or Complexity

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your spider diagrams?
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Leadership Development

People
Business
Technology
Process
46
Leadership Development

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got the right leaders?
48
Leadership Models

Strategy
Collaboration
Cultivate Innovation
EmbraceChange
Decisions
Real Options
Delivery
49
Leading Agile
Collaboration Tools

• Collaboration Model
• Collaboration Process

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open environment right people
foster innovation step back
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Unleashing Innovation

• Collaboration Process

Collaboration Process
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Summary

• agree to the goal
• brainstorm
• group
• prioritize
• people volunteer
• and by when

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leading collaboration
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• right People
• trust first!
• let people tell
• you
• stand back

55
Leadership Models

Strategy
Collaboration
Cultivate Innovation
EmbraceChange
Decisions
Real Options
Delivery
56
Definitions
Decision Tools Get More Done by Doing Less
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Whats Business Value?
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calculation
Value Calculation
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calculation
Value Calculation
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calculation
Value Calculation
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Trust
any help?
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High
Innovate
Do we take this on?
Market Differentiating
Parity
Low
High
Low
Mission Critical
63

calculation
Purpose
Business Value
Costs and Benefits
64
other considerations
?
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time to market
66

risks
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flexibility

• Collaboration Model

68

• team size and experience
• market uncertainty
• domain knowledge
• team capacity
• technical uncertainty
• external dependencies

69

Purpose
Business Value
Costs and Benefits
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what does your bv look like?
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Considerations
Purpose
Costs and Benefits
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model not a number

• Build Trust?

73

what do we do?
74

when do we do it?
75
how do we decide?

• Protect Team Boundaries

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Real Options
- Chris Matts
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Project Management

• Change Management

Iteration Tips
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my
fear in iterative
development?
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what I want?
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test first development
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testers are the gatekeepers
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test cases built in
same order as development
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Trustworthiness
everyone needs to know the
value
86
feature list

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prioritize based on business value
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include Business Value and Purpose
Purpose Parity
Business Value
85
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• measure
• business
• value velocity

90
add what to make better decisions ?

• Transaction
• Costs

91

one word of caution
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• It is a bad plan that admits to no
  modifications. -- Publius Syrus (ca. 42
  BCE)

Project Management
93

Considerations
Purpose
Costs and Benefits
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at the end of the iteration

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did model inputs change?
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adjust bv model run features thru
model re- prioritize
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business value Velocity

98
Iteration Review

• Ask the Questions
• Update definition of done based on business
  value, if required?
• Is the project done?
• Need to add new features? Add to the best-fit
  iteration
• Team plans and starts the next iteration

99

now you can ask
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• Do I have enough business value to go to
  market?
• Will I have enough business value when my market
  window opens?

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Project Management
Agile Leadership

• How Do We Deliver?

102

• You tell me what you want to doand I help you
  do it.
• -- P. Pixton

Project Leadership
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Trust
build a culture of trust?
104
Project Management

• Quality Management

Dont Abdicate Leadership to Agile Processes.
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• a place where
• people want to be

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• people
• have
• what they need to succeed

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• People dont resist change
• they resist being changed.
• - Peter Scholtes
• 
  

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Summary
109
Leadership Tools

Strategy
Collaboration
Cultivate Innovation
EmbraceChange
Decisions
Real Options
Delivery
110
Purpose-Based Alignment

High
Innovate
Do We Take This On?
Market Differentiating
Achieve and Maintain Parity
Who Cares?
Low
High
Low
Mission Critical
111
Project Differences

High
Bulls
Colts
Simple, young projects.
Agility to handle uncertainty
Process definition to cope with complexity
Need agility
Tight Teams
Skunks
Uncertainty
Cows
laissez faire
Complex, mature market
Dogs
Need defined interfaces
Dogs
Low
Low
High
Project Complexity
- Todd Little
112
open environment right people
foster innovation step aside
113
Summary

• right People?
• on Team or not?
• island or integrate?
• Leadership
• Authentic
• trustworthy
• Trust First!
• be
• collaborative

114

• right People
• trust first!
• let people tell
• you
• stand back

115

Considerations
Purpose
Costs and Benefits
116
Real Options
- Chris Matts
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Use these tools to

• Focus on Strategic Alignment Identify your
  Decision Filters
• Deliver the Right product Right Balance your
  portfolios
• Make better decisions Build BV models and
  exercise them as inputs change
• Collaborate Unleash innovation

118

119

• Agile Project Management, Jim Highsmith
• Agile Planning and Estimating, Mike Cohn
• Good to Great Why Some Companies Make the
  Leap... and Others Don't, Jim Collins
• The Seven-Day Weekend, Ricardo Semler
• Orbiting the Giant Hairball A Corporate Fool's
  Guide to Surviving with Grace, Gordon MacKenzie

120

• accelinnova.com
• evolutionarysystems.net
• 1 . 801 . 209 . 0195
• p2_at_ppixton.com

Pollyanna PIXTON