Discipline Gets Project Results

One of the things that hurt project teams most is the lack of an enterprise focus and oversight regarding the management of projects. It takes discipline to manage projects, and enterprise project discipline is lacking when executives are disinterested or disengaged. Great organizations (not just project managers) manage projects well, and in doing so they have employees with higher morale, they get better project results, and implement projects faster with higher quality.

So why don't more organizations keep closer tabs on their projects at the enterprise level? Some would say the executives are too busy strategizing, and the projects are running just fine without their oversight. I think people that say this are fooling themselves and have little to no project management discipline.

Before we go further, we need to ensure we have a clear understanding of the word discipline. Discipline is the act of encouraging a desired pattern of behavior. George Washington said: "Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable, procures success to the weak, and esteem to all". In other words, discipline is the glue that holds organizations together.

We can't have agile and effective project methodologies or organizational processes without discipline. In short, effective discipline requires effective organizational oversight. Finally, discipline begins at the top and works its way down. Organizations with poor discipline generally have weak, ineffective leaders at the top. Weak, unengaged, ineffective leaders kill organizations.  


The lack of project discipline is the fault of all project team members, but the cause of a lack of discipline lies at the top of the organization.

Disconnected, disinterested, and unengaged leadership is unacceptable in any organization. Undisciplined organizations have high turnover, low employee morale, and poor project results. These organizations cheat their investors and customers by not providing the highest level of service possible. Highly disciplined organizations make and keep commitments, manage to clearly stated and measurable goals, and have executives that are engaged and visibly participate in the oversight of projects and day-to-day operations.


Remember, if you aren't visible, your aren't relevant. If you aren't relevant, you aren't needed.

In closing, dysfunctional organizations believe that the workers are solely responsible for managing projects and operational work. These organizations believe that the executives should spend the majority of their time strategizing and making policy. This is a failed approach (see General Motors, Ford, K-Mart, etc), and ensures the work, including projects, will take longer than planned and cost more than what was budgeted.

Executive leadership and oversight of projects has been proven to motivate project teams to be accountable, results driven, and focused on achieving a common goal. Good executive leadership provides the glue that keeps teams working together, provides inspiration, exhibits integrity, sets an example for others to follow, and is accountable.

Great People

What common behaviors or attributes turn ordinary people into great people?  Here are a few I have assembled from various sources, including Tom Peter’s book "Reinventing Work, The Project 50" .

Great people almost always have had some of the traits below.

They are Risk Takers

They often don’t appear rational

They are obsessed with success (success is clearly defined up front)

Their ideas are often ahead of their time

They can be peculiar, creative, off-the-wall

They are often described as irreverent

They have a burning passion to make their dreams come true

They are determined to make a difference

They have little tolerance for the “the way it has always been done” crowd

They LOVE to go against the grain

They have thick skin

They have charisma

They thrive on chaos and often love to generate chaos

They are great at what they do

They hate J.A.M.S – Just Another Mediocre Success (Tom Peters)

They have a positive influence on the lives of others (not everyone, all the time)

They make lots of mistakes and are quick to admit they made them

They often ask forgiveness vs. permission

They hate, hate, hate politics and petty people. (They will occasionally play the “political” game to get what they want, but they know most career politicians are disingenuous, self-centered, and are only interested in furthering their own careers.)

They are great at marketing

They are often (not always) great listeners

They are masters of the little (important) things

They know how to sell

They hate whiners, complainers, and corporate Dilberts

They aspire to something higher than themselves

They are concerned with doing the “right” thing

They often make lots of people mad (usually the politicians and career procrastinators)

They know how to laugh

They call others out for a lack of commitment or disingenuous behavior

Should project managers adopt some/all of these behaviors?  The great ones already have.

No Fun at Work?

Back in 1940 a man by the name of John Gallo, an assembly worker at Ford Motor Company, was fired after being "caught in the act of smiling".  He had been warned on a previous occasion for "laughing with others".  At that time Ford's workers weren't allowed to hum, whistle, or talk with other workers, even during lunch.  Henry Ford believed that work was for work and play was for outside of work.  He believed the two should never be mixed. 

Southwest Airlines has a completely different philosophy.  They believe that "people rarely succeed at anything unless they are having fun doing it".  If you review their website you see comments like “our people are our single greatest strength and most enduring longterm competitive advantage.”

Part of Southwest Airline's mantra is to:

Have FUN

Don’t take yourself too seriously

Maintain perspective (balance)

Celebrate successes

Enjoy your work

Be a passionate team player

What is the culture look like at your company?  Are the employees excited to come to work or do they dread coming to work?  Remember, if you and your team aren't having fun at work you aren't doing your best work. 

Groups, Values and Toxic Turkeys

I really liked George Carlin's last book; "Last Words - A Memoir".  In it he wrote the following, which I find very scary and very profound all at once.

"The worst thing about groups are their values...you will do things in  the name of a group that you would never do on your own...because you’ve lost your identity,  because you now owe your allegiance to this thing that’s bigger than you are and that controls you.  

What are your group's values?  Honesty, trust, cooperation, respect, or get it done at any cost?

Project management is about groups of people working together to bring to realization the project's objectives...and doing it on time, on budget and with expected quality and scope.

In my experience, most project teams are staffed with decent, cooperative, competent people, but many times there can be one or more toxic team members bent on steering the group to service their personal agenda.  These toxic turkeys don't care about the project's objectives, they only care about themselves and their own agenda (usually hidden).  When you see this type of person on your team remove them or get your sponsor to remove them before they poison the rest of the team and stop your project's progress.

Remember what Carlin said about large groups, "the larger the group, the more toxic it is, and the more of your beauty as an individual you have to  surrender for the sake of group thought."

Click here  to purchase George Carlin's last book from Amazon.com.

Technology Questions

Marshall McLuhan said “first we  shape our tools and then they shape us.”  Sometimes how we are "shaped" by technology isn't pleasant or what we were expecting.  We need to keep in mind that technology for technologies' sake will never deliver anything of lasting value.  When thinking about implementing a technology ask yourself a couple of very important questions.

Can we or should we do it?

Will it make our situation simpler or more complex?

Will it help us to solve a problem or cause a problem?” 

Should we do nothing?

Also, when implementing technology remember these three rules:

The customer is your partner

The customer defines the requirements

Open systems beat closed systems

Remember it isn't the technology that matters, it is what the technology makes possible.

Freedom of the Press - Around the World

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Does your Project Still have Value (revisited)

Are you working on a project that has diminished in value?  If you or others are questioning the value of one of your projects, think about these things:

What would happen in your organization if the project were cancelled?  Would some of the cancelled project's objectives find their way into an existing project... a new project? Should a portion of your current project be de-scoped because of changes beyond your control?

Does the project still link to your organizations strategic goals and/or objectives?

Does the project still have visible support from senior management?

Does the project still generate excitement?

Is your organization still going to gain all the efficiencies or be more competitive as a result of successfully completing the project?

Are you hearing a lot of negative "buzz" about the project?

Would your project have had more value if it were implemented sooner? 

Is the project over budget, late?

Is scope creep a problem?

Has the project sponsor suddenly abandoned the project?

I'm know there are lots of other questions that could be asked. We need to keep in mind that all projects eventually end. Some end when they are completed successfully, and others are terminated early for a variety of reasons. 

The important thing to keep in mind is that you must continually communicate across, up, and down the organization to find out what others are thinking about your project, and more importantly, you muse communicate what is happening with your project.

If the project manager is the only person in the organization that thinks his or her project has value, then the project manager isn't really thinking.