The potential for PM innovation in Africa

Maemo Makgana, Consultant, InnoLead Consulting

Every disruption brings about creative and innovative solutions, sometimes the society will be waiting eagerly for an improved solution, sometimes not. According to the Business Dictionary, the term “innovation” refers to the process of translating an idea or invention into a product that creates economic value.  Often, we perceive of innovations as tangible products, but you can innovate with a new process, method, business model, or marketing method. Almost every aspect of a business offering is a prospect for innovation, therefore, an organisation should not restrict their vision of innovation to products. Great innovations that completely changed the game by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos are not basically products, they are new models and processes of aiding societies to achieve more results with little effort. That brings about two terminologies: Incremental vs Radical Innovations. Most organisations are good with incremental innovations, they tackle problems and devise solutions appropriate for that problem. Radical innovations, the likes of Facebook, Amazon find entirely new ways of doing something and those ways are often difficult and riskier to implement.

Shifting to Innovation in Project Management: the traditional Project management Approaches, e.g. Waterfall focused exclusively on delivering products and services following a detailed plan with clear and measurable deliverables and had no/ little room for Radical innovations. Most innovations are centred around Incremental innovations to solve problems at hand. For example, when implementing a risky project activity, project managers generated ideas to deliver that activity within constraints set with the customer, without necessarily exploring radically.

With the current era (Fourth Industrial Revolution), the world is linked, and the playground is level with equal access to adequate information through the Internet (IoT). Africa is well-connected to the rest of the world as such we have huge potential for Project Management innovations. Emerging trends in Project management permeate Africa at the same time as the rest of the world.

Because of the great risk and uncertainty in today’s project landscape, Project Management approaches are evolving to allow for flexibility in terms of scope definition, schedule and cost estimation. New approaches such as Agile formerly used in Software Development are being adopted in implementing projects across different spectrums, i.e. Construction, Education, Finance, Architecture. As depicted in figure 1 below, nearly half of non-software projects use Agile approaches due to the benefits they provide. Agile advocates for adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, and continual improvement, and it encourages rapid and flexible response to change which were not catered for in the Traditional project management models (“Agile software development”, 2019). These new project management approaches bolster creativity and innovation across teams, and Africa has equal opportunity to innovate as the rest of the world.

Figure 1: Top Project Types Managed with Agile (John Leslie, 2015)

 

Innovation coupled with technology in this era is the holy grail and catalyst to enormous organisational growth. Organisations are therefore recruiting Project Managers to be involved beyond project decision-making level, they are now partaking in strategic decision-making to formulate innovative solutions that sustain organisations beyond project life cycles.

In summary, Africa should embrace emerging trends in Project management such as Agile as they bolster innovative mindset across teams, and this could accelerate developments across African Nations. If Africa can innovate faster, it will be able to gain the lion’s share of the globally connected market and add value to customers worldwide.

Maemo Makgana is a Consultant at InnoLead Consulting offering Management Consultancy and Corporate Training Solutions. He can be contacted on +267 3909102 and innolead@innolead.co.bw

Surviving Disruptive Innovation: A Strategic Approach

Thabiso Jacob, Consultant, InnoLead Consulting

The digital age truly is a challenging time for companies as the speed, complexity and volume of change continues to increase exponentially. As industries and market places continue to evolve, there is an increased need for the incumbents to establish their relevance in the new age of the customer. The new business age has no fit with the conventional modes, which have transcended ages. Clayton Christensen in his influential book titled ‘The Innovators Dilemma’ defined disruptive Innovation as:

“A process in which an underrated product or service starts to become popular enough to replace/displace a conventional product or service”

The underrated product or service stated above can come from either a new player in the industry or an already existing firm. Cognisance about disruptors in your industry is critical and will be central to building a robust strategy to counter disruption. Since the failure to respond to disruption is seldom based on external capacity but rather largely due to internal organisational inefficiencies, elimination of these fosters agility to counter the disruption. The traditional corporate cycles that typically span over years are extensive for the disruptive world and will continue to lag the accelerated technological progression as such, the strategy quickly becomes outdated if it is not reinforced. This subsequently creates a challenge as the key resources are misaligned to the opportunities that arise with continued technological advancements. In crafting alignment of strategy to opportunities, it is important to look beyond the conventionally used lagging and current indicators, the revenue and inventory levels. Perhaps more attention should be given to the leading indicators, such as market adoption of a new product, although they provide a bias opinion, due to the forecasting and forward-looking nature. The biggest challenge befalling incumbents is complacency or what may also be referred to as ‘nostalgia as a business strategy’, with companies in denial of how their once-great business model has suddenly become outdated. Business models, like financial auditing statements, need to be regularly reviewed, to re-evaluate relevance to both the current and future market environment.

