16.5 Professional Skills

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These are skills we should possess because we make use of them every day to be productive project managers. Some of the items in the list may surprise you, and are offered as areas you may choose to explore within yourself, or with candidates for that project management position you are looking to fill.

16.5.1 Leadership Skills

A project manager who takes credit for a winning project is either on an ego trip or has low self-esteem. Leaders get hard jobs done with minimal collateral damage. Good leaders put their charges in the position to be successful. Success rolls up hill, not down. The top-down leadership success model does not work because gravity causes failure if selfless mentoring does not counteract it. I wrote this book mostly in the first person, but would have preferred saying "we" most of the time in recognition of the many good people who have worked with me through the years to achieve team goals. I always try to think "we" at home and in the workplace.

To be honest, I counteract my own high-handed tendencies in the leadership arena by envisioning the hapless army lieutenant, sword in hand, scrambling over the hill shouting, "follow me, men!" As the machine gun fire rattles overhead, those he would lead remain in the safety of their fox-holes, apparently not convinced that their lives are worth risking for this disrespected, if not feared and reviled, so-called leader.

Leadership is about leading, not about exercising power at the expense of others. It is also about setting a good example and about helping those in your command be successful. When I was a line manager of a sixty-person work group, I had power built into my role from the simple fact that I could fire people and hand out raises and plumb assignments. ^[2] Now, even as a senior project manager, I can do none of those things. Today, I can do team members little harm and no good at all except to the extent that I help them succeed and be recognized for their accomplishments. I treat them as though they can do more for me, or harm to me, than I could possibly dream of reciprocating, in either direction.

Testing for leadership in the interview process is not easy. I do ask for anecdotes sometimes, if for no other reason than to count how many times the candidate says "I" or "we" when recounting past experience. I have no rule on this except that if everything is "I," I cannot say that I was not fore-warned.

16.5.2 Advocacy Skills

A good salesperson makes you feel like:

You need whatever they are pitching.
They will personally ensure your satisfaction.

Likewise, a good project manager gets people to buy into the project, and applies the same skills to negotiate consensus when conflicts arise. A good advocate is sincere and can explain things without making speeches. Understanding the "feature, function, benefit" approach described in Chapter 13 is an invaluable tool in this regard.

Remember that practically every aspect of your project represents something new to the legacy environment. As a rule, people do not like change because it creates more work or new stress for them. This is understandable. It also creates an ongoing challenge to the project manager, who must enlist all kinds of help in an environment that is not change-friendly, and, therefore, is not project-friendly either. As discussed throughout the book, being able to proselytize the benefits of your initiative is the only way out of this jam. Any such presentations should be principled, not slick or shallow. Keep in mind that your audience recognizes the sound of bluster and the scent of baloney, and will consequently dismiss you as a blowhard more quickly than you can ask, "what did I say wrong?"

This talent, or lack thereof, should be easy to test for during the interview process. After all, we assume each candidate is there because they seek the position, so it makes sense that they advocate their candidacy. Ask yourself how well each one made his or her case. If an interviewee fails to say why you should pick them or indicate a strong interest in the position and the reasons behind that, what does that say about their advocacy skills?

16.5.3 Solicitation Skills

Can you pick up the phone, introduce yourself to a stranger who may not know you and be unfamiliar with your project, and enlist the stranger's support? This takes audacity, even when you are under the gun. I know people who are loath to do this, but then again, project management is not for everyone. If you have done this, what is your batting average? Have you gone back to a previously helpful individual and found that door closed the second or third time around, like you went to the well once too often?

I am no shrinking violet in this regard, but I have certainly mellowed over the years. One reason is that I finally asked myself why people should buy into my problems and raise a finger to help me. The only answer I have come up with is that those who are willing and able to assist have a reason to do so. Some want to look good for the purpose of advancing their careers or raising their self-esteem, while others enjoy doing the right thing. Another group wants to avoid looking bad, particularly if you, your boss, or your project have a high enough profile. Then, these potential allies may want to be seen as contributors, not roadblocks.

On the other hand, certain individuals will decline the opportunity to contribute to your success. Many motives can be attributed to this crowd, too, not the least of which are sloth, and not being a fan of yours. ^[3] In the end, though, it is best to let those in your path, either as enemies or allies, manage their own motives. Forget evangelizing and manipulation, and focus on getting the help you need. Here is what works for me:

Approach your potential ally with humility.
State your case briefly, but in candor.
Be very specific about your requirements.
Be clear about any peril you face.
Remember that overplaying the gloom and doom makes people suspicious.
Listen very carefully to the response.
Be very proactive and cooperative with those offering help.
Be polite with the recalcitrant, but make them aware that you do not have the luxury of accepting failure as an option.
Request their guidance on how best to remedy what, from your perspective, is an impasse.
Be explicit about your intent to escalate in a nonthreatening manner, if that is your likely course of action.

You will also be confronted with what must honestly be called "maybes," or "I wish I could, but …." These are clearly signals of a willingness to negotiate. You have to be acute enough to hear this and smart enough to slow down and negotiate. Project managers often forget that what is so important, possibly even earth-shattering to us, is a curiosity or nuisance to our potential allies.

