The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How to Apply the 12 Project Management Principles from the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) 7th Edition | KEV Talks #15

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

In Practical Application of 12 Project Management Principles from the PMBOK 7th Edition, I share my $.02 on applying these helpful principles in the real world of Program and Project Management. The 12 principles listed and detailed in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) 7th Edition provide helpful guardrails for new and seasoned Project and Program Managers.Throughout this episode, I'll list each principle from the PMBOK, then elaborate on how I've seen the principles applied well and not so well and how the listener can consider using the concepts in their day-to-day work.The 12 PrinciplesBe a diligent, respectful, and caring stewardCreate a collaborative project team environmentEffectively engage with stakeholdersFocus on valueRecognize, evaluate, and respond to system interactionsDemonstrate leadership behaviorsTailor based on contextBuild quality into processes and deliverablesNavigate complexity Optimize risk responsesEmbrace adaptability and resiliencyEnable change to achieve the envisionedHave a plan | Stay informed | Get involvedMore at https://kevtalkspod.com

In May of 2021, I made a post on KevTalksPod.com called I Love the 2021 PMP Exam Changes. And it was about the new exam that was coming out based on the Project Management Body of Knowledge Edition 7, 7th edition. And the domains are people, process, business, environment. And if you go to KevTalksPod.com and just look up PMP, that article will come up. And so today in this episode, first episode of 2023, Happy New Year, by the way, everybody, I'm going to talk about the practical application of the 12 project management principles that are mentioned in the seventh edition of the project management

body of knowledge, and more importantly, how you can practically apply those as a project manager. Today's episode of KevTalks is sponsored by, well, you, the listener. Thank you for clicking play and for tuning into the show. KevTalks is the show that provides compelling interviews and value-added perspectives on topics primarily in the healthcare, wellness, technology, and public safety spaces. So enjoy your commute. Do we still do that? Coffee or morning walk.

And let's fly into the KevTalks podcast in three, two, one. Thank you again, KevTalks podcast listeners for returning to the show in January, 2023, for subscribing, sharing, please leave a review on Apple podcasts that'll help the show grow, get my two cents and really that the feedback from my guests and their stories out. All those people that are talking about industry leading best practice processes to help all of us make progress. So today's episode, Practical Application of the Project Management Principles, and I'll have the write up of this at kepttalkspot.com. I'm going to share the 12 of

them. And these are if you're a PMI member, you have access to this. And basically it's sections, it starts on page 23, but it's sections 3.1 through 3.12 of the Project Management Body of Knowledge 7th edition. And these principles are practical. It's a mix, it seems, of soft skills and hard skills. And I'll get into that as I talk about kind of the principle and then the practical application of how I've seen them used well and how I've seen them not used well. The first is be a diligent, respectful, and caring steward. Whether you're a new project associate or a seasoned program manager, I think that we must all act as stewards of the resources, the people, stuff,

and the money that we're entrusted to lead and manage during the life cycle of our project. It's a pretty big responsibility, sometimes in the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. So we've got to be responsible. So how can we do that? The PMBOK breaks this out in diligence, respect, and care. And to me, the diligence is to keep abreast of key milestone status, right? Know what's going on there, particularly if you're working in that senior project manager and program manager role. Follow up on and answer requests and communications.

And that includes the folks at all levels, right? Trying to be diligent on getting answers and keeping things moving and holding leaders accountable, right? Respectfully, but sometimes they're so busy, we put requests out or maybe we didn't set up a specific kind of decision discussion and it falls off. So making sure that we circle back, we keep that diligence and that we follow up with leaders that we need support from. Respect is the second thing that they mentioned under this principle. And to me, it should be self-explanatory rather, but sometimes it's not. Keeping it simple, like let people finish their thoughts. You may get excited and have an answer or maybe have a

proposed solution, but let folks finish what they're talking about. Listen to the team's gripes as well as legitimate concerns, right? Sometimes people just need to vent and it's respectful to just let them go. And then of course, you know, being a good listener, I think is respectful for somebody and appreciated. The third thing they talk about under this diligence principle is care. To me, don't just talk about work, right? Ask people how their lives are outside of work, offer to help with tasks that you have experience in, if it can help the project or help that person and offer to turn a wrench or assemble things, right? I remember we were putting about a bunch of devices.