In the digital age, also referred to as the age of the customer, the customer should be centrally positioned, with the business model and the decision making biased towards customer convenience. Research has shown that most disruptors target their customer pain points to develop a unique value proposition that was not initially offered. In surviving disruption, the response, both in speed and context, is equally as critical. To add context, Intel was not the first micro-processing producer, the same way that Apple was not the first producer of the mobile phone nor the laptop, but they have both over time toppled their disruptors, to become market leaders in their industries. A rapid response enough to keep pace with disruptors is only attainable through a dynamic organisational hierarchy, where there is more autonomy for the lower-level managers. There must be an objective and open forum that allows for and encourages the disruptive ideas, concepts and challenges with a better and quicker process for driving insights up the hierarchy. Embedding the balanced scorecard and the strategy map to the strategy process can drive the required organisation-wide alignment and improve the lack in communication, responsibility and accountability which impedes execution. The agile strategy should be buttressed by the existence of an established and robust execution system in place, which is equally as adaptive to the disruptive environment.

A strategy must be continually challenged by scanning the critical external drivers of value for the customer. The key questions top executives should continue to ask are: ‘Is what I am making still relevant, and for how long will it remain relevant?’, ‘what experience is the customer buying and how can I improve it?’ and ‘what products and services am I selling, to whom and where, and are they likely to remain in need?’. In countering organisational disruption, there is a need to remain highly vigilant and attuned to threats and changes that are happening in the operating environment especially when it’s going well, to guard against complacency. The productive paranoia should be buttressed by reliance on practical experimentation, observation and engagement with the tangible evidence to make business decisions on a sound empirical base. The aforementioned affords a sound base for developing contingency plans, buffers and maintaining sufficient margins of safety to foster creative action, through which the incumbent can remain ahead of or challenge the disruptors.

Thabiso Jacob is a Consultant at InnoLead Consulting offering Management Consultancy and Corporate Training Solutions. He can be contacted on +267 3909102 and innolead@innolead.co.bw

Preparing for Disruption

Gamodimo Buka, Consultant, InnoLead Consulting

Disruption occurs when an organization; be it a new entrant or an existing one, introduces a new way of doing business/a new product/ a new service offering that positions them as a market leader in their space. A disrupted business environment speaks to the tumultuous period that results where the market leaders lose market share and have to react to the change in the industry. If an organisation is not able to monitor their environment in a way that can predict industry changes then they are in danger of being disrupted instead of being the disrupter.

It is important for businesses/organizations to thoroughly scan their environment not only to be well versed in the current reality of the industry but with a predictive goal of anticipating change. The ability to anticipate future change can allow a business to develop a reaction plan to the change or to instigate the change and steal or maintain market share. Observing both the customers and non-customers facilitates understanding of shifts in the user’s attitudes and requirements. iPhone, Uber, Airbnb disrupted their respective markets by catering to the needs of customers who didn’t even know they had those needs at that time.

It is easy to become comfortable in success. As a result, successful organisations may become slow to respond to changes in the external business environment. Some organizations create rigid structures that while necessary to some degree, often prevent them from adapting rapidly. Worse still, they add complexities to existing structures, processes, values and norms, without ever rethinking and possibly eliminating obsolete ideas and procedures. All of this can cause entropy and eventually lead to their demise.

For a business to grow and prosper it must be able to anticipate, take account of and deal with changes in both its internal and external environment. Strategic planning helps the organisation to monitor these changes in the environment and to adjust its activities accordingly.

creighton.edu

Organizations as part of the strategic planning process should be able to listen (conducting surveys, research, forums, etc) to their environment. Also, be able to define and clarify all the changes that might impact them as an organisation, either positive or negative. In clarifying the changes, the organizations need to be able to act and implement all the necessary actions to be able to combat or accept those changes hence avoiding the negative effects of disruption.

