Author: Miguel Hurtado, CAPM

Dear newsletter friends,

2020 is going to finish in a few weeks and I need to confess it is difficult to make a review of this year. During this year we learnt about Chinese cities, virus and vaccines and we added a mask to our daily life... But I would like to tell you the positive side about this year, we learn how to be closer to our relatives and the most important people in our lives. Human history is full of challenges and full of successful stories.

Let's be optimistic, we can do it.

2021 will most probably be a better and a greater year. Dear friends, have very nice holidays, enjoy them with your family and best friends.

Stay healthy.

Author. Thando Dube, PMP

With the advent of the PMBOK® Guide 7th edition last August, we saw a shift away from the traditional Knowledge Areas and Process Groups that most project managers fondly relied on for “Tailoring projects”. This shift has left many project managers in search of solutions on how to tailor projects. Should they continue using the Knowledge Areas and Process Groups or integrate the twelve Principles of Project Management to lead them in tailoring the eight Performance Domains to fit the project context as proposed in the PMBOK® Guide 7th edition?

These are important and genuine questions that need to be addressed to assist project managers to fully exploit the benefits and new perspectives offered in the PMBOK® Guide 7th edition.

PMBOK® Guide 7th edition describes tailoring this way: “Tailoring is the deliberate adaptation of the approach, governance, and processes to make them more suitable for the given environment and the work at hand”.

As noted in the introductory pages of the PMBOK® Guide 7th edition, tailoring projects to the unique characteristics of the project management approach has been underlined in previous editions of the PMBOK® Guide. In the 6th edition, more emphasis was given to how project teams should think about tailoring their approach to project management. This information was placed in the front of each Knowledge Area and provided consideration for all types of project environments. 

In the 7th edition, the wheel has come full circle with an entire section dedicated to Tailoring.  Why this change we may ask?  We have seen from the above examples that the predefined processes and methodologies embodied in the Knowledge Areas and Process Groups are open to tailoring, however the complexities of the changing environments and the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) world of today, tailoring is an approach that has taken a pre-eminent role and is characterized by the following principles:

• Each project is unique
• Project process success is based on adapting the unique context of the project to determine the most appropriate methods of producing the desired outcomes
• Tailoring the approach is iterative, and therefore is a continuous process throughout the project

At this juncture, to understand why Tailoring Project has taken more emphasis in the PMBOK® Guide 7th edition, it could be useful to reflect on one innovation that revolutionized the use of mobile phones and paved a path for new generation smartphones: the iPhone.  The iPhone did not replace the mobile phone but brought a plethora of new possibilities and value add to mobile phone use in a response to the VUCA world of digital communication. This is my interpretation of the PMBOK® Guide 7th edition; it is not designed to replace the predictive and process-based approaches but serves as an additional reservoir of “techniques and tools” to equip project managers with additional alternatives in a more agile way of thinking such as adaptive and hybrid approaches to Tailoring projects.

These are personal views as a project manager and do not in any way represent the views of PMI, so then what are the views of subject matter experts?  Are you like me as a project manager facing challenges or dilemmas in tailoring your projects using PMBOK® Guide 7th edition? How has the PMBOK® Guide shift from a processes and tools approach affected tailoring your projects? To share these thoughts and those of other project managers and subject experts, a Romandie Events session on 7 April will host Stephane Derouin, former President of the PMI France Chapter. Stephane is an active Portfolio Hybridization Expert, certified Agile PM® and Agile teacher at ESCP for MSc in International Project Management. He is also the founder and President of HMI, a « Think tank » founded in 2018 dedicated to hybrid approaches and methodologies.

Event Venue: Hotel Montbrillant, Geneva, 7th April, 6.30-9.30pm

Thando Dube

Author: Adi Muslic, PMP

This is the third course in the OT Series (https://www.pmi.org/organizational-transformation/orchestration), which provides the leadership and strategic knowledge of transformation initiatives.This advanced course applies focus on assessing market conditions and trends, exploring frameworks for achieving outcomes, and applying a human-centric approach towards your organization.

The Orchestration course provides guidance on how to:

• Describe what it takes to lead a people-centered transformation.
• Identify and describe the various frameworks you will need to achieve transformation outcomes (such as Organizational Network Analysis, Exploit and Explore, and others).
• Assess different market conditions, trends, and disruptors for your organization.
• Describe the 4-phased framework of Waves, Horizons, Domains and Types that will enable you to frame the broader transformation picture. 
• Assess capabilities your organization will need to successfully transform.