I just, I went, you know, traveled from my remote job to where the project was going on and help put together equipment and devices and get them ready. And sometimes you have to do that as a project manager. You're not just Gantt charts and PowerPoints and tasks and projects. Sometimes we got to get in there and help out. So the first principle, be diligent, respectful, and a caring steward is a good one there. The second principle they list is to create a collaborative project team environment. You know, creating collaborative environment is a soft skill.

I think that's key for project managers or program managers. And we have to make every member of the team welcome, right? And let them be heard. How can we do this? Don't be your welcome, right? And let them be heard. How can we do this? Don't be your title, right? Be a human being. And by that, I mean, so I manage programs as a senior project manager, as a senior project manager.

But, you know, that is my title. And yes, I've earned it through the work I've put in, or I'm asked to lead high level things, but I'm a person first, right? And so while I may have the decision-making authority, I also want to incorporate the opinions and the feedback from my teams. And to that point, my second thought is, you know, don't discount others' opinions or experience because you know better, right? Because you may not know better. You may not have all the perspective or all the inside scoop. And the third thing for me is don't allow others to speak over,

cut off, or generally be disrespectful on calls or in meetings. Right? Sometimes I've had to stop a meeting and say, we're talking over each other. We need to let each other finish. It's not appropriate. And sometimes you just have to do that as a program manager or project manager. You just got to set the ground rules. And if you're a parent, you understand.

It's like it's not calling coworkers and colleagues kids, but sometimes it's that basic, right? It's don't talk over each other. Let them finish their thought. And you can get some heated discussions and arguments, but we should be the keepers of the appropriate collaborative team environment on calls and meetings, et cetera. The third principle is effectively engage with stakeholders. And this is where I think some project managers can get caught up and be nervous, particularly when you work with those corporate or C-suite or executive folks. But really, to effectively engage, to me, it starts with being honest, right? Don't sugarcoat

it because you don't want to report that you're critical versus just all is well in your green light. Provide timely concerns about issues and risks. So let the leaders know up front they appreciate it. Trust me, leaders want to know sooner rather than later as something's going wrong or has gone wrong and own up to the team isn't delivering, right? So, hey, yep, our team, we didn't make that. And that's on me, right? That extreme ownership piece. And I'll talk about that again in a little bit, but to engage stakeholders, be honest, let them know about things early and often and own it when you and your team aren't doing well. The next thing is to focus on value. This fourth principle,

is that four? Yep. Focus on value. So to me, we need to really consider early, consider if the project will really provide value to the organization. And this comes in if you have some sort of intake process. And I've talked about that on previous episodes as well. You should have some sort of filter that they can filter out projects where it's just a person that wants something versus this will positively benefit the bottom line of the organization. Once the project is approved, work with the business owner and other key stakeholders to create tangible and measurable key performance indicators, right? There's KPIs. So sure, we're going to do this project. Yes, we want to have this new thing, but what is it going to do? Is it going to save us time? Is it going to make us more

money? Is it going to make us safer? And not just anecdotally, but how do we measure that? So that's what we'll need to get into. Well, how long does it take to do this now? How much less time will it take us to do in the future? How much do we spend now? How much money will it save us, etc. You want to have really quantifiable KPIs. And again, the third thing, engage your performance improvement teams to help measure before and after project impact. I found this really helpful. Because that's their thing, right? Is how do I make the organization get better through improving performance? Go figure with performance improvement. So focusing on value, I think comes early before the project is approved. Once it's approved, and then of course,