Gamodimo Buka is a Consultant at InnoLead Consulting offering Management Consultancy and Corporate Training Solutions. He can be contacted on +267 3909102 and innolead@innolead.co.bw

 

IoT and Business Strategy

Theophylus Mothowabarwa, Consultant, InnoLead Consulting

The cost of the ignorance for the 4^th Industrial Revolution will befall inevitably, organisations that passively regard the evolution of technology. With rapid advancements in technology as evidenced by the Internet of Things (IoT), Automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, Cloud computing and Systems integrations the world is presented with a new way of perceiving the environment hence behaviours are changing ultimately affecting how enterprises conduct business.

Imagine it’s time to knock off from work and your smartwatch, though the internet, sends a signal to your car to start up and set the air-conditioning to your preferred temperature. As you drive home, your car sends a signal to your house and the air-conditioning turns on as you are a kilometre away. While you approach the gate it receives a signal and opens automatically and the alarm is disarmed. How incredible is that? That is IoT!  IoT is defined as the interconnection of physical devices embedded with electronics, software and sensors through the internet as a platform to facilitate data collection and exchange. It does not only provide a common platform for devices to place data but a common language for the devices to communicate with each other. Data is emitted from various sensors to an IoT platform where it is integrated and remains available for further analytics and extraction of valuable information as required.

IoT defines our lifestyles, how we interact with technologies and will inevitably affect every company, job and individual. It is estimated that more than 24 billion IoT devices will be installed around the world by 2020, this translating to over $357 Billion revenue generated (Business Insider, 2018). Businesses will realise numerous benefits. First, operating efficiencies will be improved due to access to information allowing instant decision making, provision of insights that guide pricing decision and optimized logistics just to mention a few. Moreover, costly mistakes or threats to businesses will be avoided as IoT enhances the visibility of inefficiencies of business processes. Additionally, enterprises will be able to seize opportunities for profit and growth as they are able to reimagine the business and set new operational models informed by available data. Last but not least, IoT allows customer experiences to be supercharged as businesses are able to extrapolate data that can inform improvements or innovations that impact the customer experience.

IoT adoption is picking up steam and connected technology is beginning to blur the boundaries between the physical and digital worlds. But the question remains: which elements should be included in a business strategy to ensure an organization does not capitulate into irrelevance in this era? A number of strategies can be used to keep up with the IoT revolution. Some include: Using what an organisation already knows; agreeing on a unique selling proposition combining research and development with user insights; and putting in place strategies for privacy and security.

In crafting IoT strategies business leaders need to take into cognizance what they already know. Companies can apply the knowledge they already possess and use IoT to work out answers quickly and accurately to questions like: “What do I need to find out at a given point of activity?” That question could refer to something that happens on your property, at a vendor facility or elsewhere in the supply chain. For instance, in the manufacturing industry, instead of hoping materials will arrive in time, or waiting for a stock out to indicate replenishments, a manager with a solid IoT strategy and visibility can leverage what they know from IoT insights and prepare or adjust proactively before small problems become magnified.

The decision regarding what is right for an organization should be guided by the presence of a prospective specific problem that inhibits growth. In order to come up with a relevant IoT solution to address the issue, there needs to be a thorough definition of the underlying needs of one’s organization. From the onset, fundamental questions need to be considered through problem statements. These include: why it matters to adopt IoT? and how it will benefit customers in the long run? A good case in point in the manufacturing industry is the need for more industrial sensors to improve manufacturing. There is the knowledge that a new solution is required to churn out a much broader range of data and it must also be able to communicate information back to streamline processes. The next step would be the definition of the functional requirements of the prospective solution as well as competencies needed to support the chosen IoT strategy. It is crucial that there is an understanding of any possible limitations, bringing together the things that the company does best with the needs of a solution modified to the market.

