The Vision Statement and Motivating for Project Success

The Vision Statement and Motivating for Project Success

Perry Fitzberg, newly appointed manager for GWIs Smythe Project, knows all too well that leadership involves more than just building schedules and calculating budgets. As project manager it will be his job to:

Provide a vision of what the project is to achieve.

Communicate that vision to all involved.

Ensure that everyone stays focused on that vision.

Motivate people to participate in the project.

Facilitate and expedite performance.

Build an effective team.

But lets examine each of these points, one at a time.

Providing the Project Vision

From a project management perspective, the vision describes what the project is to achieve. It is often a high-level statement supported by a list of goals and objectives. The vision is essentially an idea of some desired end state, expressed in a form that everyone understands, can relate to, and can feel a sense of commitment to.

Perry knows that the vision should be clear, concise, and direct. He used several sources to draft the statement, including the minutes of meetings and the formal contract with the customer. Perry also knows that the vision statement will require commitment by people working directly and indirectly on the project. To engender this commitment, he solicits feedback to make revisions where appropriate. This helps generate commitment, encourages raising important questions, and possibly addresses communciation problems before they can negatively impact the project. Exhibit 4-1 is his vision statement for the Smythe Project.

Having a vision statement at the outset offers several advantages:

It clearly formulates in peoples minds what the project is to achieve. In other words, it communicates the scope of the project, helping to avoid scope creep, that is, unintentional expansion of the projects boundaries.

It provides a basis for managing the project. All subsequent activities are planned, organized, and controlled from the perspective of that vision. Mapping becomes easier because everyone knows what perspective to take.

It bridges the communications gap. Since a vision statement describes what the project is to achieve, theres less chance for ambiguity as people understand the importance of their activities.

The vision statement provides a basis for evaluating performance. Throughout the project cycle, questions will arise about performance. The vision statement is the yardstick against which performance can be judged.

It determines the importance of questions that arise during the project. What is important and what is not must always be clear. A vision statement is the tool to help answer those questions.

The vision statement empowers, it gives people a means for independent judgment. Essentially it is the criterion for decision making.

Communicating the Vision

A vision statement is worthless, of course, unless other people know about it. Therefore, Perry widely distributes the statement. He ensures that the right people receive the statement at the right time.

Making the vision statement public has obvious benefits, which are important to state here. For example, it gives people a sense of the scope of the project. It establishes the groundwork for effective communication via a common language and mental framework. Finally, it helps build a sense of community.

Exhibit 4-1. Vision statement.

But the challenges of communication are many. Mental paradigms, values, beliefs, and attitudes, for example, may restrict how the vision statement is received. People tend to filter or slant the message. Also, pockets of resistance exist, reflecting nonacceptance of the vision. That resistance might be covert (subtle, negative comments) or overt (vocalizing opposition). Another challenge is to cut through the layers of bureaucracy. Organizational layers may filter or alter the message, either intentionally or inadvertently.

So Perry will publish the vision statement in a house newsletter. He will post it on the projects Web site. He will conduct information-sharing sessions or give presentations. Hell provide a copy for each project manual and reiterate it at training sessions and other meetings. (Chapters 13, 14, and 19 have additional information on communciation.) The key is to ensure the vision statement is brought to everyones attention.

Keeping People Pocused on the Vision

Perry realizes that it is easy to get sidetrackedthat is, to lose sight of the vision while fighting fires. He is concerned about not letting those fires distract him or the team. If they become distracted the likelihood increases for the schedule to slide, the project to overrun the budget, and the output to be inferior.

As project manager, Perry takes the lead in asking whether each process, activity, or action will achieve the vision. He continually raises the issue of direction, although he wants everyone to do the same. And there are several ways he can ensure that people stay focused, such as collecting and evaluating data regarding schedule and budget; tracking past performance and projecting the future; identifying likely risks and ways to respond; instituting change management disciplines; and collecting and evaluating measurements and metrics on quality. Chapters 15 and 16 will describe methods for data collection. Of course, Perry does not do this alone. He obtains help from team players to validate his assessments.

