The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How Project Managers can Embrace the Ronin-Like Lifestyle in Business | PPP #75

Episode Date: April 27, 2021

Sharing how sometimes Project Managers can feel like the Ronin of feudal Japan. That is to say, like masterless experts moving from project to project.

Ronin. Noun. A samurai who no longer serves a daimyo or feudal lord. Origin of Ronin. From the Japanese word ronin literally, wave man. Understood as a man tossed around like a wave. According to Britannica.com, the term ronin includes any of the masterless samurai warrior aristocrats of the late Muromachi, 1138-1573, and Tokugawa, 1603 to 1867, periods who were often vagrant and disruptive and sometimes actively rebellious. So how do these masterless warriors parallel the life of project manager? On People, Process, Progress 75, project managers are the Ronin of the business world.

I'll share ways I believe we are similar to Ronin and how we can leverage that to drive our teams or organizations and ourselves forward. Please silence your cell phones, hold all sidebar conversations to a minimum, and we will get started with People Process Progress in 3, 2, 1. Welcome back, everybody. This is Kevin Pinnell, host of the People Process Progress podcast, just sharing some cool news that as of today's podcast, this recording, we have passed 20,000 downloads. We're listened to in 50 of the United States and over 87 countries.

Thanks to everybody who's checked us out, read the blog, listened on peopleprocessprogress.com. If you want to hear more, go there. You can listen, subscribe, and all that good stuff. That's my intro sales pitch kind of thing. So what about this Ronin? So what about Ronin and project managers? They go together? Yes, I think they do. I thought of this comparison as I thought back on my project manager career and even incident management career, somewhat moving from incident to incident or event to event or project to project pertinent to this one. And more recently, as I look to the future,

as I'm transitioning off and look to other projects, that's what we do as project managers, right? It's not a bad thing, but it's a thing we need to prepare ourselves for and leverage. So I'm going to share five things that I think can help us as project managers prepare ourselves to move around like the Ronin and also some tips on how we can leverage these. So the first one is don't fall in love with your project. Usually you hear this as don't fall in love with your project. Usually you hear this is don't fall in love with your plan or your design, but you also as a project manager can't fall in love with your project. You know, in addition to the Ronin project management comparison, I thought of this mantra. Sometimes as PMs, we develop strong bonds with our teams,

and that's awesome, and relationships are key, just as the Ronin did with their Daimyo, their feudal lords, but then something happens, right? Whether we close the project, whether we're asked to help with something else, whether another program or project needs help, something like that. Just like Ronin, something happens. They become, they don't have a master, whether on their own or they're told that. We as project managers, sometimes the project's canceled, right? So regardless of the reason, the project manager becomes like Ronin and begins work anew under a delegated organization for another program or project, or maybe he's in limbo for a little

bit even. But how can we leverage not falling in love with each project? Well, maintain the relationships that you made in that project or program, because down the road, you'll find that these connections can be mutually beneficial, right? Let's say you have a new project or program that you're on. You need feedback in an area that is a skill set that someone has from the project or previous project or a year ago project. Guess what? You already have a bridge there. You didn't burn that bridge. You still have the relationship. You can reach out to those folks and they can help you on your new venture going forward. A little sticky if they're

outside your organization, but again, if you already have a relationship and you have someone's thought process, their experience, their skill set, someone on their team that you know can help you on your new project, and you worked with them on a previous one, that's great. So even though maybe you had to leave that one,

whether you closed it or you got pulled off of it, we can still benefit from the relationship we developed. And just that whole mantra, don't fall in love with your project, is something if you're new to project management, you just need to get used to, right? Unless you're in a program or something that's not going to change, you're going to bounce around a bit. So think about how you can take advantage of that and the relationships and the good work that you'll do between each project. The second thing that I have that I thought of was to carry your experience with you, right? Just like Ronan carry their experience from maybe Lord to Lord or area to area. They've been in lots of fights or know about a certain skill. We as project managers pick that

stuff up with each project too. So as you all know that our project managers out there, you know, every project we manage and support and facilitate and create new knowledge of that organization, of a particular professional space, right? So our projects may vary somewhat, even if we're always in construction, there's different elements of construction or healthcare or IT or software development, a bunch of different areas. And so that's what we need to look at. We also need to look at what did we learn for project management as a whole?