as you're going along, you can always engage folks either early, you know, and often, the fifth value is recognized, evaluate and respond to system interactions. So to me, this, this is how consider how this project can negatively or positively impact projects running in parallel, right? So there's interactions between using the same resources, using the same facilities, same dates of go lives, right, which could pull all those together. If it's part of a program, I think we should consider how this project can affect other projects in the same swim lane, and really organize regular program level meetings to identify those interdependencies, right? So if you, let's say you're leading a program, and you have five projects under it, then you need to understand who has what milestone when, who's going live when, because

they might need the name support, the same support rather, how can we take advantage of some of those and seek to optimize resources across the program or between the projects is another thing that I've tried to do and I've seen done really well. So we can really look at those system interactions and there's other interactions too, but those are kind of three ways I think we can really consider this and apply this principle. Demonstrate leadership behaviors is the sixth principle here. And so to me, you know, there's tons of leadership models out there, books, etc. I learned a lot of my first good and bad leadership lessons in the Navy. My first, to me, self-imposed negative is when I was awarded rank for doing a good job. And then I raised my voice to a colleague who

didn't listen because I had rank, right? That wasn't good leadership. And I learned from that. And I've never forgotten it. Obviously, I'm talking about it here on the podcast in 2022. And that was in, or 23, rather. And that was in 1994. So throughout the years, though, I've built on this negative and developed a much more tolerant, inclusive and ownership based style. I encourage all project managers to develop your own leadership style, because whether you're an associate, a PM, a senior PM, a program manager, you're all leaders. Right. From from doing, you know, just scheduling, quote, to running a whole program, we're all leaders. But you need to be a consummate student of many leadership methodologies, I think. And here are some books that I'm going to share that I highly recommend for you all to read, whether you're leading projects, programs, or you just want a good reading list and happen to be listening to KevTalks podcasts, in which case, thank you, is Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.

Very good. It talks about obviously taking ownership for everything that the team does and how leadership is the most important thing for them on the battlefield, but also really in any capacity. Start with Why by Simon Sinek. And I've talked about this and it has crossover with my next book about Man's Search for Meaning where Viktor Frankl quotes about if you know your why, you can figure out your how. Well, Simon Sinek, the same thing, though. He puts the why in the middle and has the golden circle rule, like why, how, what. About Face by David Hackworth. I heard of this from Jocko Willink.

Listen to his podcast. But you hear and learn about David Hackworth from being a brand new person in the military through being a high-level officer and going from Korea to Vietnam. And tons of leadership lessons learned in there. Plus, it's an interesting story. And the last book I recommend is called The Killer Angels. And this is a book, it's actually about the Battle of Gettysburg, but it highlights and it's the book that the movie Gettysburg is based off of. And it highlights a lot of both good, no decision or bad decisions. I think some that are in there that took place in the Battle of Gettysburg on both sides, the Confederate and the Union.

And it's a really entertaining book. It's kind of long, but it was a pre-read for us before our staff read it. It did in 2014-ish. And I'll be interested. It's cool. I'll have a guest on in the near future where we're going to talk about some Civil War history and leadership as it applies. And so those are the books I recommend.

Extreme Ownership, Start With Why, Man's why man search for meaning about face and the killer angels and program and project managers, just develop your own leadership style, take from bits and pieces of who you've seen do things well, who you've who you how you've not done things well, or other folks haven't, and just build on your own and be known kind of for your own leader. The next one is tailor based on context, the principle, and this is in section 3.7 of the PMBOK 7. So not all presentations are the same, right? Nor they should be.

