INTRODUCTION
“My wife is a technical project manager, so I’m going to be hard on you.” I chuckle because I can hear my husband interviewing his latest project management candidate from his office. I’m not trying to eavesdrop, but I can’t help but register his words when I hear him mention me. We’ve been abiding by “safer at home” orders due to COVID-19 for the last year, so we are always within earshot of each other.
He’s a CTO for a rapidly growing tech start-up, while I’m a Vice President, Product & Program Management at Edmunds. We met at Ticketmaster over sixteen years ago when our desks were about ten feet from one another. Ironically, it’s not dissimilar to our working set-up now. He works in the garage. I’m a nomad who migrates around our house or backyard with my laptop so I can get a change of scenery during my workday. Our house is relatively small, so we are never more than about twenty feet apart. We both work in tech, and we both work on delivering projects all day every day, just in different roles.
After his interviews, my husband debriefs with me. The latest candidate was an Agile advocate whose firm belief was that scrum ceremonies could solve all of their problems. Not only did she exhibit a lack of willingness to adapt her process, she also gave lengthy responses, which caused the interview to run over time despite multiple reminders that my husband had a hard stop. The candidate from the day before didn’t build much rapport with him and didn’t ask follow-up questions. Several others weren’t assertive enough. When asked what they would do if a developer told them a project would be late, they responded that they would just update the project status and communicate it. None responded with the initiative to deliver, which is what his company truly needs. He’s interviewed at least a dozen people for this role to date and is having a heck of a time finding a promising candidate.
He’s not the only one. This year, I’ve spoken to several leaders in my network at tech companies in Los Angeles. They all have project managers on staff but struggle to get things done. They refer to their project managers as “clipboard managers,” “well versed in theory,” “good at following a process,” but not effective at ultimately delivering projects. They yearn for a breed of people who are more hands-on, more assertive, more adaptable—those who can drive a project to completion. They are puzzled by why it’s so hard to find people who fit the bill.
I see their problem. They are hiring project managers, but what they really need are project leaders.
What’s the difference? I didn’t make the distinction myself until just recently. I self-identified as a project manager, a role I had held for the majority of my career. I wore the title like a badge of honor, something I earned through years of practice and refinement. However, I very rarely followed the paradigms that were standardized by the project management community at large.
I read a ton of articles, blogs, and books about project management (including the Project Management Body of Knowledge, also known as the PMBOK), took project management courses at UCLA Extension, and attempted to apply many of those principles to my job. I found the philosophies informative and drew inspiration from them. But I always found them lacking when applied to real projects. They were too rigid, too process-oriented, too impersonal. My approach was always more fluid, more people-oriented, more adaptable. My flexibility and desire to serve teams made me successful, and I refused to forgo those principles in order to comply with a particular methodology.
I had an enlightening conversation with a mentor who changed my perception about my unique approach to managing projects. We were discussing the future of my career. I asked if he thought I’d have to shed the badge I held so dear as a project manager so I could take on more responsibility and expand the scope of my role. While I cherished the title like it was a part of my identity, he challenged whether I should label myself as a project manager at all. It was too narrow of a description. “You’re not just a project manager,” he said, “you’re a leader.”
Since that conversation, I’ve evolved my thinking. I realized the reason that standard project management paradigms never felt natural to me was that I always extended my responsibilities beyond management, into leadership. You need both sets of skills to successfully deliver projects.
Now I see myself as a project leader. I don’t define myself by a particular title. Instead, I bring my ability to manage things and lead people to every project, regardless of the official role I’m playing. It’s the special blend of those two skills that sets my approach apart from that of traditional project managers. It also explains the gap my husband is seeing in the skills of project management candidates he is interviewing. The candidates have been trained to manage projects, not lead them. And what he is actually seeking is a project leader.
What is a project leader?
In The Servant, a popular book about servant leadership, James C. Hunter makes a point to distinguish acts of management from acts of leadership: “Management is not something you do to other people. You manage your inventory, your checkbook, your resources. You can even manage yourself. But you do not manage other human beings. You manage things, you lead people.” All projects are delivered by people. Therefore, to successfully deliver projects, you can’t just manage them. You need to lead them as well.
I apply three basic leadership principles to my projects. Each piece of advice that I give in this book will echo these themes.
Principle #1: Project leaders take full ownership of project delivery
When I’m working on a project, I take full ownership of anything that needs to be done to make the project successful. That means I lose my ego, roll up my sleeves, and dig in to help wherever help is needed. My job is to do anything along the spectrum from administrative tasks to communicating goals that will inspire the team at large.
On a given day, you’ll find me taking notes, testing features, chasing follow-up items, but then also working in a leadership capacity to craft our vision and communicate it to our entire project team. There is no task too small or too large for me to take on, so long as I have the capacity and skill to do it. And my work is not done until the project is a success.