What are we going to take as a more holistic view that we either learn from, from other PMs, from this particular skill, from our leadership as we went through this project, and how are we going to use that in the future? And then how did we develop our leadership skills, right? So carrying our experience with us is not just taking it to the project, but also picking it up and taking it to the next one. And I think how we can leverage this is that balance here right so bring your facilitation your technical or other skills from previous projects to your current one but maybe watch not calling out well on my other projects we did this or that way right yes that's helpful sometimes and the experience counts but should that experience be applied wholesale from project to project to

project from your previous assignment to your current one? Usually kind of a hard fit right now. However, find what fits and then apply that to what fits your current one. So what from previous projects or programs or work did you do that you want to carry forward that's not trying to do the same thing with every project. That's another kind of pitfall, I think, is, well, we did it this way with this one, and we should do it this way with this one. You have different people, you have different objectives, different leaders intent, all that kind of stuff. We'll get into those foundational five elements. So we need to know when and how to then use and inject and insert that experience for our teammates

and ourselves. The third thing is, just like the Ronin were sometimes disruptive and rebellious, we should be disruptive contributors, right? What does that mean? We are placed where we are in certain circumstances. Maybe it's to help somebody, you know, to push them past a stuck point. Maybe it's brand new on a project. For some reason, you were chosen and we were chosen to lead a project or a program. So we have that opportunity to be a disruptive contributor.

So think about the advice in the previous bullet, right? Carry your experience forward using that and balance that with previous experience plus innovation can really help the new project, right? So maybe that project is to improve a process. Well, they need some sort of innovation in addition to some technical process review or new software. And how do we leverage this? Well, look at how our project management office does things. If you don't

have a project management office, look at good standards. How do they do things? How have you done things in your previous project? And how do you align with those? And then think about how can I help both the PMO or just me if it's you and the current project build on what we've done, but with some variation where applicable. Like I mentioned before, and you all know if you've been on projects, no project is exactly the same. The project's out of date as soon as you hit print or save or send it, right? So we need to be adaptive and we need to have that conversation with ourselves and our leaders and our teammates. Do we have to use this canned version, canned response I talked about way back?

You may have heard that in the people episode that was my first interview ever and between the slides episode seven, but a canned response could apply. That was an incident management, but this could apply to project management. The canned phases, the canned methodology, et cetera. Do those still fit?

And as a disruptive contributor, again, we're disrupting a little bit, but we're contributing to the progress. We need to assess that as PMs and say, does this still fit? And if not, say, hey, boss, this methodology we've been doing is great. It's a good foundation. I think it would help this program, this project in particular, if we maybe changed it or added this one or something like that. Great example, kind of straightforward if you've been using waterfall, but now you're finding you're doing a lot more iterative work, bake that into the plan, call it out to leadership. Should we do agile instead of waterfall or just agile? If we stay static to the written plan, when the ground

truth from the team is that we need to be much more dynamic, that's not going to work well, as opposed to if we say, look, we had this static project or plan, or we looked at this stuff. And now we're realizing when we get into the nuts and bolts of it, which happens, right, that happens to every program and project in existence. And response, you think one thing at the beginning, you have good foresight, you have good advisement, then you go, whew, we didn't expect that. So be dynamic. So be a disruptive contributor and think about how you can help stay dynamic, keep your team dynamic, keep your leadership dynamic so that you move things forward without hindering it through static process. The fourth thing, and what seemed to be

an overarching theme in the Ronin, my very brief, other than comic books and movies and just now looking at Britannica, you know, background of The Ronin is loyalty, right? So my fourth thing is maintain loyalty to the cause, right? This relates more to, and there was this movie, and I liked it, and it wasn't an Oscar winner, but The 47 Ronin, it's much more than that, it's a story, who achieved revenge in honor of their Lord Asano, who was forced to commit seppuku, which is self disembowelment. That's pretty nasty, right?

That was the traditional way of committing suicide in honor. And his samurai said they were so loyal, right, that they became Ronin because he was forced to do that by other leadership. And so they never forgot their debt, though. They never forgot who they were loyal to, what they were doing this revenge for in the end. Spoiler alert, if you haven't watched that movie, they were then forced to commit sepuku. So they maintained their loyalty, but at a cost. So one thing as a project, as we move program and program to project to project, work around, et cetera, and this can vary, right, whether you're a contractor or consultant PM or you're a full-time PM in an organization, we have to remain loyal to the

organizations and the people who entrusted us to lead these initiatives, right? And how do we kind of action this a little bit more? As I mentioned, whether you're a contractor or a full-timer in a company, we as PMs live under the umbrella of an organization, some kind of organization. Within that organization, we probably also live in a project management office or similar, maybe an implementation team or similar structures. We should show this loyalty by remaining flexible and always contributing regardless of whether we're helping a multi-million dollar system upgrade or a few thousand dollar process change or whatever size work it is, if we were asked to help, it's for a reason. And so we need to remain loyal to the cause, which is making our people and our organizations and yes, ourselves better. That's a huge part of that.