Facilitating and Expediting Performance

Most project teams do not operate in a vacuum. They face obstacles and frustrations, such as not having the right equipment or having to deal with bureaucratic politics. In addition, project managers can frustrate or facilitate the performance of team members.

Perry, of course, wants to facilitate rather than impede performance. He faces constraints on his power, yet he refuses to take a dying cockroach position. He strives to eliminate physical distractions (e.g., noisy equipment), to ensure the availability of the right tools (e.g., telecommunication equipment and software), to shield the team from administrative red tape (e.g., computing paperwork), and to handle the political aspects of the project (e.g., interference in daily activities by senior management).

Perry does not address every problem or obstacle that confronts the team. But he determines what is important, in light of whether it affects the achievement of the vision.

Motivation to Participate

Perry understands that, without people, the project does not exist. He also knows that without motivated people, performance will suffer. To motivate his team, Perry must have insight into human behavior and direct it toward achieving the vision.

Motivation deals with the internal conditions that encourage people to act or not to act. It is a complex process that remains intriguing to psychologists and layman alike. From Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung to contemporary practitioners, the mystery of human behavior remains, despite growth in our knowledge. From a managerial perspective, there are many theories that work most of the time, but not always, and have proved useful for project managers like Perry.

Credit for the birth of motivational theory largely falls to Frederick Taylor, a major contributor to the development of the concept of scientific management. He relied on identifying the most efficient tasks to perform a job, training people to do them, developing standards to measure performance, and separating tasks between management and workers. The best workersthe ones meeting or exceeding the standardreceived the best pay.

Over the years, it has become quite clear that scientific management, albeit revolutionary, had negative motivational consequences. Work often became meaningless and highly routine, and management relied solely on financial motivations. But since Taylor, other motivational therories have been developed.

One is Frederick Herzbergs two-factor theory of motivation. According to this, people are motivated via maintenance (hygiene) or motivational factors (motivators). Maintenance factors are dissatisfiers, meaning that if not present to a sufficient degree, they will negatively impact motivation. Maintenance factors include pay, policies, and work conditions. Motivational factors are satisfiers, meaning that if addressed, they will positively impact performance. Motivational factors include opportunities for achievement, recognition, and advancement.

Abraham Maslows hierarchy of needs is another popular motivational theory. According to this, people are motivated by five fundamental needs, in the following order: physiological, safety, love/belongingness, self-esteem, and self-actualization. Each need must be satisfied sequentially.

Physiological needs are ones like food, sex, and water. Safety needs include psychological and physical security. Love/belongingness needs include social acceptability. Self-esteem needs include feeling good and confident about oneself. Self-actualization needs include realizing ones fun potential.

Other motivational theories are more narrowly focused. According to David C. McClellands n Ach theory, people have a need to achieve; the degree just varies from person to person. He found that this need was influenced by the expectation of success and the likelihood of reward. If a manager combines the two, theres a greater the probability of achieving successful results. Victor Vroom developed another theory of motivation based on an individuals goal and the influence different behaviors have in achieving that goal. If people feel a goal is important, they will select the appropriate behavior that promises the highest probability of success. Hence, motivation depends on whether people place much value on a goal.

Motivational theories have laid the foundation for managerial theories. One of those is Douglas McGregors Theory X and Theory Y. The Theory X style of management involves taking a negative view of human nature. Managers believe people dislike work, will avoid it, accept little or no responsibility, and consequently need close oversight, maybe even coercion. But Theory Y takes a positive view of human nature. Managers believe people like work and, if the rewards and conditions are right, will commit themselves to their jobs and take on responsibilityconsequently, close oversight is unnecessary.

