People Overpursuing Efficiency

In support roles like finance or accounting, you can find a lot of ostriches. I’m not trying to be offensive or funny (OK, maybe a little bit of the latter), it’s just the way things work better there.

Ostriches are well known for burying their heads under the sand and that’s pretty much what people do for the sake of efficiency in finance-related areas. They forget multitasking, thinking it’s the specialization and the focus that gets one productivity.

The beauty of standards is that you can pick up a bunch of boring, repetitive, and less complex tasks and still extract value from them by strictly following a process that has all the guidelines.

Companies Shifting the Optimum to Cost Reduction

Cost reduction has become one of the main priorities for organizations and efficiency turned out to be good for business as eating or sleeping for a human being.

For this, employees are told how to do their work and are expected to literally function as machines. If not careful, an almost inevitable response will be to lose track of the end goal.

The problem starts when you no longer work to keep your clients satisfied in the long-term since you are more concerned with immediate results.

You easily ignore your surroundings and start to protect your own work above that of other colleagues.

And you lose sight of the harm you might be delivering.

Now, imagine you can take a step back whenever necessary and fly over your tasks to identify flaws and correct them right away. Thus being able to assess your impact in other teams or departments will make you play for the whole instead of only yourself. Everyone wins, right?

This is what project managers are tailored to do – snapshot from a distance to anticipate problems faster and slaloming through obstacles to make sure solutions are implemented in time to save budget, quality or (again) time.

In this case, you may be saving yourself some time and the organization some money, while ensuring value is added to the client.

Obscurities in Idea Management

Have you been in a situation where you found it difficult to explain your idea or to turn your thoughts into reality? I guess we all did at some point.

Sometimes it starts revealing early in the process of ideation where you can’t mix knowledge and experience to produce a stable idea or you just can’t organize thoughts and exteriorize them in an intelligible way.

But the majority of us can do this and even with some compelling arguments, what we miss the most is a structured approach to help grow our “baby.”

Read on: The Best Project Management Reports of 2018

An idea is nothing more than a newborn that needs to be educated (shaped) into a grown-up, only to then be able to influence society in a positive manner (be successful). Everybody knows it’s a hell of a “mission impossible” to raise a child and so is shifting from ideas to action.

What project managers bring to the table is the ability to see the bigger picture, envision an idea/project from every possible angle and put its distinct pieces all together into a perfect puzzle.

They organize everything, develop the plan, elaborate a budget, assess risks, ensure communications, manage resources, monitor implementation, and connect all dots.

Ultimately, they enable innovation by allowing the correct use of new ideas.

Processes Lacking Structure and Planning

This was another thing I noticed throughout my experience in this kind of culture – people often lack structure.

It’s not because they are dumber than in other cultures but the type of work they perform on a daily basis is failing to stimulate this.

They are inclined to focus so much on execution than on designing or planning that they end up neglecting the framework behind what they’re doing.

Eventually, it will lead to stagnation and bigger repercussions than just reduced improvements.

The Role of Project Management Skills in Finance

The bottom line is not about everyone having to be project managers to be successful, or project management being a higher entity for us to worship. This article is all about pointing out (not pointing fingers) the main features inside finance-related areas and shed some light on how to overcome them and be a better professional, obviously using the lens of the project manages. Remember that

• It’s possible to chase efficiency and take care of your clients at the same time.
• Even though you should follow guidelines and methodologies, there’s always a bigger purpose to pursue.
• An idea is nothing until you make it happen and structure is great to power that.

Does my experience resonate with you? Let’s start a conversation below.

Illustration: Copyright © Oksana Drachkovska

The post How Project Management Can Benefit Finance Industries appeared first on PM Column.

Since I became the President of IPMA Young Crew Portugal in January 2018, it has been a never-ending learning process. And so has my entire professional experience and my personal life.

IPMA Young Crew Portugal is a non-profit organization affiliated with APOGEP with around 25 active members – students and young professionals sharing a passion for project management, all voluntary and coming from completely different backgrounds. One may think the context is too distinct from a normal company, so why bother reading further?

People Are the Drivers, Not Processes

At some point, last year things were getting hard to lead forward. Teams were not motivated enough, they were struggling with a sense of injustice and showing low levels of engagement throughout the entire structure. We knew we had to do something about it, so we shifted our attention entirely to people. It’s not that people weren’t already important, they were just one of our many other focus points. To address this, we first decided to talk to everyone and understand their expectations. These conversations not only helped us show our appreciation for their work so far, but also provided us with tons of information to reflect on.

