Page 217 - Global Project Management Handbook

10-6 COMPETENCY FACTORS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

We try all the time to place the bar a little higher than last time to see whether it is
possible to accomplish something extra.
I guess we have more things running than we should if you would calculate. But taken
together, I think it is good. All the time we have a little more on the plate than you can
eat.

To conclude, the empirical study shows that employees (including project managers)
and top managers do not (fully) agree on whether the high number of simultaneous pro-
jects is an issue or not. Employees feel that their performance and their work satisfaction
would be much better if the number of projects they had to work on at the same time was
smaller, whereas many top managers only pay lip service to the wish for a lower number
of projects because they have many reasons to keep the number high.
Lacking Attention from Top Management. An energy-draining issue often referred
to by the employees interviewed is insufficient or unstable attention from top manage-
ment. A typical scenario is that top management is very interested in the project in the
project initiation phase, but when the project proposal has been approved and the project
manager and project team have been assigned, many top managers more or less forget
about the project and turn their attention to other duties and new project proposals. A top
manager says:

When starting new projects up, a risk is that top management gets fed up with the
[old] project. Then you don’t feel like engaging in this project anymore because some-
thing else is more fun. I must admit that this is a bit as it is here . . . [concerning] the
“Quality on Time Project.” We assume that it flickers around somewhere out there, but
we [top management] are not interested in this project anymore. . . . Now it is the “Lean
Project” that occupies [our minds].

Incomprehensible Interventions in the Projects. Project team members and project
managers fully understand that new internal and external conditions may lead to changed
priorities in the portfolio of projects. This may be caused by, for example, changes in cus-
tomer preferences, technology options, workforce, legislation, etc. Furthermore, they
accept that this may lead to changes in the content and objectives of some of the projects.
However, a true energy drainer arises if top management intervenes and requires changes
in the project course based on the fact that they did not involve themselves (in time and

according to the project plan) and thus did not contribute to defining the scope, objec-
tives, and concepts of solutions at the time the project team worked with these issues.
Further, the employees do not understand why some top managers suddenly dictate solu-
tions that are not better than the ones proposed by the project teams but only pop up (it
seems) because the top manager has not understood or accepted the concept of solutions
developed by the project team. These interventions may be caused by lack of top man-
agement attention, as mentioned earlier, or may be caused by the fluctuating attention of
top managers owing to the fact that they are having an “on-again, off-again” interest in
the project.
Unclear Roles. Both project team members and project managers state that they
wish to work on profitable projects and they want to do it in an efficient way. Most of
them prefer well-defined and well-organized projects, and they want top management to
take part in formulating objectives and determining the scope of the project. Ambiguity
and unclear expectations concerning the roles of different project participants (including
the project owner) drain the individuals for energy. Furthermore, if doubt arises about
whether the person in question or another team member has the necessary competence,
frustration will be created, and frustration invariably consumes energy.