There are 4 modules:

1. Leading a People-Centered Transformation
2. Achieving Transformation Outcomes
3. Market Awareness and Strategic Responses
4. Assessing Capabilities

Throughout all the modules in the course, we are engaged in real-life scenarios to explore how various concepts come to life. For many concepts, the scenarios refer to an organization that is recognized for its positive attitude to change - and which has driven its own transformation.

In the first module, we explore several leadership concepts, including:

• Leadership characteristics
• Exploiting the Core & Exploring the Edge from a cultural standpoint
• The People-Centered Transformation (PCT) Framework
• Each of the 10 PCT elements, including the Insights, Findings, and Shifts for each

Some of the key takeaways are:

Everyone has gaps in their leadership capabilities. We can use the PCT Framework to recognize, unravel and improve.

Organizations that are transforming must be agile. Organizations that encourage a cross-functional, agile mindset over a traditional silo structure are often the most effective at delivering successful transformations. Agile organizations decentralize decision-making to an appropriate level that will achieve an effective balance between autonomy and authority.

Leaders must empathize and understand what motivates their employees to change and deliver results. By doing this, employees can feel empowered to make decisions and contribute to the decentralized culture.

In the Achieving Transformation Outcomes module, we explore some business-oriented frameworks and strategies:

• The concept of organizational longevity
• Exploiting the Core & Exploring the Edge from a business perspective
• Creating a second operating system is important.
• The Business Portfolio Map
• The 9 most important frameworks while transforming

Some frameworks used by transforming organizations are: Program Management, Agile, Objectives and Key results, Portfolio management, Design thinking, etc.

Organizations that cannot keep up with the increased level of change and complexity have no future. High-performing organizations are more adaptable and can correct the course when strategic initiatives are going off the rails.

Organizations need to develop a second operating system that uses an agile network and a very different set of processes to explore new growth opportunities.

In the Market Awareness and Strategic Responses module, we learn how to perceive the market in which our organization operates. We explore:

• The Social, Political, Environmental, Economic, and Competitive (or SPEED/C) factors of a market environment.
• The Drivers, Opportunities, and Threats associated with each of these factors.
• How to plan the strategic response for each of the SPEED/C factors
• The Waves, Horizons, Domains, and Types of Transformation

Strategic leadership takes a curious mind, constant learning and vigilant research to determine industry trends and the environment in which the organization operates.

In the 4th module, the Assessing Transformation Capabilities, we learn that most common challenges in implementing strategy are:

• Skills gap within internal talent
• Insufficient technology
• Competition from smaller organizational
• lack of resources
• lack of efficient processes guiding strategy

In this module, we learn how to assess and bridge capabilities that are needed to transform, such as

• The capabilities (soft and hard) required for the transformation’s vision.
• The capability readiness of your organization so that you can achieve the desired transformation level.
• Prioritizing required capabilities.
• Approaches and choosing the optimal approach (build, buy, ally, or outsource) to close the transformation capability gap
• Assessing what must be done more, better and/or differently from a leadership perspective to close the transformation capability gap

Assessing Capability Areas helps identify an organization’s capability strengths and weaknesses. Closing the capability gap is critical for the organizational transformation to be successful.

Step 1 : Map the capabilities in 4 areas : People, Structures, Technology and Assets

Step 2: Identify the gaps in 4 areas and classify them in 4 capability types : Distinctive, Competitive, Foundational and Bridging.

Step 3: Determine how to fill the gaps by combining the urgency and 4 capability types in the Capability Landscape that show us what to build, acquire, partner, or outsource.

This is the last article about the OT Series. If you like to learn more, ask questions and get direct answers, register for our online event Leading dynamic people-centered transformations on 31 March at 18:30.

If you think that creation of an Organizational Transformation Community of Practice would be beneficial for you and your organization, please get in touch using out contact form and selecting Sponsors and Partners topic.

Author: Société suisse de Management de Projet

Congrès du Management de Projet – 21 avril 2022 HEC Lausanne (UNIL)

Project Management, a profession in transformation

Organized by the "Société suisse de Management de Projet" (SMP) in collaboration with HEC Lausanne, the Project Management Congress is the preferred event in French-speaking Switzerland to enrich one's knowledge of project management and meet professionals in the field. Only one edition will be held in 2022. It includes two plenary conferences and 9 parallel training sessions. It is the ideal day to learn and network!
Early Bird rate until March 25, 2022, register today!

This event is almost exclusively in French (with 1 session that is FR/ENG/DE).

Program and registration: congres-pm.ch