Every time a device is connected to a business network there is a risk created as devices capture everything ranging from locations, conversations to the ability to track and access company financials and customer data. This makes businesses prime targets of cybercriminals as this data is valuable. It is therefore important that when advancing and implementing IoT applications to advance processes and product requirements, clear communication regarding the need to build security testing into development be done thoroughly. While business leaders want to be quick to market and at the same time-saving costs they need not overlook the importance of security.

In improving the nature of products and services, IoT unavoidably guides their design. If organizations aspire to lead the digital disruption, organizational leaders should focus on getting ready to leverage IoT-enabled processes. Emphasis should be heavily placed on building a pool of talent capable of handling the wave of technologies that enable IoT, big data analytics, artificial intelligence etc. Additionally, cross-functional collaborations should be an integral part of the way things are done in organisations as this will ensure expertise are shared among various personnel allowing for solving of problems. Not only knowing the possibilities is crucial but also where help is needed will be vital for the success of businesses in the future.

Theophylus Mothowabarwa is a Consultant at InnoLead Consulting offering Management Consultancy and Corporate Training Solutions. He can be contacted on +267 3909102 and innolead@innolead.co.bw

Agile: An Evolution

Monthusi Ramontshonyana, PM Trainer, InnoLead Consulting

In the previous publication titled ‘Agile: An Introduction’, the focus was on introducing and defining Agile. The focus of this piece is detailing the journey of Agile from the beginning to date.

The concept of Agility doesn’t begin with the Agile Manifesto —its roots go back much earlier. Agility can be traced back to the very beginning of human existence. One of the earlier known records of Agility is credited to Sun Tzu (544 BC – 496 BC) who was a Chinese general, military strategist, writer and philosopher who lived in the Eastern Zhou period of ancient China. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War. In a later section of this book, Sun Tzu talks about the need to be fluid and adaptable.

When faced with the challenge of adapting to a changing world, Field Marshal Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke (26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891) wrote in his essay titled ‘Ueber Strategie’ translated ‘On Strategy’, “ The material and moral consequences of every major battle are so far-reaching that they usually bring about a completely altered situation, a new basis for the adoption of new measures. One cannot be at all sure that any operational plan will survive the first encounter with the main body of the enemy. Only a layman could suppose that the development of a campaign represents the strict application of a prior concept that has been worked out in every detail and followed through to the end” which is popularly shortened and quoted as ‘no plan survives first contact with the enemy’

The 19^th century was characterised by technological innovations like new machine guns, combined with growing army sizes, which were transforming war. These evolutions dramatically increased the complexity of battles, making them almost impossible to predict a battle’s outcome and therefore plan accordingly. On this basis, Moltke the elder came to the conclusion that sharing intentions as opposed to detailed orders would empower his subordinates to take initiatives in the battlefield and better adapt to unpredictable events. Deterministic plans were no longer relevant, and adaptive strategies should be applied instead. Since then, this concept has been applied to broader contexts including project management and business strategy.

In the early 1990s, as PC computing began to proliferate in the enterprise, software development faced a crisis. Industry experts estimated that the time between a validated business need and an actual application in production was about three years. The problem was, businesses moved faster than that. Rapid Application Development (RAD) was invented around 1991, possibly the first approach in which time boxing and “iterations” were introduced. In 1993, Jeff Sutherland invented Scrum as a process at Easel Corporation;1994 saw the first release of Dynamic Software Development Method popularly known as DSDM; in March of 1996, the first Extreme Programming project was started. The late ’90s saw the emergence of many other agile software development methods including Adaptive Software Development, Crystal, Feature-Driven Development, Pragmatic Programming.

Agile software development as we know it today was born in 2001, when 17 software thought leaders met at The Lodge at Snowbird ski resort in the Wasatch mountains of Utah, to try and find common ground. Representatives came from Extreme Programming, SCRUM, DSDM, Adaptive Software Development, Crystal, Feature-Driven Development, Pragmatic Programming, and others sympathetic to the need for an alternative to documentation driven heavyweight software development processes. The outcomes of the meeting articulated a set of four critical principles to elevate the craft of software development and improve engineering and product manager motivation.

