INCREASING YOUR RETURN ON PROJECT INVESTMENTS...Henry Gantt is known for his planning and control...

INCREASING YOUR RETURN ON PROJECT INVESTMENTS

INNOVATION PARTNERS INTERNATIONAL

Cheri B. Torres, Ph.D., and Bob Laliberte, MS, PMP

www.innovationpartners.com

T H E N E E D F O R C H A N G E

w w w. i n n o v a t i o n p a r t n e r s . c o m ! A u g u s t 2 0 1 3

http://www.innovationpartners.com

http://www.innovationpartners.com

The Need for ChangeThe State of Project Management

Project Management as an explicit effort has been practiced since the early 1900s. It was advanced by two students of Frederick Winslow Taylor (famous for his theory of scientific management), Henry Gantt and Henri Fayol. Henry Gantt is known for his planning and control charts, which are still in use today: Gantt Charts. Henri Fayol was distin-guished for identifying the five management functions, which still inform project and program management. In the 1950’s modern Project Management was developed and the technologies associated with it evolved through the 1960’s when the Project Management Institute was formed.

Project Management has enabled many organizations large and small to profitably implement an increased number on projects on-time, to-scope and on-budget, providing a greater ROI. Most of them use the PMBOK (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge), published by The Project Management Institute, as the standard for man-aging projects. Within those standards are well developed processes for communication and resource development critical to the people-side of successful Project Management (PM). In fact, every Knowledge area within the PMBOK Guide is dependent on people collaborating around discovery, problem and opportunity solving, inventing, design-ing, managing and leading.

Our global economy, propelled by the internet, changes far more rapidly than it did in the 1960’s and 70’s. We no longer have the luxury of 1-3 year planning cycles. The world today demands we become more agile in order to respond to exponential change, increasing com-plexity and the need to do more with less. Agility is a function of information, knowledge and creativity, which are dependent upon technology and people. This requires broader and more significant collaboration on projects to enable agile action and the perpetual evolution of pro-ject plans. Does this mean Project Management must change? In our experience, the answer is no. Agile PM tools and techniques have already evolved. Our work with clients tells us the Project Management tools are solid; what does need to change is the underlying mental model of the organization.

Getting the most from your Organization

Organizations and PM trainers often speak about collaboration using language such as: promote teamwork and skill sharing, engage stakeholders, manage performance with rewards and incentives, talk to workers, allow employee decision making, strive for employee delight, and use employee audits. This is language grounded in scientific management, which under-stands all aspects of an organization, including people, as objective parts of the organizational machine. From this mental model, people are there to serve the project and the organization’s strategic plan. The natural emphasis here is on managing the parts and the interactions among the parts, including collaboration and employee involvement to best serve organizational goals. Managing collaboration, however, is not the same as genuine collaboration. Some or-ganizations have recognized that real collaboration requires culture change; however they often add it to a list that includes teamwork, training, and awards and incentives, as if it is another workplace concept that can be imple-mented by management. Culture is not something that is implemented or managed, rather it is a reflection of the way things are done around here. If your organization has a traditional top-down management culture, it is likely you are not optimizing full collaboration and involvement simply by nature of your culture.

The dilemma for leaders and managers in most organizations is that the organization is designed to manage every-thing, yet human systems do not flourish when they are managed. People come alive and get involved when they are valued for their strengths, have a sense of autonomy, are engaged in participatory processes that facilitate meaningful collaboration, and when they have the opportunity to make significant contributions to the success of the organiza-tion. Objects and processes can be managed; people need leadership and opportunity.

People are not objective elements of the workplace. Efforts made from a mindset that sees them as another problem, something to be fixed or managed, are often the source of wasted human potential. Studies have shown that regard-less of demographic differences, the greater the extent of involvement in the management of one’s own (or one’s team’s) tasks, the more engaged the employee.1 In addition, when employees feel valued and respected, they develop a sense of community and ownership. Gallup points out in its 2013 State of the American Workplace study, however,

Increasing Your Return on Project Investments

I n n o v a t i o n P a r t n e r s I n t e r n a t i o n a l! T h e N e e d f o r C h a n g e - P r o j e c t M a n a g e m e n t

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that only 30% of employees report they feel highly engaged. Gallup says that mismanagement is the root cause of disengagement.2 Our experience, however, is that it is not mismanagement that is the cause, but rather it is the very idea of managing people. It is the very idea of what an organization is.

