ADAPTIVE MINDSET

“Agility”, “quick-pivot”, “flexibility”, and “adaptability” are just some of the buzzwords that tend to be associated with both AGILE as a delivery method and as the basic requirement to execute projects or run as a business in general at present. The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, declared, “The only constant thing in life is change” - businesses and projects have adopted this concept, and it is manifested by how engagements are planned and executed since the formal introduction of the AGILE methodology in 2001.

Organisations have benefited from the key AGILE principles (adaptive concepts) and from tailor-fitting both the adaptive and predictive concepts, which have given rise to the Hybrid methodologies but does following the best practices guarantee project success? Notably, literature exists about the ceremonies, the lean approach to documentation, the dynamics and maturity teams should aspire towards but we seldom encounter literature that speaks directly about the Project Manager’s EI (emotional intelligence) skills that are required to respond to the demand for agility.

Taking inspiration from how sales tailor their interactions with customers based on perceived information about the nature of the selling context, an argument exists that the execution of modern projects is pretty similar. While the desired outcome of sales is to ultimately make a sale, projects aim to measure up against the predefined project outcomes and success criteria. Similarly, should the conversations take specific turns in sales, modern project implementations are expected to respond to the changes to increase the chances of success as opposed to executing a plan that may no longer be relevant. But how exactly does a Project Manager process the overwhelming wealth of information?

When associating emotional intelligence with project management, a white paper by Matthew Gonzalez (2012) mentions the five most needed EI skills in project management:

🗣️ Communication

💪 Persuasive Leadership

⚔️ Conflict Management

⚙️ Change Management

💡 Adaptive Personality

An adaptive personality, which frames a specific mindset, continues to be one of the most relevant tools required to effectively lead projects in a fast-paced and ever-evolving project environment. In the current highly competitive landscape, project leadership must have the ability to facilitate cultural dynamics and simultaneously motivate all the players (project team, internal and external stakeholders) toward their full potential to achieve the project goals.

The Adaptive Project Leader

Effective leaders tailor-fit their leadership style to the situation they happen to find themselves in. As some of us may have learned the hard way, trying to fit a square peg into a round slot requires effort but seldom ever ends well. Similar to how each project engagement is unique, project managers often find themselves in equally unique situations despite having the same set of tools at their disposal. In the course of the project execution, changes will inevitably arise and it’s fairly easy for the project team and the stakeholders to lose sight of the initial project goals. While it’s not a question of “if” but “when”, this is a challenge for the project manager to focus on the outcomes while identifying the best way to lead given multiple variables.

It is in this situation that project managers focus their attention on the contributing complexities in the context of:

• Human behaviour

• System behaviour

• Uncertainty and ambiguity

• Innovative or disruptive technologies

Human Behaviour

A new stakeholder, stakeholder A is replacing a predecessor for a project. Stakeholder A is questioning project decisions that were previously made and is causing schedule delays since the team is unable to execute the work without this stakeholder’s buy-in for fear of future rework.

As this situation is delicate: Stakeholder A may not be comfortable taking accountability for decisions that were made without him, a project manager may consider setting 1 on 1 sessions with Stakeholder A to hear out and resolve the concerns privately as opposed to pretending the issue doesn’t exist or singling Stakeholder A out in broader forums.

System Behaviour

Technology projects may interact with existing systems or make use of vendor offerings (SaaS). In some cases, the project team is not familiar with these products and it is through the elaboration of the detailed project requirements and scope that gives the project managers a better view of where project assumptions, dependencies, and constraints are misaligned and re-plan accordingly to keep travelling towards the desired outcome. Project managers may often need to plan “light” at project initiation, which means the plan only has sufficient details to meet most of the stakeholders’ expectations (emphasis on timeline, cost). Project managers are challenged to build plans as information becomes available, which may result in a project change request.

Uncertainty and Ambiguity

It is not uncommon for project stakeholders or product owners to have a limited view of their requirements or use cases e.g. the client’s customers can submit a retail order online and have the option to pick up orders in-store based on a selected store location. As this project is a hybrid implementation of SaaS and custom code, the project team analyses the implementation but soon realises that this is a use case that the SaaS does not support. While there are alternatives, the complexity of customisation is out of scope and is beyond the current project budget. Arriving at this level of detail while keeping the stakeholders engaged and informed requires creativity from the project manager. Alternatives ideally need to be presented together with the problems, as well as the corresponding plans of action to significantly reduce uncertainty when critical project assumptions turn out to be wrong.