In their book Extreme Ownership, former US Navy SEALs Jacko Willink and Leif Babin share a similar view on leadership. Whether you are on the battlefield or working in business, ownership is the key to true leadership.
They write: “Of the many exceptional leaders we served alongside throughout our military careers, the consistent attribute that made them great was that they took absolute ownership—Extreme Ownership—not just of those things for which they were responsible, but for everything that impacted their mission. These leaders cast no blame. They made no excuses. Instead of complaining about challenges or setbacks, they developed solutions and solved problems. They leveraged assets, relationships, and resources to get the job done. Their own egos took a back seat to the mission and their troops. These leaders truly led.”
Traditional project managers are taught that it’s their job to track status, progress, and accountability for their projects and then report on it. They are taught to remove blockers and communicate risk. However, they are rarely coached to take full ownership of the project. Unfortunately, when you lack a sense of ownership, you also don’t exert the extra effort to get the job done. In contrast, project leaders feel accountable for every aspect of project delivery themselves, not just the tracking of them. And that is what motivates them to undertake every effort to see their projects through to successful conclusion, even when they face challenges.
Principle #2: Project leaders strive to bring out the best in their teams
Stephen Covey, author of the classic leadership book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, writes this: “Leadership is communicating others’ worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.” The most effective project leaders I’ve known embody this principle. They inspire their teams by communicating to every person why they are valued. They connect daily work to a greater purpose so that each person is able to easily see how their actions contribute to collective success and aspire to achieve it.
Project leaders also strive to bring out the best in their teams when implementing governance for their projects. While most traditional project managers lean on predefined templates and standardized processes, project leaders only use processes that boost productivity for their teams. Similarly, while many traditional project managers apply Agile scrum ceremonies religiously, project leaders follow the original intention of the Agile Manifesto by valuing “individuals and interactions over process and tools.” Project leaders know there are no magic shortcuts that can fix all problems for every team. As such, they take extra effort to tailor project organization to their team’s needs and cast away rules that do not meet those criteria.
In this book, I share several strategies I use to customize planning and organization for my project teams to bring out the best in them. With these tactics I’m able to reduce the overhead associated with policing processes that don’t work. Instead, I can focus my time on more impactful tasks that will help my teams deliver.
Principle #3: Project leaders are the glue that binds their teams together
One of the earliest texts on project management Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, reveals that all major issues that occur in software projects are actually human issues, not development issues. As a result, those most successful at project delivery are emotionally intelligent people leaders who focus on creating strong team dynamics.
As an example, coauthor Tom DeMarco challenges himself to explain the value of a mysterious woman whom I can now identify as a project leader. He said, “During her 12 years at the company, the woman in question had never worked on a project that had been anything other than a huge success. It wasn’t obvious what she was adding, but projects always succeeded when she was around. After watching her in class for a week and talking to some of her co-workers, I came to the conclusion that she was a superb catalyst. Teams naturally jelled better when she was there. She helped people communicate with each other and get along. Projects were more fun when she was part of them.”
Project leaders intuitively do everything they can to create cohesive teams. They act as the glue that binds teams together, filling gaps in process and communication wherever there is a need.
In the sports world, a similar phenomenon exists in players that are affectionately termed “glue guys.” In his article on Forbes.com, Great Teams Need Glue to Hold Together, Don Yeager identifies these glue guys on several teams and the traits that make them particularly effective. “Great teams realize players like Fisher, who won five NBA titles with the Los Angeles Lakers, Battier, Ross and Johnston are the glue that holds the organization together. Teammates who build each other up, show appreciation for everyone, and connect with each other are key parts of any great team.”
Glue guys go beyond their predefined responsibilities. Whether their teams need encouragement, support, appreciation, or someone who just makes it more fun to work together, they aim to fill any gap they see. In essence, they use talent and care to make their teams complete.
If you ask my teammates to describe my role on projects, they will often fumble to outline it with specific tasks or responsibilities. What they do say consistently however, is that I’m “the glue” for the project. When I receive that compliment, I know I’m focusing my energy in the right tasks as their project leader.
About this book
You can buy many books on project management, and you can buy even more books on leadership. However no other resources combine the practice of both into one balanced approach. In addition, while many books are written about leading when you are at the top of an organization, not many explain how to lead from the middle where the majority of project leadership takes place. This book was written to fill that void.
I have had the pleasure to work with hundreds of people to deliver hundreds of projects. I’ve done it in consulting environments, corporations, start-ups, and start-ups within corporations. I’ve worked on teams of two and teams of one hundred, on projects that have lasted just one day to projects that span a full year. I’ve learned through trial and error how to be my best at leading projects by bringing out the best in my teams no matter the size, length, or backdrop. And despite how many people I’ve worked alongside, you would be hard pressed to find a person who can point to a project that I personally led that failed.