And this is my two cents here. Sometimes the status update isn't enough and other times it's too much, right? So you need to tailor how you use information, how you present it. And I'm not one to want to represent things in different formats all the time, but that's the administrative tedium that comes with being a project or program manager. But you may have to repackage your message and the way you deliver it. And here's kind of three levels that I think are good ways to think about packaging the information. So the boots on the ground, the folks doing the work, they of course need the details of the plan and the schedule, right? What needs done at the task

level and by when? And then of course, they'll tell you, you know, what those tasks are based on their expertise. For supervisors, what are the key milestones of the plan and the schedule that the people you need from their teams, right? So here's the key milestones we're trying to hit or that we're going to hit. And here's the work and the amount of time that I would like to have someone from your team help us with. The C-suite, those vice presidents, presidents, the CEOs, the executives, they need high-level summaries, bottom line up front. What are the issues impacting key dates? What are key decisions and escalations that I need your help with? And that's it. You don't need to get into details. You don't need to tell a long story.

If there's one group that needs the bottom line up front, the elevator pitch, it's the C-suite, right? That's why when you repackage your information, say into a PowerPoint, it should be short, concise bullets, not paragraphs of things that you're going to read to them. It's not a higher level program project manager skill to do that, but it is a good skill to build to be able to take all this great information your team has, summarize it, and re-deliver it so that they get the same message at the higher levels than you do at the task level with your teams. Principle is to build quality into processes and deliverables. And this is section 3.8. To me, quality is not one of the traditional kind of big three, although it's in there, right, of scope, schedule, cost, but it

should be included at the same level of importance. And more and more, it's talked about that. So to me, as tasks are built to meet the overall objectives, the program and project manager needs to help guide the team to confirm that, sure, while we're going to hit these things, we're going to be on time, we're going to be within budget, and we're going to be within scope. Does it also mean that we're delivering the best widget, the most efficient process, whatever that one-time unique project is that we're delivering the best widget, the most efficient process, whatever that one-time unique project, right, is that we're doing, that the quality of that is super high level. And if you have a quality improvement organization and you're not sure how to measure quality, engage them or just realize that, you know, have your subject matter experts tell you,

yes, we can do this on time. Yes, we can do it on budget, but we're going to have to leave this out or we can hit it a hundred percent. And that's where you can get into what's 100% option 75 and 50%. Right. And if you get to a point where you're constrained, and either the schedule, the cost or the scope needs to change, then you can queue those up as options for leadership and give it that bottom line up front and get that decision from them. Number nine of the 12 principles is to navigate complexity. And this is to me where program and project managers must be able to thrive in a complex environment. The real world doesn't work like a book scenario.

This is where a lot of folks that say, hey, I want to get the certification or I have the certification. So I'm ready to be a program manager or project manager. This is where the rubber meets the road. And it doesn't quite match that you expect a sponsor to bring you the charter that says that in some of the books or to do whatever. And so this is where you need to understand the complexity of your environment. So how can we do this as project managers or program managers? Stay dynamic in our thinking. Don't get too attached to the plan that's maybe too static. We also need to help teams think

outside the box. Just because something has not been done before or we aren't ready doesn't mean we don't have to come up with viable solutions when key stakeholders ask, right? So we may be building the plane as we fly it, as I've heard before or whatever, or maybe we just haven't done something before. But if it's a critical task, a key deliverable, something we have to do before this new thing opens or we can put this new product out, then we need to navigate the complexity of getting it done, of being in new environment, and just communicating well, right? Communication between team members and up to leadership can solve a lot of the complexity of things. Supply chain, of course, that can be a

challenge, but figure out where else can we get these things from, right? And just that's some simple ways, simple examples. Number 10 and 3.10 is to optimize risk responses. So to me, this is where basic kind of program and project manager knowledge dictates that risk can be positive or negative, right? That's something you learn on the ground floor. If you haven't learned that, there you go. The magic to me is the part of the program or project manager's job is how to help the team and the organization navigate which approach to take. For potentially negative risks, program and project managers should work with the subsequent or experts on the team to help minimize the chances of the risk becoming an issue or if not possible to completely

mitigate the risk or reduce the impact, then reduce the impact when the risk is realized. So think of strategies where we can move the schedule or we can move team members around or something like that. If the risk can be a positive though, consider how to leverage that opportunity by reordering work, releasing resources, giving back budget, right? Say you come in early and you save money. I mean, that's fantastic. So the risk could have been to the budget or something, and then a better supply comes in or something like that. So just think about when it's negative, try and lessen the impact. And I can elaborate more on risks in a future episode and the different ways that you can accept those or mitigate them or avoid them, et cetera. But then also how to take advantage of the risk in a positive way. The 11th thing is to embrace adaptability and resiliency.