Research known as the Michigan studies has revealed two types of supervisory styles that can affect motivation: production and employee-centered. Production-centered supervisors are task-oriented. They treat people as instruments of production and intervene on how to perform the work; they tend to be autocratic in their style. Employee-centered supervisors are people-oriented. They grant autonomy to people when performing tasks, take a positive view of the capabilities and talents of subordinates, and tend to be democratic in their style. The studies found that employee-centered supervisors generally achieve the best performance.

Perry recognizes that the trend in managing people is increasingly to emphasize the people side. A dramatic shift has occurred away from being task or mission oriented and toward taking a behaviorist approach. Project managers, especially, must be sensitive to this shift because they often lack command and control. They must rely on positive motivation to have people perform tasks and must understand how their own behavior affects that of others.

Keeping the above theories in mind, Perry uses some powerful motivational tools:

Delegation

Because some project managers feel powerless (e.g., they lack command and control over people), they equate that with a loss of control and to compensate, do many tasks themselves. The results are frequently poor because they assume too much work. The work piles up and the schedule slides. The answer, as Perry knows, is to delegate.

Delegating is having one person act on behalf of another. This means relinquishing authority to perform the work but not necessarily the responsibility or accountability for the results. A reluctance to delegate often indicates lack of confidence in oneself or the delegate. It manifests itself through comments like I can do a better job myself.

Perry is a practical person who knows that delegation can have negative consequences, too. To ensure that he delegates work correctly, he looks at the nature and importance of the tasks, the capabilities and personality of the individuals, and the availability of time and other resources.

Job rotation, Enlargement, and Enrichment

Job rotation entails moving people from one job to another to increase their overall awareness or exposure. It is useful for inculcating a generalist background and providing a bit picture viewpoint. Job enlargement involves increasing the number of tasks and responsibilities to perform. It increases the level of effort and challenge. Job enrichment entails structuring or assessing tasks and responsibilities to give people the opportunity to actualize.

Applying all three tools requires careful consideration. Perry must ponder the personality, talents, expertise, and knowledge of each individual. He must also consider nonbehavioral factors such as the availability of time, importance of the task, learning curve, cost, and impact to quality.

Participation

Commitment is important to a projects success. If lacking, then people will not care about the results. Perry knows a powerful way to build commitment is through participation.

Participation means obtaining input or feedback prior to making a decision. Perry accomplishes that by getting feedback on the statement of work, estimates, and schedules, and getting participation at meetings. Participation breeds emotional commitment to the outcome.

Personal Goal Attainment

People have different goalsmoney, power, or physical surroundingsbut Perry must identify the reason each person is working on the Smythe Project. This knowledge will help him satisfy a persons expectations while simultaneously achieving the overall goals of the project.

What Perry hopes to achieve is to maximize output by matching effort, performance, and project goals. To do that, Perry must know the people on the project, by holding one-on-one sessions, reviewing of personnel documentation (rsums), and personal familiarization. Only then can he motivate by satisfying the WIIFM (Whats In It For Me) syndrome.

Personality/Task Match

Personality is the composite of characteristics that constitute a persons behavior. How people interact with their environment reflects their personality. One type of interaction is through the performance of tasks. Perry knows that some people are a mismatch for certain tasks. Some may not be gregarious enough to perform tasks involving social interaction; others lack the personality to deal with routine, repetitive tasks that involve methodical detail.

A mismatch between personality and task can negatively impact project performance. Tasks can go uncompleted, morale and esprit de corps can plummet, quality can suffer, and schedule can slide. To avoid such results, Perry considers several variables when matching a person to a task. From a personality perspective, he looks at the track record, including what they did and did not do well in the past; their characteristics (introversion, extroversion); intelligence; self-confidence; stress handling abilities; and needs. From a structural perspective, he also considers the complexity of the task, as well as its variety, autonomy, and scope.

Recognition

Many people want to stand out. Receiving recognition is one way to satisfy that need.