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change over following a plan

The proliferation of Agile Project Management methodologies did not stop with the signing of the Agile Manifesto, they continue to emerge to this date with the release of methodologies such as Lean Start Up, AgileSHIFT, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Agnostic Agile etc. The PM certification proliferation is increasing exponentially. This is obviously not good and it’s not helped by the complexity of agile approaches. The next instalment in the Agile series will discuss this in more detail.

Monthusi Ramontshonyana is a Project Management Trainer at InnoLead Consulting’s i-Academy and can be reached on +2673909102 or academy@innolead.co.bw

Skills Capacity Analysis: A Project Management Perspective

Mark Muzinda, Consultant, InnoLead Consulting

It goes without saying having a project team with requisite project management skills enhances the chances of delivering projects successfully other factors constant. Project management has finally been accepted in the mainstream as a core competence that organizations need to leverage in order to compete in extremely volatile environments.

Organizations are leveraging project management to deliver products first to market, deliver high-value infrastructure efficiently and within constrained resources and timelines as well as to deliver transformation change and organizational changes. Organizations that have embraced project management as a tool to deliver projects need to ensure that their project teams have the right skills. Due to the fact that project management as a skill set is comparatively new, there is a shortage of skills in the market and the available skill set is highly sought after.  Organizations have to develop own skills to compensate for or complement whatever skill shortage they may have.

Project Management Institute (PMI) maps the project management skills sets in the form of a skills triangle. The skills triangle is made up of technical project management skills, leadership skills, and strategic and business management skills.

The technical project management skills cover those skills around management of the ten PMI knowledge areas; scope, time, procurement, risk, resources management, integration, communication, stakeholder management, cost and quality management. The leadership skills are about the project manager setting a vision and goals and rallying the project team to achieve these in order to ensure a successful project. This skill set talks to the softer side of project management that looks at how the project manager can galvanize the team towards a shared goal. These include among others; negotiation skills, facilitative skills, ability to influence others, problem-solving, empathy, critical thinking, coaching for changes skills.

Strategic and business skills are a complementary skill set for any project manager. Project managers need to understand the business environment in which their projects are executed to ably engage senior management. These skills include strategy, business case development or review, investment appraisals etc. Projects are initiated in an environment of constrained financial resources, with competing demands, and with various company objectives. The project manager should be cognizant of this and have the capacity to articulate how their projects will impact the organization on all levels.

It is imperative that organizations or the line managers determine the project management skills level of their subordinates or project team members.  This determination is by way of a skills audit/ or assessment. A skills assessment in this context is a process of measuring the individual’s project management skills. In the case of the Project Management Institute (PMI), skills assessment would entail assessing how much the individual scores on each of the three (3) aspects that make up the PMI skills triangle i.e. technical project management skills, leadership skills, and strategy and business skills.

Other tools have been developed by project management organizations that attempt to measure the project management skills.  Some of these tools measure the project management knowledge, and knowledge is correlated to skills, other tools have a competency-based approach of assessment. Under the competency-based assessment, a live project scenario is simulated and participants are tested against this.

The skills assessments are conducted to identify gaps amongst the project management practitioners with the view of proposing measures to close these gaps. The skills assessments present a baseline that organizations or individuals can use as a reference point to improve on.  Any interventions are premised on the fact that they will improve on the baseline score. Subsequent skills assessments after interventions should be scheduled at predefined time intervals to determine the interventions were successful in closing the gaps.

Closing the skills gaps enhances the chances of success of projects that these project teams’ members are deployed on through the application of the newly acquired / or enhanced skill set. Closing the skills gaps also has an advantage of augmenting the organization’s project management maturity.

Skills assessments enable the project manager to take stock of skills inventory on the project team with a view of deploying the team members to the most optimum role that complement each other hence increasing the chances of project success.

Gaps identified in the project management skills assessments can be closed through a number of interventions, these include the following;

1. Scheduling and conducting customized project management training that targets the identified skills gaps with clear timelines.
2. Having the project management practitioners certify/obtain internationally recognized/acclaimed certifications such as Project Management Professionals ( PMP), PRINCE2
3. Organizations can put in place a mentorship program where the more senior project managers mentor the more junior members of the team or those with gaps with a view of closing these.

As argued above, it is imperative that organizations conduct project management skills audit regularly (as predefined), put in place interventions to close any identified gaps in order to enhance the chances of project success of the projects they execute.