Innovative or Disruptive Technologies

In the course of project execution, new technologies may either introduce opportunities to optimise the way the team works (AI) or introduce threats such as when a SaaS offering discontinues key features that the project assumes to be available and happens to contribute to the criteria of project success. A project manager needs to be on the lookout for and adapt plans accordingly.

Capabilities that Support the Adaptive Mindset

Having an adaptive mindset may not be effective on its own. Here are a few supporting capabilities:

⭐ Effective feedback loops

The keyword is “effective”. While most project delivery frameworks have feedback mechanisms in place, a conscious effort is taken to ensure that taking in feedback is not done for its own sake but to draw out learnings to implement improvements. E.g. The project client mentioned in one of the standing meetings that they’re not getting enough visibility over the project due dates. The action that can be taken is to provide the client-limited collaborator access to the project plan tool for live updates.

💡 Continuous learning & improvement

Firstly, while we recognise that no two projects are exactly alike, project managers must acknowledge that there’s always room for improvement not only when we move on to the next project but also as we execute an active one. Secondly, project managers should learn to appreciate the wealth of knowledge that originates from the project team. E.g. The technical lead, who works closely with his counterpart on the client’s team, mentioned that most of the technical decisions tend to be made by the client as the topics are discussed. This would prompt the project manager to re-evaluate and update the project risks, assumptions, and contingencies.

📋 Open and transparent planning that engages internal and external stakeholders

At some point in project management history, the act of planning was thought of as something the project manager does exclusively. Lessons learned from projects have taught us that while stakeholders have varying motivations and concerns, engaging a broader group during the planning process allows project managers to capture details that would otherwise have been missed or disregarded. Allowing project stakeholders to feel that they are part of the journey increases their engagement.

Team Management

The biggest contributor to project success is having an effective project team.

Individual team members are just as unique as the projects they work on. A project manager with an adaptive mindset would recognise that each member’s dominant motivators vary; team member A might be driven by having the opportunity to make a difference in the project benefactor’s experience e.g. getting rid of tedious manual and non-value-adding work, team member B might be determined to overcome challenging tasks that contribute to their career growth, while team member C wants a balanced life and will do their utmost given their committed time. With the desired project outcomes at the forefront, the project manager would tailor their leadership style to consider the individual team members' interests to drive the team towards success.

Due consideration should also be given to:

📋 The rules of resource engagement e.g. is the member a long-term internal resource vs. contracted consultant? Is the project able to rely on

and plan around the availability of essential personnel from the client’s team?

🥇 The type of project and the expectations for its team members e.g. for a team composed of DevOps resources tasked to deliver

infrastructure, are they expected to demonstrate a certain level of expertise if the client stakeholders are interested in running discovery work

related to software customisation?

👥 Maturity of each member e.g. are the members capable of identifying project risks and avoiding unintentionally introducing risk to the

delivery? Can the members openly communicate task priorities based on the project environment especially when they are no longer aligned

with what was originally planned?

📝 The presence or absence of organisational project governance e.g. being able to distinguish mandatory vs. optional artefacts/requirements

that exist outside of the project deliverables, timekeeping and attendance processes, org resource allocation and scheduling e.g. a team

member may be engaged in several projects at the same time;

🎯 The advantages and challenges of having distributed teams, e.g. time zone differences, high-touch clients and the geographic constraints

that prevent face-to-face sessions, engaging highly skilled team members who are not available locally.

Sand tends to shift and slip through our fingers. If the desired outcome is to build a sandcastle, the project manager may need to demonstrate a fair bit of creativity to hold the different pieces in place. This creativity is what constitutes an adaptive mindset.

In a constantly evolving environment, it is important to know the lay of the land. Let’s say the project is a board game and the project manager needs to determine which board they are on: a Western chess board, an Eastern chess board, or probably even a Monopoly board. The project manager needs to have visibility and understanding about the pieces in play and their move sets: people’s roles and level of engagement, identify the players: project sponsor/s, the most influential stakeholder who serve as either supporters or possibly threats, and the dominant motivators that drive them.

Significant effort, understanding, and experience are required to know WHAT the project manager is adapting to and WHY. While trendy PM tools and practices pop up all the time, it is important to keep the end in sight so that the project manager and the team do not get lost in their efforts to adapt and move quickly to accommodate change. Having an adaptive personality challenges the project manager to make the best of what is there in a given situation, keep the focus on the desired outcomes, and have the creativity to influence human behaviour based on their perceived traits and motivators.

Author: Sarah Mercado

The Adaptive Project Leader

Capabilities that Support the Adaptive Mindset

Team Management

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