We then looked inside our organization and started to change our strategy in order to fit in what we’ve learned there with what we wanted to do. We want to create a culture where one can find their own special place so that together everything would be possible. All organizations, and not only voluntary-based ones like ours, should care for people. We know people are the drivers to deliver a project, not processes. Right?

Sustainability Builds on Trust and Empathy

This topic has been discussed all over the place, so it may sound like common ground to you, but you’ll be amazed at how many take for granted their most valuable asset – people. There are a lot of leaders that focus so much on brand and business that usually go like: Why are people sad and underperforming if we have such a great brand and a good business? But do you? Probably yes, but only temporarily. You will always need people to make things happen and that holds true for brands and businesses. Sustainability builds on trust, trust builds on relationships, and relationships build on empathy. Although this may look easy and somehow intuitive, don’t fool yourselves. People are complex.

Sustainability builds on trust, trust builds on relationships, and relationships build on empathy. Although this may look easy and somehow intuitive, don’t fool yourselves. People are complex.

I will never forget a quote from a speaker at one of our conferences saying “people are a lot of things.” If you think carefully this has so much of simplicity than it has of truth. And the sooner you truly impersonate this mindset, the sooner you’ll get to know the ones around you, and the quicker you’ll help them achieve their goals. If you give people a purpose and you mix it with your organization’s mission, you’re closing in on a success formula.

You Can’t Make Everyone Happy

Moreover, I was being haunted by loneliness… a lot. Running a business, a department, or a team can give you that. Every single decision just looks like you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders because you want to choose what’s best for everybody. And then you realize it’s impossible. You will most likely feel miserable and procrastinate on those difficult moments, even if sometimes you know you’re delaying the inevitable. So as a President, or a leader, you have to understand that you can’t make everyone happy.

People rely on you to decide which path to follow with a reason – you’re expected to be in the best position to gather the most valuable information that will support your decisions, and not them. And as long as you trust your vision, you clearly communicate it and motivate your team to pursue it, you’ll probably be fine. Apply coherence between what you say and what you do to develop trust and really invest in that. Sometimes a lot of people will be angry, but that’s normally when you signal a red flag on how wrong you should be. Then you go back to your thoughts and try to figure out what might need adjustments.

Project Managers Need Allies to Delegate Decisions

Decisions are a daily basis for leaders or project managers themselves. We are increasingly dealing with ever-changing contexts or scopes, unexpected budget cuts, new market demands, and people depending on us. We are being flooded with data and asked to act quickly choosing from infinite options. So unless we can upgrade our brain’s processor or add more RAM, as well as multiply ourselves to be in several places at the same time, the outcome could be a disaster.

I’ve faced a bunch of projects that were supposed to last weeks but turned into months instead, even years. Imagine you take more than 9 months to pick the right furniture for your son’s bedroom and by the time he is born he has nowhere to sleep. A bit extreme and ludicrous, I would admit, but we are already there in some of our projects. Despite this overwhelming reality I believe we can find ways to cope and I found mine through agility – the concept that invaded the minds of 99% of project managers worldwide.

I’ve faced a bunch of projects that were supposed to last weeks but turned into months instead, even years. Imagine you take more than 9 months to pick the right furniture for your son’s bedroom and by the time he is born he has nowhere to sleep.

I recently realized that if I wanted to respond faster and better I would need allies. If you can delegate tasks, why not delegate decisions too? Start by identifying those who show the ability to inspire others and also breathe the culture. Understand what motivates them and how they prefer to work. Adjust your speech and way of doing things. Empower them to make decisions without consulting you, show trust, and learn to stay away from every single detail. Ask for reports to follow progress. Finally, watch as the machine works and enjoy the time to target what requires the most of you. Naturally, this won’t happen overnight so I suggest you begin working on it. Don’t try to change from 8 to 80. Introduce slight changes gradually and adjust them to your context. Remember there’s no one-size-fits-all on this, stay agile.

Reflective Practice Works

I started applying reflective practice to learn through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self. I landed on this by chance, but now it’s so vital to me that I can’t picture myself living without any other lens than this. I’m confident this way of thinking has been working well as it allows me to extract wisdom from each and every step of the way. No mistake should go unnoticed and every positive experience must make room for better things.

Do you bear a resemblance to my experience? Please comment below or write to me, I would love to hear your stories!

Illustration: Copyright © Oksana Drachkovska

The post What I’ve Learned Being the President of IPMA Young Crew Portugal appeared first on PM Column.