As project managers, we ask a lot of questions. But we need to ask ourselves if questions are the right form of communication.
When developing a communication management plan (PMBOK Guide, 4th Edition, Chapter 10) it’s helpful to define how people like to communicate. This encompasses both their preferred medium (email, phone, meetings) and the form your communications should take to be most effective.
It may seem harmless enough, but a question is not always the most effective way to communicate.
When soliciting work performance information we may ask about the status of an activity or deliverable. In the role of project leader or representing the voice of the customer we may ask about alternative solutions or push the edges of solutions/methods presented by team members.
But different people take questions differently.
- To some, a question is a direct request. What you mean as an exploration of a topic is taken as a demand or request to do something.
- To others, a question is a direct affront to their role.
- And questions about money, to non-money people, can raise uncertainty in your leadership and cause discomfort.
Like all communications, what matters is what listener takes away, regardless of your intent.
Pay attention to the effect questions have on various stakeholders and determine whether they are an effective form of communication with that person. Once you learn that, add it to your communication management plan to keep as a reference.
Use your questions wisely.
I’m a big fan of project management methodology. However, applying formal project management to marketing companies can be difficult. One of the challenges marketing firms have in adopting project management methodologies as described in the PMBOK Guide (The Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 4th Edition) is that they aren’t often described in terms of the types of projects marketing companies or art departments do every day. Nor is the order of events generally the way marketing companies work.
One example of this is the classic approach to time and schedule development. In the PMBOK Guide, a project’s schedule is determined by the number of resources applied to the project and the types of resources applied to a project. This seems to be a hold-over from manufacturing or engineering (or other projects where the degree of uncertainty is much higher). But it doesn’t apply to a marketing department. For most marketing companies, a project’s schedule is determined by the client. The client has a specific due date where things have to be ready by to coincide with a holiday season or product launch, event, sales presentation or trade show.
The due date is the same, regardless of the number of resources applied to the project or task. It needs to be done by the due date.
This gap often drives creative groups to look at Agile project management processes since it sounds faster and looser. The problem with Agile for marketing companies is that the work doesn’t easily fit into the length of a sprint. The deadlines for a marketing company need to remain determined by a client’s needs or a strategic decision on timing.
For most marketing departments or agencies, neither process nor resourcing decisions drive deadlines. Clients drive deadlines.
That being said, not even the PMI would argue that every step of every project management knowledge area needs to be used on every project. The PMBOK Guide is a collection of different best practices held together by one model, one conceptual set of guidelines, rope on how they can all fit together. But there are many ways of applying the techniques and ideas to different practice areas. And specific practice areas, like marketing, should piece together what works best for them, balancing the benefits of proven and tested processes with the need to meet clients’ needs and to operate as efficiently as possible.
Formal project management methodology can be overkill on some projects or a lifesaver on others. In general, it’s clear on when to go through the detailed steps of a methodology and when not to. It depends on the overall size of the project.
- A short project doesn’t require much in terms of formal project management. The steps you’d go through in putting together all the documents and spreadsheets of a methodology are done automatically as part of getting the project done.
- A long project should go through formal project management steps to make sure all bases are covered and that nothing is dropped or forgotten. (This is especially true during when gathering requirements for the project.)
The problem comes when you think the project will be short and it turns out to be a long one.
To avoid this, do a quick, 10,000 foot estimate on the project’s size before getting started. In the language of formal project management (like PMI’s Guide to the PMBOK), this is called a top-down estimate. It can be based on experience and past projects you, or other people in your organization, have done. Templates or archives of these past projects can be helpful sources of information for the estimates.
Take the time to actually put together an estimate, as opposed to just eye-balling it or basing your estimate on “gut” alone. It can save you from the headache of underestimating the tools, resources or information you need to get the project done.
Question: What is the most useful methodology for managing projects? Is the PMBOK the best approach on all projects?
Answer: Success is the basic metric against which to compare the value of any particular project management methodology. If the project is a success then the methodology used to manage that project must have been successful. Since every organization deals with different variables, different people, different circumstances and different goals, every organization needs to find the methodology that works best for it.
The strict application of any particular methodology will likely do more harm than good. Its like asking the world to fit a text book, rather than using the knowledge in the textbook to accomplish something in the real world.
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