insights
Are the days of the hero project fire fighter numbered?
The changing role of project heroism
For some, a project heroism is displayed through individuals, or a small team, who work punishing hours, have a grasp of detail on large projects that appears almost inconceivable and control the project cost, scope and schedule with an iron fist. They are the focus of the project, and the strengths of the team are secondary.
For others, the phrase means, more collectively, the whole team. Leveraging the collective strengths of all members, delivering what the expectation, dealing with the issues that are presented to bring the delivery across the line.
One appears to hold more excitement, even though the approach is arguably unsustainable, especially as project complexity continues to increase, whereas we could see the other as more pedestrian, stable and less exciting – stability and control will always be more appealing to organisations.
A brief history of the Project Management discipline
Lynda Bourne covers this in much more detail, in the excellently referenced paper (1). Whilst people have delivered projects throughout time, the project management discipline and project manager role really only emerges in the middle of the 20th century. During the 1960s and 1970s, the role of the project manager was fulfilled by accidental project managers – that is, their careers and qualifications were in another discipline. From the 1980s, and onwards, project management became better defined, understood, and qualifications became more common – project management became a profession in its own right. Initially, project managers focussed on schedules, time and cost, and this was expanded to include risk and quality considerations.
The dilemma for heroic project management
Projects, by their very definition, are temporary organisations whose purpose is to deliver one or more business outputs, according to a business case. Whilst this creates a focus on the outcomes, it can also create an unhealthy dependency on the project manager to control the triangle of time, cost and scope, leaving little time or interest for the best way to utilise the project team or engage effectively with stakeholders. I will be the case that delivered project has met its measures, although still perceived as unsuccessful by the organisation.
The heroic approach will meet the immediate challenge, allowing the project to continue, and the heros congratulated. This creates the problem that it does not address the underlying root cause, and the next crisis is waiting around the corner to be ‘saved’, rather than prevented.
We should not be confused with discipline experts or ‘Subject Matter Experts’ – the need for expertise will be continually present within the structure of the overall team.
The future of collaborative, business-focussed, project management
Project management is ever-developing in line with the changing business landscape. A focus on business outcomes, stakeholder engagement, agility to overcoming uncertain issues and collective productivity will become more prevalent, and necessary in the organisations and for suppliers who provide services into these organisations. Increasingly business-focussed and servant-leader approaches to delivery are becoming the new norm with project organisations.
In conclusion
The need for the individual hero in the project delivery looks to be numbered. Whilst there will always be a need to ‘push for the line’, this should be a collective and collaborative push, not an individualistic one. Organisations are looking forward to distributed and digitally connected teams, although will and the project management discipline will need to develop to keep pace with business change.
[1] Bourne, L. (2010). The future of the hero project manager. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2010—EMEA, Milan, Italy. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.