People are living systems that change, grow, evolve, learn and respond to their environment in as many different ways as there are ways. Current neurophysiological research sheds light on what supports flourishing for human beings as well as what causes us to withdraw and withhold our gifts and strengths. Barbara Fredrickson’s extensive research3 demonstrates that people are at their best and able to contribute the most in an environment of mutual re-spect and trust and where positive emotions—such as curiosity, interest, appreciation, gratitude, and inclusion—are abundant. She also demonstrates the human capacity for resilience in these same situations. Such environments en-able groups of people to bring their full potential, including their knowledge and creativity, to a crisis or a challenge. People involved in such collaboration more readily see ways to solve problems and innovate in the face of ambiguity.

What we are describing is a transformation in how we understand the nature of organizations. It is a move from or-ganization as machine to organization as living system, centers of infinite human capacity. It is a transformation from people as servants to Project Management and Strategy to Project Management and Strategy as servants to the goals that people want to achieve together. It is not Project Management, per se, that needs to change, but the environment and the mindset with which these tools are used.

The core functions of Project Management, which support implementation of organizational strategy, remain intact. The practice of PM still enables organizations to achieve their goals related new products, functions, services, organ-izational structures, LEAN initiatives, facilities or other initiatives intended to meet strategic priorities. The differ-ence, however, is that both strategic planning and project management are used to enable people to collaborate effi-ciently and effectively to achieve shared goals. With such a reversal or flip in mindset, Project Management become more agile through organizational learning strategies.

Our clients that have and are making these shifts in leadership framing are experiencing greater engagement and agility. They are discovering that optimizing genuine collaboration and meaningful involvement requires a new set of structures and processes that govern the way things are done around here. This includes a new mindset for leadership and management and new workplace practices that foster a culture of collaboration and innovation.

BUILDING COLLABORATIVE CAPACITY

Collaboration is described as people working together to achieve shared goals; which is exactly what Project Management calls for. The obvious response has been: implement training in the area of collaboration. This is what many organizations have done without the hoped for payoff. A not-so-obvious response is: why is there such a demand for collaboration training when people have been collaborating since we first came together in clans, thousands of years ago. In fact, as human beings, we have a natural affinity for sharing and cooperation; it is one of the reasons we have been so successful as a species. So why is it such a challenge for people in organiza-tions?

As we mention above, historically, our focus on individualism, our hierarchical leadership structures and our belief in the scientific management approach, including our ideas about motivating people through punishment, monetary reward and incentives, have resulted in a set of organizational systems, processes and practices—now embedded in every sector—that inadvertently inhibit our natural tendency towards collaboration and innovative thinking.

In today’s world of exponential change, evolving technological advancement, virtual and global business, big data, big information and sometimes big compliance most people believe that collaboration and innovation are essential for success. The fact is: the capacity for innovation, collaboration and engagement are inherent in every human being. We are designed for those very behaviors—we just need the right environment!

Most organizational environments are not designed for collaboration; and yet, it is exactly what is needed to further enhance organization and project success. A customer-centered culture requires people at every level of the organiza-tion collaborating and empowered to deliver exceptional product and service. Fully involved employees are more likely to be looking for ways to improve and innovate products and services.



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First we create our social systems;

then they create us.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE WAY WE DO BUSINESS? Innovation Partners International recognizes that Project Management success is a function of collaboration, rather than collaboration being a function of Project Management. This reversal seems simple, but it is a radical shift in un-derstanding the power of collaboration for organizational sustainability and success. It means collaboration takes the center seat and Project Management becomes a tool that helps people work together to achieve shared goals.

For this reason, we turn our attention to developing genuine collaboration within your organization. In our work with clients, we have discovered that collaboration is either enhanced or diminished by leadership, workplace practices and processes, governance procedures and organizational structures. If you want to increase employee involve-ment, increase your capacity for collaboration by optimizing relationships and connec-

tion and making it natural and easy for people to collaborate in achieving organizational and PM goals. This will result in an increase in not just the financial bottom line, but also your social and community bottom line. It’s a sim-ple, straight forward equation:

! !3 = f(C) x (L+P1+P2+P3+S)where the triple bottom line [financial, social and community profit (!3)] is a function of collaboration (C), which is dependent upon Leadership (L), workplace practices (P1) and processes (P2), governance procedures (P3) and organ-izational structures (S).