"Maybe" has so many nuances, and I have yet to see them all. Once detected, I address them by digging out the objection without anyone losing face. This may sound silly, but it is not. For example, it is not unusual to find out that a legacy process in your organization - one you are counting on to support a requirement - is so rigid, antiquated, or dysfunctional that it cannot accommodate your needs. This could be a resource issue, for instance, in terms of availability or skill level. Compounding this problem is the fact that the owners of those processes may choose to fight you or confuse you, instead of helping you understand where the gaps exist, so that together you can reach an accommodation. It is for this reason that I recommend taking great care with these conversations, because you may have stepped on a land mine without knowing it and do not need to exacerbate the situation with bellicosity or some other impolitic if not impolite response.

What does all this have to do with negotiating? The basic rule of horse trading is that you want to live to trade again, so you:

Do not cheat.
Do not bully.
Never lie.

Your goal should be "win-win." Remember, this is not a garage sale. It is a corporate environment where career advancement, a clean conscience, and getting home early are all coin of the realm for the people you are dealing with, so you must be willing and able to make trades in kind.

When interviewing candidates on this subject, I ask them how they approach internal obstacles, which these things almost always are. Ask for specific examples and listen closely. As with many personal traits, I try to imagine a particular candidate trying to be effective in this way in my environment. Keep in mind that nobody I know will earn a perfect score, either during the interview process or during actual project activity, because the truth is that sometimes roadblocks are not only unmovable but also sacred.

16.5.4 Grace under Fire

I am not much of a poker player because I am too darned earnest, but I agree with Kenny Rogers that "you gotta know when to hold 'em, and know when to fold 'em." In a complex project there will be scenarios, either public or private, when what you say, or do not say, creates what the dramatists call "defining moments." These will be painful and probably quite heated times in which it may, or may not be, wise to hold your tongue. During that instant, you may need to protect a team member or deliverable, or hang that project element out to dry. It is hard to get very far into this without wandering too far off the reservation, so I will leave you with the following thoughts.

In those heated moments, can you disassociate yourself from the scrum enough to avoid misapprehending the heat of the moment as the issue? Can you leverage that moment with generosity or by saying "No!"?

Regarding interviewing project manager candidates, the only way to test for this quality is to ask yourself if:

You can envision the candidate finessing his way though these moments.
Under these circumstances, is he more likely to be dense than deft?

16.5.5 Relationship Building

Throughout this book, I have cited examples where knowing people and having their respect sets the table for solving problems by ensuring their cooperation. Some of these tough moments fall into the "do or die" category, or so it appears at the time. This is why I pride myself on collecting friends and allies from Day One, because you never know when a relationship will come in handy. This may sound mercenary, and it is, but it is also the right thing to do.

In fact, being comfortable with and interacting with many different kinds of people is very smart, because the key component of "doing business" is social commerce. As a project manager, you are a businessperson first, then a project manager. People that you do business with are in the same boat as you are. They too are looking for allies because, at times, they need help or recognition from others, possibly even you. It is not that friendships, enjoying the company of others, and gossiping in the cafeteria are bad things. They are fine, but consider this. Friendships tend to spring from like-mindedness in sensibilities and other things that do not necessarily contribute to workplace success.

You cannot restrict who you do business with to people you would enjoy spending time with away from work. You need to forge relationships with people you may have little in common with. You should be able to cross lines of ethnicity and culture and personality types, too. It is rare that you cannot find some common ground with everyone with whom you come in contact.

For instance, I am not a golfer, so I miss a major bonding opportunity with many co-workers. Still, because it is important that I get along with everyone, I even get along with golfers. I actually know a joke or two they seem to enjoy, and I am able to do business with them despite the fact my Saturday mornings are spent at the home improvement center, a location most likely unknown to the "hook or slice" crowd. How you accomplish this universal friendliness is basically a matter of style or personal comfort and is not all that hard. Once, that is, you adopt the attitude that it is best to be friendly, empathetic, and respectful, as a matter of course, with everyone with whom you come in contact.

16.5.6 Organizational Skills

This is a tough one. Complex projects have so many pieces and parts that it is difficult, if not impossible, to superimpose a rigid superstructure over it such that:

Everything runs smoothly.
Unpredictable or unwanted surprises are minimized.
Few errors result from confusion or miscommunication.
Stakeholders always know what is going on and what is expected of them.
Significant changes in the game plan are communicated effectively.

At the beginning of this chapter, I offered the grandiloquent phrase "shameless nudge and ruthless organizer." Clearly, I place high value in sophisticated organizational skills. In fact, particularly with complex projects, if the project manager adds little more value than a strong sense of organization, that should be practically enough to ensure success. To resort to the vernacular, this translates into:

Staying on topic
Keeping on top of things
Watching the donut, not the hole

The two pieces to this key attribute are how you keep yourself and the project organized. It is a safe bet that the better a job you do with the former, the more effective you will be with the latter. Being organized is a state of mind, a somewhat reflective one at that. Soon after takeoff, a complex project will dissemble into far too many meetings, personalities, issues, and e-mails to stay manageable with any approach that focuses on the details (i.e., with a "bottom up" strategy). Sadly, this is how micromanagers work, scurrying from event to event with ever thickening file folders. They initiate and receive far too many e-mails to make sense of. Sadly, they soon lose sight of the forest for the trees and rarely find their way back from that wilderness.