Recognition must be done carefully; otherwise, it can be counterproductive. The idea is to find a balance between individual and team recognition and to discover the types of recognition people value. Perry also knows that recognition must follow some basic principles. It must be genuine, timely, fair, objective, meaningful, and not overdone.

Stretching

Sometimes Perry will assign people to tasks that present a challenge. People view the task as more difficult than the typical task, but not impossible to complete. The new challenge may exceed physical and emotional dimensions, or present a mental challenge relating to intelligence, training, or aptitude. The idea is to match the person to the task so that the person stretches and does not break.

One key motivational issue in recent years is the role stress plays on the project manager and the team. Perry knows that he and his team will be under considerable stress and that he has responsibility for managing it. There are two types of stress: negative stress (or distress) and positive stress (or eustress).

Negative stress manifests itself in many ways. It causes ailments, from hives to heart attacks. It affects people psychologically by making them depressed and argumentative or just wanting to give up. It affects the performance of the team as conflict intensifies; people start throwing their work over the fence and they lower their productivity.

Perry is well aware that there are many causes for high stress. Downsizing, increased time-to-market pressures, rapidly varying market conditions, consultants and contractors hired as replacements, and outsourcing services all add to a stressful situation. Poor project management practices also cause stress. Such practices include not defining roles and responsibilities clearly; unrealistically assigning resources; compressing the schedules; providing inadequate tools; and not isolating the team from politics.

Perry realizes that he does not have to let stress have a harmful effect on him or his team. He can alleviate the impact in several ways. For example, he can develop and revise his project plan to reflect realism, rotate people between critical and noncritical tasks or equitably distribute the workload; provide opportunities for the team members to go on respites or breaks from time to time; assign people to tasks that are more suitable to their expertise level, intelligence type, or personality type; and encourage people to be flexible. As for Perry himself, he considers all the same for himself.

Team Building

A team is more than just a group of people doing work. It is an assembly of individuals with diverse backgrounds who interact for a specific purpose. The idea is to capture and direct the synergy generated by the group to efficiently and effectively achieve a goal. Throughout the years, Perry has witnessed many signs of ineffective teams.

Characteristics of Poor Teams

No processes for gaining consensus or resolving conflicts. Team squabbles and overt and covert discussions are ongoing occurrences, making cooperation difficult, even impossible.

Team members who lack commitment to the goal. No one has an emotional attachment to the goal.

No camaraderie or esprit de corps. The players do not feel that they are part of a team. Instead, everyone acts in his or her own interests.

Lack of openness and trust. Everyone is guarded, protective of his or her own interests. Openness and truthfulness are perceived as yielding to someone, giving a competitive advantage, or exposing vulnerabilities.

Vague role definitions. The reporting structures and responsibilities are unclear, causing conflicts. Territorial disputes and power struggles occur often.

No commonality or cohesiveness. The team is an unorganized grouping of people. No one feels a sense of community or brotherhood. No common ground exists other than to meet periodically to work. This results in lost synergy.

Conformity and mind protection. Insecurity permeates people for fear of being different or ostracized. People do not speak or share information unless it reinforces behavior or thoughts.

Low tolerance for diversity. The pressure to conform is so intense that anyone different in thinking or work style is ostracized or not taken seriously. Whistle-blowers and creative types, for instance, may be viewed with suspicion. Under such circumstances no opportunity is available to capitalize on peoples strengths and address their weaknesses.

Insufficient resources. Whether its people, equipment, supplies, facilities, time, or money, insufficient resources make teams ineffective. The situation can also lead to squabbling, dissention, even revolts. If resources are not distributed in an objective, meaningful manner, then differences can magnify into severe conflicts. Members of the team can quickly become polarized.

Lack of management support. If team members perceivewhether justifiably or notthat management is not supportive of the project, then motivation can plummet. People will feel that the work is not valuable, at least to the organization.

Listless team members. The goals are vague or nonexistent. Even if the goals are defined, no oneincluding the project managerseems to focus on them. Instead, everyone is aimless.