WHERE TO STARTIn essence, we are talking about a culture of collaboration, but to change culture, one does not set out to change the culture. Recall that culture is the way we do things around here and collaboration is people working together to achieve shared goals. It is as simple, and as challenging, as that: You change culture by changing the way you work together and changing the framing for how the work is done. Start where you are, with whatever it is you are looking to achieve in carrying out projects or other initiatives. Collaboration and involvement are about practicing inclusive ways of work-ing. Creating a culture of collaboration is filled with both challenges and opportunities. It calls for a systems level approach that builds on strengths and stretches to meet the future. In addition to accessing the collective intelligence necessary to solve the challenges you face, such approaches offer antidotes to current cultural problems that result in low morale, dissatisfaction and frustration.

We have researched, designed and utilized Appreciative Inquiry4 and the ROC Six PackTM (defined on pages 4-5) to support PM processes, LEAN practices, organizational change, leadership and design. It complements the PM life cycle, allowing PM to support high stakeholder involvement in achieving shared goals.

• Project Management The ROC Six PackTM parallels the PM lifecycle providing a collaborative framework that enhances research, designs and ownership of results. Processes and practices that generate a culture of collaboration result in high stakeholder in-volvement. People en-gaged at the outset and essential to the imple-mentation and continu-ous evolution of products and services find mean-ingful ways to stay in-volved and bring their strengths and assets to PM challenges.



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People commit to what they help create.

• Systems Solutions/Business Model Innovation In working with organizations who are frus-trated with managing employee involvement, we have utilized methods and tools that generate high engagement and allow access to the collective intelligence of the whole system. These same processes support innovative solutions to wicked problems and enable mergers and acquisitions to move for-ward successfully. We have found that employing Appreciative Inquiry combined with the ROC Six-PackTM, collaborative technologies, and design thinking lead to exceptional results.

• Strategic Planning In our experience, using a strength-based, outcomes-focused highly collabora-tive methodology that engages the whole in the process of strategic planning helps clarify the desired future, identify core strengths, and develop strategies to move forward collectively. It forms the foundation for shared goals that is essential for collaboration to ignite.

• Leadership There is only one way to in-crease engagement in an organization: Just do it. In working with organizations, our first step has been to engage leaders and key organization members in reviewing and revamping management practices and processes with an eye toward redesigning for collaboration and desired organiza-tional outcomes. Leaders and managers have typically required training in facilita-tion, engagement and interpersonal prac-tices. Organization member training has reinforced and expanded natural collabora-tive strengths and dialogical skills.

• Culture Change Culture change emerges in organizations that revamp and redesign their management practices and workplace processes. Successful implementation of collaborative management practices and high engagement workplace processes rein-force a culture of collaboration5. Tools have been developed and utilized that enable assessment of current culture and the readiness of organizational members for change. This is especially useful in mergers and acquisitions or consolidation of industries where dif-ferences in current cultures of merging organizations complicate the formation of a new and desired culture. Work has been done with organizations to engage the whole to (a) identify personal, current and desired cultural values, (b) define the behaviors and systems that support collaboration, innova-tion and other important cultural values and (b) move from the current culture to the shared desired culture.

WHAT IS THE ROC SIX PACKTM?

Maximizing your Return on CollaborationTM requires a new mental model6 for leadership, culture and organizational design. We have found that utilizing the ROC SixPackTM develops the core organizational muscle necessary for resil-iency and strength in meeting the challenges of today. These six practical dispositions or mindsets generate new ways of thinking and working that ultimately transform the culture from the inside out. Collaboration and innovation become natural outcomes of highly involved people working together for shared goals.



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Radical Appreciation A mindset that continuously seeks opportunity and possibility. Regardless of the circumstances—positive or negative, problem or success—it embraces what is and looks for what gives life. It invites diversity and inclusion. It celebrates conflict by bridging polarities: inviting curiosity and sparking exploration. It looks for the best of what is, wherever it can find it. It replicates and enhances success.

Disruptive Inquiry A mindset that delights in uncertainty and allows ambiguity in order to make room for creativity and innova-tion. It fosters and expands the ability to ask great questions. It celebrates the questions that challenge assumptions and ordinary patterns of thinking and doing. It rewards curiosity, difference of opinion and wonder. It holds system structures lightly, making room for them to evolve.

Potent Possibilities A mindset that fosters open mind, open heart and open will7 and invites generativity, emergence, paradoxical thinking, constructive controversy and playfulness. It understands that these prac-tices increase engagement and provide fertile soil for innovative thinking and collaboration.

