Principle-Based Project Leadership
Principle-Based Project Leadership
About the Book
Project management has alienated so many of its “consumers” that it is hard to practise anymore. So many people just don’t want Project Management is selling, and with good reason.
The main reason project management is having difficulties is that their customers are no longer buying what project managers have to offer. The practice of Project Management needs to be made more relevant to its primary consumers: project sponsors, teams of people who are engaged to deliver the project, and who are going to be impacted by the project, both during and after.
The project context has changed dramatically over the past 20 years, but project management approaches have only tweaked themselves to address these changes such as newer approaches such as Agile.. Project management has lost its traditional footing, and has not been effectively replaced.
And yet some form of management is needed now more than ever: we have left a void in rejecting traditional plan-based approaches and replacing them with Agile approaches that are not designed for this purpose.
This book attempts to side-step the methodological debate by identifying the essence of project management (at least for software projects) so that it can be practised effectively but without method conflict.
About the Author
Table of Contents
Chapter 2 – Why do Information Technology Projects Fail?
Projects & Failure: A Long-Term Affair
Knowing the causes of your own destiny
Projects fail because we make them Fail
Why have organizations not resolved "Cobbs Paradox"?
Methodology Structure, Selection and Use
Undermining the Role of Project Manager
So the Solution is another Methodology?
Chapter 3 – Why is Leading Software Development Projects So Hard?
Managing Software Development is even harder
Fundamental Problems Elaborated
Chapter 4 – The Failure of Methodologies
Plan-based or Deterministic Methodologies
Alternative Approaches to Software Development
The Double-edged sword of Methodologies
The Great Methodological Paradox
Methodologies for Software Development Project Management
Who uses methodologies properly anyway?
Plan-based (“Waterfall”) vs Agile
How do we avoid the Paradigm Trap?
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater
Chapter 5 – A Bridge to the Future: Foundations of Principle-based Management
The Conflict between Technology and Art
Hard and Soft Management Approaches
Trusting People to do their jobs
What does this have to do with project leadership?
Principles lead to models of behavior
Genesis of Principle-based Project Management
Reject Methodologies; Embrace “Hacks”
Chapter 6 – Principle-based Project Leadership
Principle-based Project Leadership
Guided by higher-order principles
How does Principle-based Project Leadership work?
Project Management: What are our Values?
Building a delivery framework from the inside out
Chapter 7 – The Project Action Principles
Structure of the Project Action Principles
Dealing with Complexity: The dynamics of PAP’s
Chapter 8 – Project Action Principle #1: Achieve Outcomes, Rapidly
Bringing an outcome focus to your project
Chapter 9 – Project Action Principle #2: Enable Customer Value, Interactively
Your customer is not your friend
Customers decide the value that a product has: nobody else
Natural Customer Advocacy and the Badass User
What do customers want? It’s not features
Embedding a Customer Value perspective into your project
Chapter 10 – Project Action Principle #3: Build Shared Models, Verifiably
What is the secret to ‘herding cats’?
But the secret is not to herd the cats!
What are shared mental models?
The power of shared mental models
Chapter 11 – Project Action Principle #4: Eliminate Teaming Threats, Ruthlessly
Why don’t we have better teaming?
Removing teaming threats in your projects
Principle-based Self-Organizing Teamwork
Chapter 12 – Project Action Principle #5: Suppress Project Entropy, Selectively
Chapter 13 – Using the Project Action Principles
This is not a typical “How To” guide
Why do the 5 Project Action Principles work?
Working with existing methodologies
The Leverage and Extension of Human Capabilities
Developing Your Project Management Principles
Appendix 1: Errors Created by Team Misfocus
Appendix 2: Pursuing the Perfect Project Manager Revisited
Rethinking “The Perfect Project Manager” by Tom Peters
Appendix 3: Customer Advocacy and Understanding Customer Value
Appendix 4: Are the Risk Management activities on your project a WOFTAM?
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