So in the end, if our paycheck shows up on time, if we have benefits to support our families and our leaders support us, does it matter what project we're on? I mean, after all, as project managers, right, we don't own any of it anyway. So if our loyalty is to the core, right, our leaders and our organization and the cause that helps us keep going and take care of our own, the work then we do, sure, it matters. Sure, we'll focus. Sure, we'll care. Sure, we'll make those relationships. but the central loyalty kind of needs to stay there. The fifth one, go figure, is to leverage that foundational five, right? This is not a sales pitch and not a shameless plug. It's true. This is a tool that I think as we move around between

projects or programs or really anything that is very good to do a quick assessment, right, that we need to complete when we take on new assignments. So how do we use this? So let me walk through, not the kind of out of the box foundational five, but a little spin. Make sure to ask for leaders in 10 is the first thing when we get a new assignment. What is my scope? What problem areas are you aware of that you'd like me to address? For what and how often do you need to be informed?

And there's more questions, but you need to get a clear picture on why did you pick me? Or what in this project in particular should I look out for? Who should I look out for? Can you help give me that guidance? Ask, right?

Ask right up front. Ask your leader that picked you. Ask your sponsor. But a clear leader's intent is key. The second thing, right? Typically out of the box is objectives. So if there's an existing set of objectives, look at them, be familiar with them so that when you then meet

the project team, you can already speak to them. You already are planning towards that in your head. You're getting ready to help the team towards that in your head, right? Sometimes these are goals or milestones as opposed to objectives, but objectives are great, right? They're smart. They're specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-based, kind of the standard there. If there aren't any objectives existing based on the leader's intent and based on maybe the project proposal or whatever early documentation you have, start thinking that way because while as the project manager you're not going to sign off on them, you are surely going to be a big part in putting together the project's objectives to get them signed off by the leaders. So that's a great way to start. Same thing for organization, right? If there's an existing proposed organization

and this is a good practice to get in early as a charter, super early, we think we're going to use these kinds of resources. And then down the road, you'll build that out both in an actual org chart and your scope document or project plan, whatever documentation you use and your work breakdown structure, all that good stuff. But think about who should be where in the org. What are the functional organization that you think will help meet the objectives that then meet the leader's intent? And again, if you have one, review it so you're familiar with it. If you don't, then help drive toward that. With those organization or resources, right, each of those boxes are people. So we need to think about what are the skill sets based on this project that was approved for this either product or workflow or

whatever it is we want to do. What is going to help us get there? And what are the resources we need to do it? Who are the people we need? What are the skill sets? Who do we ask? So you can already be thinking, oh, they work for this person. I need to put that request in, depending on what kind of resource, you know, request structure you have, whether it's through Microsoft Project or online or all these other kind of systems. And then communication, right? With who and how often do you need to communicate? You don't want to build the whole communications plan right out of the gate, but you just need to know because you need to let folks know that you're on it. You've met folks.

You're looking toward the kickoff, toward all the other big milestones that you're going to have on the project. And just set that up front. Hey, check in, you know, every week till we get going. And then you can get into a rhythm. And then as you develop your communications plan, that can be helpful. So, you know, that's a quick foundational five on what you think about as kind of that business Ronin, right? As the PM that's moving around is it's a great tool to just get in there and get the lay of the land. And then you can build on doing whatever methodology you want after that. So to close out this episode, you know, sudden change for PMs can

be stressful. It can be disappointing, can be. And any other myriad of emotions, right? You know, like the Ronin though, we as PMs will be moved to where we can be most effective, efficient, and have the most impact, whether it was our choice or not. We must be loyal, I think, and not fall in love with our projects. We should leverage our experience gained

throughout previous project encounters where we can and should. We should consider being open to contribute Leverage our experience gained throughout previous project encounters where we can and should. We should consider being open to contribute by being an innovative disruptor and contributing. And like the rodent before battle, we must assess our environment to see where we can be the most effective PM possible. Thank you so much to all the project managers out there that clicked play on this one, that working with leading teams to everybody in uniform standing to watch i know i have a lot of good friends that are out there fighting the fight and i thank you all so much for the time we spent together and the time you're still out there for folks i don't know doing the same thing much appreciated thank you all for learning with me for sharing your experiences your processes to help us all make process progress. All our

previous guests. I wish you all the best. I hope you stay safe. I hope you wash your hands regularly and I wish you Godspeed.