Elegant Design A mindset that sees simplicity as the ultimate sophistication. It seeks to simplify rules and maximize flexibility while clarifying concepts and outcomes. It delights in beautiful design that achieves outcomes with simple efficiency.

Agile Action A mindset that sees prototyping as a way of working—good enough is good to go. It fosters an iterative approach to any work. It identifies and aligns strengths to propel action, clarifies roles and responsibilities and pairs accountability with agency to inspire contribution, experimentation, learning and excellence.

Perpetual Evolution A mindset that understands growth and learning as integral to success. It articu-lates measurable results, makes time for reflection and learning, creates room for emergence and inten-tional delays and celebrates both success and failure.

The ROC Six PackTM offers an underlying framework or paradigm for the way things are done around here. These six mindsets can also be used to create a methodological approach for innovation around a particular focus.8

HOW TO MEASURE THE IMPACT OF COLLABORATION

Return on CollaborationTM is measured by the triple bottom line: financial, social and community profit. Increasing your ROC can impact financial profit directly by increasing income (customer loyalty, new customers, product im-provement, new products). It can impact financial profit indirectly by reducing costs associated with productivi-ty—efficiency, effectiveness, process improvement, and innovation—and decreasing costs associated with turnover, absenteeism, and inefficiencies that result from morale issues.

Social and community profit/benefit are readily measured using cultural assessment tools that provide you with ways to measure alignment of personal, current and desired cultural values. The more aligned these are, the more people feel comfortable bringing themselves to work and the happier they are in their workplace. Engagement and satisfaction assessments, especially qualitative assessments (stories rather than numbers), provide valuable measures of social profitability (loyalty to the company, contributions to organizational goals, workplace productivity).

Finally community benefit can be measured by both qualitative and quantitative assessment. Positive stories from the community about the organization can support the financial bottom line in addition to creating a sense of well being for the organization. Social Return on Investment assessments can measure your direct impact on the community and the environment.



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"This is the first time I have really seen deep transformation in practice."

Harold Redekopp,Executive VP of Television

Canadian Broadcasting Corp

CASE: CERTAINTEED GYPSUM

The ChallengeCertainTeed Gypsum, a major manufacturer and distributor of Gypsum products in North America, was building anew high-speed plant in Moundsville, West Virginia... a major capital investment. Part of the company’s strategy was to create a high commitment/high-engagement organization to operate this “best in the world” plant. IPI partners guided the Moundsville steering committee and design team through the process of designing and implementing this strategy using a strength-based design process.

The SolutionIPI first helped develop a charter document that described the rationale for creating the high-commitment/high en-gagement plant, its vision, mission, values and objectives, as well as the project’s goals and key success factors. Ar-rangements were made to visit other high-performing plants outside of the industry to view the latest technologyand gain insight into what’s possible. A strength-based socio-technical approach was then used to design the organi-zation and all support systems including job descriptions, selection and hiring systems, management systems, infor-mation systems and technical-support systems. A preliminary implementation plan was developed and 100 people were hired. Using an Appreciative Inquiry Summit approach, the entire organization was brought together for three days to self-select operational positions in the plant and create plans for implementation.

The ResultsThe organization had developed all plant teams and had finished installing and commissioning all plant equipmentand supporting technologies prior to its opening in March 2008. Collaboratively using all plant members in the com-missioning and preparation of all plant technology was seen to be very unique in the industry. In two years, this plant out-performed all other CertainTeed operations. They won a prestigious award for Best Plant based on key measures such as efficiency, safety and cost.

ABOUT INNOVATION PARTNERS INTERNATIONAL

Innovation Partners International (IPI) is a consulting firm specializing in systems level solutions to the complex and critical competitive challenges facing companies today. Our approach is grounded in strength-based, outcomes-focused methodologies that allow whole systems to respond rapidly and effectively to their changing environment. We partner with leaders who recognize the need for systems solutions that engage people at all levels. By focusing on strengths, engaging the whole and leaning into the future, these organizations create a matrix of opportunities for growth and positive impact.

WHAT MAKES IPI UNIQUE?