It is far better to shield part of your mind from the project hubbub. Keep that mental partition focused on the core project values, which are essentially the output of the Big Thirteen interrogatory. I subsequently use those values to filter out the ambient project noise that would puncture my eardrums if I let it. I have the ability to absorb and leverage a tremendous amount of detail, perhaps more than most, but not as consistently as I would like. This is one reason, for instance, why I am not much of a note taker. When I am scribbling, I am not listening, and when I am not listening, I am unable to seek value in that which is swirling around me. It has taken many years of practice to get good at this, but for me, at least, the effort has been well worth the discipline it requires.

I focus, from Day One, on the Big Thirteen deliverables, and I let them congeal into a meaningful vision of the whole project, including the goals, environment, and people that will shape our final outcome. As the project progresses, I keep steering everyone and everything in this way. When I first adopted this approach, I fell into the trap of insisting that the original vision remained valid and sacrosanct from the moment it became clear to me. Eventually, I learned that setting my feet so firmly in wet concrete had the unwanted consequence of making my views irrelevant, because project truths are bound to change. So, I learned to reassess the project every few weeks and adjust my project truths accordingly.

This may not be the best way for you to approach these challenges, but I hope we can agree on the absolute necessity of putting a framework together that gives you a consistent means of:

Communicating with stakeholders
Running meetings
Building consensus
Addressing problems
Interacting with management
Interacting with the team's members
Interacting with customers and beneficiaries

It is consistency in these areas that will help frame an organization. Consistency is key, because people are most comfortable when they know what to expect when they approach you for help or attend your meetings. The advantages from being organized in these ways will be not only to help them, but you and the project too.

The manner and means you choose are a matter of style, taste, and comfort. As I said, I keep a running tab in my head during meetings (i.e., take mental notes) and write them down later, if necessary, for future use or dissemination. Perhaps you prefer to capture everything and reflect on it later. If that works, that's great. Just keep in mind that you are the one who has to get things organized and steer everyone back toward the middle of the road when you see the car wandering toward the shoulder or median. If you do not do this, who will?

When you are testing for these skills during candidate interviews, ask them how they approach beneficiaries, for instance, regarding their involvement in the project. What would they tell them? What would they ask them? The answers you get will go a long way toward showing how each candidate has grasped the role and whether they can assume responsibility for packaging everything in such a way that people understand what they are supposed to do. In the final analysis, that is what a project manager's organizational responsibilities are all about.

16.5.7 Attention to Detail

This is another cognitive skill allowing one to remember many small but significant things and reprioritize them as project knowledge and circumstance change, as they surely will. Requirements, risk, and dependencies are generally detail-driven. These critical project realities have at their heart subtle issues one must be keenly aware of as decision points keep flying by at a high rate of speed. If you do not adequately understand detail, you will miss the nuances they suggest and either make bad calls or rely on others presumably more knowledgeable than you to make them for you. From a leadership perspective, this reliance on others introduces the risk of being manipulated by them. I have also found that having a command of project detail is an effective way of keeping stakeholders honest. This is so because, if I am perceived as very much in tune, I am also seen as rather difficult to "snow."

As mentioned in the Organizational Skills section (16.5.6), you do not want to manage at the detail level because that is a far too easy way to get lost. In other words, it is best if you can operate at both levels, from 30,000 feet and at ground level. I try to avoid getting overwhelmed with details by applying the simple relevancy test, which is "why do I need to know this?" This takes a little practice, but you have time. It is not a lesson one learns on the first try, or ever stops learning for that matter. Just do not be afraid to take it on, because as an old mentor once told me, "Son, I forgot more than you will ever know."

16.5.8 Work Ethic

Either some people are allergic to work, or they confuse filling out a timesheet with productivity. Everyone occasionally skates, either when off one's feed or to take advantage of a lull in the action. Similar to a good plow horse, project managers should stay with it and make steady progress, even when everyone else appears to have drifted off into the ether. I spend downtime mending fences, building new relationships, and cleaning up documentation. I like to goof off, too, but I generally stay busy preparing for upcoming challenges or catching up on my technical education, which can always use an upgrade. This last task has become so easy that it is shameful not to indulge in it on a regular basis. Simply load the browser on your computer, hit the Internet, click on your favorite search engine, and type in your question regarding technology, certification, quality management, or whatever you find deficient in your personal knowledge base.

When I interview people, I am very concerned about work ethic. I do not expect people to be as task-hungry as I am, but I do expect them to take a reasonably proactive view of their workload. A few follow-up questions on any project story they tell will indicate the likely truth about their professional character in this regard.

^[2]Those were the days!

^[3]Or your project, or your boss.

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