And to me, this is similar to the importance of program and project managers navigating complexity. We've got to be adaptable and resilient, right? And adaptability comes from not falling in love with the slash your plan, right? But knowing you don't own the decisions, but rather you help facilitate them and by accepting that your ideas won't always be right. And that's just the truth of the real world. But one thing I've learned, and I've worked through a lot of the principles we've talked previously in this episode, is that you'll become more resilient, right? So by getting more experience, you'll just become more resilient as a program manager or project manager. By working

with your superstar teams, you'll pick up skills and templates to take with you to future projects. But also when you have a more challenging group, we'll say you'll learn to lead better. You'll foster healthy conflict if needed. Sometimes you got to let people talk it out and how to better escalate more efficiently. Escalation is not a four-letter word.

I've said that here before. And sometimes you have to reach out for help. If you can't resolve it, then that's an opportunity to say, you know what? I'm not cutting it as a leader right now. How can I get help from somebody else that's either done this before, whether they're higher or lower rank, so to speak, and ask, right? So the last principle is to enable change to achieve the envisioned future state. So as a kind of level set, change management is not project or program management, but it should be done in parallel to or be embedded with the project. And so a couple of years ago,

I shared the basic principles on the People Process Progress podcast and with a post on the ProSci, P-R-O-S-C-I, Change Management Practitioner, ADKAR, A-D-K-A-R model. And so I'll run through that again really quick because it's a really good outline. It's a really good tool to use for change management. And so as we're doing project management, we may have a change management office that's separate or it may be baked into our project plan. But again, it's not task management. It's an overall thing.

So the ADKAR, the A is awareness, right? Does the organization and its people know why they need to change and what the change is? The D is for desire to the leaders, key leaders, right? And team members want to make the changes. And this is the most important thing. So if the leadership doesn't support the change, it's not going to work, right? If the ground level folks don't know what it is, or it's not going to help them, it's not going to work. The knowledge, did we provide the knowledge or do our folks have the knowledge that we're aware of about the change and how to make the change a is ability right did we have we enabled the organization with the skills so did we give them training to use this new thing or this new process and then r is reinforcement so

reinforcing the benefits of this through advertising, meetings, discussions, feedback sessions, etc. And the application of the change for the long term, right? Because we can't just make a change and never talk about it again. Do we do follow-ups to say, how's this working? Is it better? Do we have the ability to track efficiency from a new process we put in in real time or near real time? So I really like these principles. When I looked through the project

management body of knowledge seventh edition again the other day, and I'm just going to cover them real quick. So the first is be diligent, respectful, and caring steward. Create a collaborative project team environment. Effectively engage with stakeholders. Focus on value. Recognize, evaluate, and respond to system interactions, demonstrate leadership behaviors, tailor based on context, build quality into processes and deliverables, navigate complexity, optimize risk responses, embrace adaptability and resiliency, and enable change to achieve the envisioned future state. I thank you for sticking with the future state of this podcast,

the KevTalks podcast. Please go to kevtalkspod.com, share this podcast. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. That really helps the show grow. We've got some exciting guests coming up. We're going to hit the technology space, some history and leadership with the Civil War, how to grow project management office, some really helpful things I think you'll enjoy. And I really enjoyed pivoting to the KevTalks podcast where we are powering people, process and progress, right? A little combo there. So again, thanks so much.

Make sure to have a plan to keep your teams in sync, stay informed with facts, not fear and get involved so you can make a difference. I wish you all Godspeed. And for now, I've got to fly.