There is a primary philosophical difference between IPI and most consultancies; most consultancies see the chal-lenges around employees and organizations as “problems to be fixed.” This philosophy leads to the “outside expert” bringing external solutions in to fix what is broken. When working mechanical systems, this philosophy is sound. IPI, however, understands people and organizations as “living systems with infinite strengths and potential.” This phi-losophy leads us to develop life-giving processes that support the system in accessing and aligning their strengths to achieve organizational goals. IPI offers process expertise, building organizational capacity for change from the inside out. From our vantage point, it's an inside job; the only way to truly create a collaborative, engaged culture is to use collaborative and highly en-gaging processes to achieve that end. As a process expert consultancy, IPI works with the client to design a process that enables the client to use the system to change the system, whether it is the whole organization or a critical sub-system. IPI’s approach enhances client capacity for long-term sustainable change and perpetual evolution by engag-ing internal and external stakeholders in leveraging strengths, designing for the future and creating the resilience to achieve organizational goals even in the face of uncertainty.



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WHO DO WE WORK WITH?Innovation Partners International works with both domestic and international firms and has provided services for hundreds of organizations spanning the corporate, social, government and educational sectors, ranging in size from small firms to Fortune 500’s. A sampling of our corporate clients include:

! American Express! ! Tufts Medical Center! British Airways (UK)! ! Novartis (Switzerland)!! Georgia-Pacific! ! ! Rio Tinto - QIT Madagascar Minerals, SA (Africa)!! IKEA (Canada)! ! ! Alexander and Schmidt (risk assessment)

About the Authors

!_____________________________Notes



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1 O’Toole, J. (2013). U.S. employees are disengaged--and mismanaged. Strategy & Business. Downloaded from

http://www.strategy-business.com/blog/US-Employees-Are-Disengaged-and-Mismanaged?gko=af848

2 Gallup. (July 2013 ) State of the american workforce. Downloaded from

http://www.gallup.com/strategicconsulting/163007/state-american-workplace.aspx

3 Fredrickson, B. (2009). Positivity. New York: Crown Publishers.

Fredrickson, B L. (1998) What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology, 2, 3, pp. 300 – 319.

Fredrickson, B.L. (2003). Positive emotions and upward spirals in organizations. In K.S. Cameron, J.E. Dutton, & R.E. Quinn (Eds.). Positive organiza-tional scholarship: Foundations of a new discipline (pp. 163 – 175). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc. Fredrickson, B.L. & Joiner, T. (2002). Positive emotions trigger upward spirals toward emotional well-being. Psychological Science, 13, 2, pp. 172 – 175.

4 Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is the practice of inquiring into what gives life when a system is at its best, what adds value and will add value for the system and its desired outcomes, AI approaches systemic problem-solving by reframing issues as strategic opportunities.

Cheri B. Torres, Ph.D. is a full Partner at Innovation Partners International. She has 30 years experience bringing strength-based, high engagement, col-laborative approaches to devel-opment and design efforts for organizations, educational institutions and communities. Currently she is working with a

team to enhance collaboration and innovation using advanced technology. She has authored numerous books and articles including Dy-namic Relationships: Unleashing the Power of Appreciative Inquiry in Daily Living. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology with a specialization in Collaborative Learn-ing. She also holds a Masters in Business Administra-tion, a Master’s in Transpersonal Psychology, Apprecia-tive Inquiry certification from Case Western Reserve University and Level II certification in Spiral Dynamics Integral.

Bob Laliberte, PMP is a founding Partner at Innovation Partners Inter-national He has either managed or consulted to organizations for more than 30 years in the fields of high-performance work systems, innova-tive design and project management. For the first half of his career, Bob managed many engineering projects in industry and was deeply involved with high-performance work system design, plant start-ups, and plant management. The later half of his career has been devoted to consulting and teaching focused on Strength-Based Organization Design and Redesign, OD, Project Management and enabling Innovation in Communities and Organizations. He has published several articles, including CertainTeed’s Moundsville Plant Start-up…a Strength-Based Journey to Becoming a High-Commitment/High-Engagement Manufacturing Organization. Email: [email protected]





mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]



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5 For more information on a culture of collaboration, see IPI white paper: A Culture of Collaboration (to be published September 2013).

6 A mental model is a representation of the surrounding world, the relationships between its various parts and a person's intuitive perception about his or her own acts and their consequences. Mental models shape behavior and decision-making, and set an approach to solving problems and doing tasks.

7 Scharmer, Otto. (2009) Theory U. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

8 For more information on the practice and implementation of these mindsets, see IPI white paper: The ROC Six PackTM Toolkit (to be published September 2013).

INCREASING YOUR RETURN ON PROJECT INVESTMENTS...Henry Gantt is known for his planning and control...

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