And that is what this book is about. It’s the culmination of the wisdom that I’ve painstakingly collected since I started working. It’s twenty years of lessons I’ve learned, distilled into a few key skills that have made me successful in a craft I love.
I’m writing this book for the breed of people who, like me, seek a sense of belonging, purpose, and satisfaction in the work of leading projects.
You don’t need project manager in your title to employ the lessons in this book. You can be any person on any team who has stepped up to take a leadership role on an important initiative. You can be anyone who is interested in learning about how to successfully guide teams to achieve a goal. Whether that interest is temporary or a result of you wanting to linger in the profession for a bit, this book will provide you with nuggets of hard-earned wisdom that you can start applying today.
In this book, I will not cover standard project management processes. I will not give you a generic blueprint you can follow to lead your next project. I will not teach you how to create a detailed project plan or generate a status report. I will not delineate the differences between different project management methodologies—waterfall, Agile scrum, Kanban, and others. I also won’t prepare you to take the PMP exam. You can use tons of other resources to learn those rules. I recommend you review them and that you make your own judgment call on the elements from those concepts you’ll want to apply to your own projects.
What I will do in this book, however, is teach you the critical blend of management and leadership skills you need to become indispensable on any project. You’ll learn what it takes to be the binding agent—the glue—that creates cohesive, engaged, high-performing project teams.
I will share the methods that I’ve used in my own career—both to manage things and lead people—methods that have been battle-tested against real technology projects for the last two decades. These methods were born out of my experience, rather than gleaned from classroom education. They reach beyond theory into application and can be used immediately regardless of the length, scope, or phase of your project.
Since the advice I’ll share stems from my own experience, the principles will work best when applied to environments similar to those in my work history. They are most applicable to technical, software projects. They also work best in matrixed organizations, where you are being asked to lead a team of people without formal authority. I have used these same skills to run personal projects as well, such as my wedding or even the project to write this book. Therefore, I know that many of the principles are broadly applicable. Nonetheless, the advice is tuned to projects that are most similar to those from my work.
The chapters are organized into four parts, each representing a critical category of skills that can be used to navigate various project phases. In each chapter, I’ll share advice, philosophies, stories, and analogies to illustrate the importance of the skill. Where applicable, I refer to notable books, articles, and other media that I used in my research for this book. If you would like to learn more about these references, you may find details about them in the References section at the end of the book. Finally, each chapter also contains a how-to section that will serve as a quick reference guide to use when you are ready to apply the principles to your own projects.
PART I: How to Get Started When You Don’t Know Much—Yet
The skills in this section can be applied at any time to any project. Project leaders are often designated after a project has started, when the people who initiated the project realize it will need special care or focus to hit its goals. However, leaders often feel at a disadvantage when this happens. They feel they can’t contribute until they know more, but they also won’t know more until they start digging into the project. This section will help you break out of that catch-22 by outlining what you can do to add value to your project immediately, regardless of how much you know from the get-go.
PART II: How to Lay a Solid Foundation for Your Project
These skills focus on work you’ll need to do in the earliest phases of your project to lay a solid foundation for execution. If you’re lucky enough to be assigned a project at its inception, you can start with these sections right away. Even if you join a project after it is already up and running, it’s useful to refer to these sections to sanity check for steps that may have been skipped during the initial kickoff. If you find gaps, you can take a step back for a moment to apply advice from this section. When your project is moving fast, it’s helpful to confirm you haven’t overlooked anything that will be crucial to your project success down the line.
PART III: How to Support a Project That’s in Flight
Once your project is in full swing, you’ll need a few tricks up your sleeve to keep it on track. The skills in this section will teach you to navigate and overcome the challenges that arise during project
execution. They are essentially the skills that you’ll need to drive your project to completion, regardless of the surprises that you face along the way.
PART IV: How to Make Work More than a Project
This is the shortest section in the book, but one I’d be remiss to leave out. In this section, I share my advice for how to make your projects fulfilling.
By the time you finish reading this book, you’ll have consumed the best advice I have to give to any aspiring project leader. At the end of the day, however, the secret ingredient to putting what you learn to good use is something only you can bring to the table. It’s you.
Every project is unique. It has unique goals, timelines, constraints, unique people you will need to lead with unique personalities. You will also make your project unique because you will bring your own experience, perspective, and talents.
You will use your instincts to apply the most appropriate skills you learn from this book to meet your project’s specific needs at the moments when your team needs help the most. That’s how you will become the glue for your team. That’s how you will both manage and lead. And that’s how you will be the project leader your team really needs.
Let’s get started.
