Point 2 - Deming in Project Management

Adopt a philosophy of cooperation where everyone wins and teach it to everyone

Often, projects can become battlegrounds where the project manager and team are at odds with the sponsor and other stakeholders. These conflicts can arise when the project environment is not conducive to a win-win approach.

In project planning and initiation, clearly define the WIIFM (What’s in it for me) for everyone on the project. This includes the sponsor, stakeholders, project team, and project manager. When you keep all parties in mind when planning your project, it helps create a win-win strategy in which everyone benefits. The functional managers from which you are pulling resources need to understand the benefit of the project to their department and the organization as a whole. This is important, and should be clearly communicated to everyone early and often.

During execution, a win-win philosophy will help keep individual issues from turning into project-killing conflicts. It creates the ‘one big team’ environment where people are willing to be creative and take educated risks, because they know they are supported by their team from all angles. If someone makes a mistake, they should not fear retribution from other parties, and they should not want to cover it up. The win-win environment spearheaded by the project manager and sponsor should make everyone think about issues and conflicts in terms of what is the best method of dealing with it for the whole project and everyone involved.

In the case of two or more project managers with their own teams working on a single complex project, Deming’s point #2 is even more important. In this situation it is easy to start pointing fingers at the other groups, withholding information, and other counterproductive practices. An acquaintance who works for another company told me about their situation. Any software development as part of a project is sent to a separate group. The software development group doesn’t care about her project; they just get sub-projects that are prioritized based on pre-determined criteria. The communication is sub-par, and she never knows when she will get her deliverables. I envisioned a big question mark on her project schedule. This is not a win-win project environment, and you can imagine the finger-pointing that inevitably results.

Additionally during execution, a project manager should not hold so tightly to the original requirements and throw up artificial barriers to positive changes. As long as the formal change management system is in place and utilized properly, any request should increase value for the whole project, period. If more money or time is required to increase the scope, the net effect should still be win-win for the organization. Sponsors must realize that increasing the scope will do one or more of 3 things: increase cost, delay the project, or decrease quality. The team atmosphere created by a win-win philosophy helps everyone get on the same page about these considerations.

When the project is finished, everyone should be involved in the celebration together. In the ‘us versus them’ scenario, a project team is segregated from rest of the stakeholders, and they usually celebrate separately.

If you have ever had the pleasure of working for a project manager with a win-win attitude, you know exactly why that is the way to run a project.

(Back to Deming's 14 Points)