Discontinuity between individual expectations and group expectations. There is a misalignment between the two, with the latter not valuing the former. A symbiotic relationship between the two just does not exist.

An ineffective team is conflict ridden, filled with distrust, unfocused, and reeking of negative competition. These conditions manifest themselves in high turnover and absenteeism, considerable frustration levels, poor communication, no esprit de corps, and intolerance.

Perry wants, of course, a project team with desirable characteristics:

Characteristics of Effective Teams

Acceptance of new ideas and objective evaluation of them

Sustained common norms, values, and beliefs without excessive conformity

Synergy through mutual support

Loyalty and commitment to the project

Focus on end results

A trusting, open attitude

Ability to gain consensus and resolve conflicts

High morale and esprit de corps

Information and resources sharing

Perry knows all too well that a team with these characteristics is difficult to achieve. Yet he also knows that such characteristics will not arise unless he takes action. There are seven actions that he takes to engender such characteristics:

He sets the example. He not only espouses certain values and beliefs but also exercises them. He wants people to be trustful and open, so he is trustful and open. He expects people to be committed, so he is committed. In other words, he walks the talk.

He encourages communicationoral, written, and electronic. He knows that communication is more than writing memos, standing in front of a team, or setting up a Web site. It requires sharing information in an open and trusting manner, holding frequent meetings (status reviews and staff), publishing a project manual, defining acronyms and jargon, employing technology as a communications tool, and encouraging task interdependence.

He has the team focus on results. They direct all their energies toward achieving the vision. Whether he or the team makes a decision, it is made in the context of achieving the vision. Perry constantly communicates the vision and establishes change control and problem-solving processes.

He engenders high morale and esprit de corps by developing and maintaining the energy that comes from teaming. He knows, however, that he must continually nurture that energy to keep it flowing. So he empowers team members, encourages consensus building and win-win solutions, increases task interdependence, matches the right person with the right task, and teams people with complementary work styles.

He builds commitment to the vision and the project. Throughout the project cycle, team commitment can rise or fall. Ideally, Perry wants to achieve the former. Ways to do that include matching peoples interests with tasks, encouraging participative decision making, empowering people, seeking input and feedback, assigning people with responsibility for completing deliverables, and keeping the project in the forefront of everyones mind.

He lays the groundwork for synergy. A team is more than the sum of its members. But synergy requires cooperation. Ways to obtain cooperation include providing cross-training so that people understand each others roles and responsibilities, clearly defining roles and responsibilities, determining each team members strengths and weaknesses and making assignments that capitalize on the former, and having groups within the team be accountable for a complete work unit (e.g., subproduct or deliverable).

He encourages greater diversity in thinking, work style, and behavior. Always mindful of the danger of groupthink, Perry encourages different thoughts and perspectives. He is especially aware of the multicultural environment of the Smythe Project. The project culminates in Italy and, therefore, requires working with people from another country. The Smythe family also has many friends around the world who will attend the wedding. To ensure receptivity to diversity, Perry uses cross-training and job rotation to broaden peoples understanding of each other, encourages experimentation and brainstorming to develop new ideas and keep an open mind, seeks task interdependence to encourage communication, and nurtures a continuous learning environment.

Team Diversity

With globalization of the economy in general and the Smythe Project in particular, Perry recognizes that the challenge of leading a diversified team has never been greater. The team members have a variety of backgrounds, including race, ethnicity, and religion. Leading a team in such an environment requires heightened sensitivity to different values, beliefs, norms, and lifestyles.

Perry understands that people vary in their concept of time, ways of doing business, styles of management and leadership, and views of how the world functions. He also understands that differences exist in the meaning of words (semantics), interpretation of expressions (body language), perception of priorities, and definition of team building. Needless to say, all this diversity adds complexity to the planning, coordination, and control of the project. He knows, however, that he can deal with diversity in several ways.

He sets the example by embracing diversity. Through research, background reviews, interviews, and the like, Perry learns about the diverse backgrounds of the people and encourages everyone to do the same.

He is patient when dealing with people of a different background. He remains conscious of different values and beliefs, for example, and accounts for them when leading the project.

He overcomes the temptation to stereotype. That is, he avoids generalizing about people based on one characteristic. He also tackles stereotyping by team members. An effective approach is to have people with different backgrounds work together. He can also have the team, with himself, attend diversity training to understand and respect differences.

He has empathy for other peoples experiences. The word is empathy, not sympathy, since the latter connotes patronization and condescension. He attempts to appreciate, for example, the difficulties in reconciling different perceptions of time.

He encourages feedback. He is especially mindful to obtain feedback from people whose cultural background is dramatically different from his own or from the rest of the team. This lessens the tendency for the team to split into subgroups.

Contract Employees and Consultants

Along with downsizing has come a corresponding rise in the use of consultants and contract employees. The Smythe Project is no different, and its use of such people challenges his efforts to build a cohesive team.

Many contract employees and consultants do not feel they are part of a team. They know that their presence is temporary; their participation could end at any time; hence their commitment is questionable. At the same time, many permanent employees feel slighted by the presence of independent contractors and consultants. They feel that management is exhibiting lack of confidence in their work, or that management perceives outside help as better than inside. Team members may also feel that the contractors or consultants are receiving higher compensation or the best offices or equipment.

These circumstances, real or imagined, challenge any team-building effort. But they are not insurmountable, even for Perry. He gives preference to permanent employees regarding task assignments, equipment, and other perks. An exception is made only if the consultant or contractor has unique expertise, and, if so, preference is only for the duration of the task. Perry also gives employees the first opportunity to participate in decision making. (More about contractors and outsourcing in Chapter 9.)

Telecommuting and Mobile Computing

In todays environment, team members may be spread over a wide geographical area, presenting little opportunity to see each other. (See Chapter 19 for additional information.) Team building can be extremely difficult, thanks to this dispersion. To foster team building, however, Perry takes three important steps:

He tries to have everyone on the team meet periodically. At a minimum, this meeting provides an opportunity to exchange ideas, share information, and become acquainted.

He develops rules of exchange or communications etiquette. For instance, colleagues should respond to each other within a certain time. Such etiquette enables greater interaction, which in turn increases bonding or cohesion.

He assigns people to tasks that require greater interaction and, if only occasionally, meeting physically. If meeting is costly or impossible, the task should require at least some electronic interdependence to generate cohesion.

In general, Perry treats the word TEAMING as an acronym to remind him of how to build a good project team:

There is additional information on telecommuting and other technology-based innovations in Chapter 19.

The Project Manager as a Motivator

Leadership plays an important role in the successful execution of a project. However, it is not something that can be done in a paint-by-number fashion. Perry, like all experienced project managers, knows that leadership must be constantly exercised throughout a project. It requires having a basic understanding of what motivates people.

A vision statement partly satisfies the motivational needs of a project team. Perry realizes, however, that the vision is just one aspect of leadership. He must build teams and focus all their efforts on achieving the vision. The vision plays another role too. It provides the basis for developing a meaningful statement of work.

Questions for Getting Started

Can you identify the obstacles for exercising effective leadership inherent in your project?

How will you develop a vision for your project? How do you plan to communicate it? What are the challenges you face in developing and communicating that vision? How do you plan to overcome them?

How will you ensure that your project stays focused on the vision? What challenges will you face?

How will you facilitate and expedite performance? What obstacles will you face and how will you overcome them?

In what ways (e.g., job enrichment) do you plan to motivate the people on your team? What challenges will you face and how do you plan to overcome them?

In what ways (e.g., focus on the vision) will you encourage team building? What obstacles will you face and how will you overcome them?

If you have contractors, consultants, or telecommuters, how will they be involved? What impact will that have on the permanent team members and what will you do about any problems that arise?