 

Mark Muzinda is a Consultant at InnoLead Consulting offering Management Consultancy and Corporate Training Solutions. He can be contacted on +267 3909102 and innolead@innolead.co.bw

Strategy Automation

Gaogaufi Mako, Consultant, InnoLead Consulting

History is replete with success stories of how a sound Strategy has led organisations to profitability and some countries to be victorious at war. We all agree on the importance of strategy and the usefulness it renders to entities amid turbulent conditions and unfavourable circumstances. Strategy helps the organization to ride on its competitive advantage and compound on it.  John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company rose to prominence in 1860 through his determination to survive the oil market, all this was attributed to his great shrewd Strategy for buying his competitors out of business. In 1882 Rockefeller ultimately had firm control of America’s oil pipeline and was able to dictate the price for crude oil. In 1775, George Washington was appointed the commander of the Continental Army that led America to victory because of his sound Fabian strategy in confronting the British Army.

Against growing competition for resources and the need for accurate and timely decision making, the need to automate our strategies has become more important than ever. Research has indicated that an organization with automated strategies has a higher chance of success than those without Examples of known enterprises that have automated their strategies includes, South African Airways, World Vision Southern Africa and Judiciary of Chile just to mention a few This article will look at some key points why automation of strategy is vital.

1. Real-time information on how the entity is performing against the planned targets. This is so critical because it eases the decision-making When strategies are automated, the decision makers do not have to spend time searching for information that aid with the decision making. The ability to react in real-time to problems is enhanced and as a result, organisational strategic goals stand a better chance of success.

 

2. Accountability is enhanced because different parts of the organisation take more responsibility for their contribution to the organisation strategy. As we all know what is not measured is not done. Automation ensures that initiatives are allocated and tracked in a standardised manner. The moving parts of an organisation are easily held accountable for the responsibilities. Work and expectations are made clear from organisational level to department level as well as individual level.

 

3. Supports the integration of systems. Strategy automation systems can be interfacing with another corporate system to get accurate data with a lower probability of human error distortions. It is well known that reports from spreadsheets and on pieces of papers leave a lot to be desired as far as accuracy is concerned.

 

4. Minimizes rifts and saves time in the organization. It’s such a frustrating thing to move from one department to the other looking for information. Having been involved in the strategy management process in multiples instances, not knowing where to get critical information is not only frustrating but causes tension in the team.

As a critical success factor for this business change, leadership support is key. With leadership steering and championing the automation, the new way of doing things has a greater chance of being inculcated as the culture. In the absence of leadership support, people will tend to run expensive parallel processes of the old way of doing things as in most instances people prefer their old way of working than the perceived stressful new reform. There is always an element of change management that must be considered and planned for if automation is new to an organisation.

In support of this business capability, InnoLead Consulting has partnered with QPR to avail a strategy management solution platform. The solution has a number of modules from Organisational strategy metrics and performance management. This enables breaking down the organization into distinct scorecards contributing to the broader corporate scorecard.

QPR Metrics is a performance management solution that enables all management levels to trace the progress of the Strategic Goals and Performance. It enables viewing the big picture from your Strategy Map to Operational Targets and obtains a flexible performance management capability, satisfying multiple needs, such as strategy and operational performance. More than a performance management solution, QPR Metrics helps organizations gain robust online collaboration capabilities. Employees can add comments and actions to their dashboards while managers translate into action, the insight they gain by following-up the assigned tasks and progress made.

There is an undeniable global shift towards digitisation and the benefits to organisations have proven to be extremely valuable. It would be costly to any organisation to ignore the chance to understand and deal with the complexity of contemporary management as brought on by the global digital environment.

Gaogaufi Mako holds the position of Consultant at InnoLead Consulting offering Management Consultancy and Corporate Training Solutions. He can be contacted on +267 3909102 and innolead@innolead.co.bw

 

Reference

1. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/projects/strategy-drives-digital-transformation/#chapter-7
2. https://www.atkearney.com/documents/10192/4260571/History+of+Strategy+and+Its+Future+Prospects.pdf/29f8c6e8-7cdb-4a25-8acc-b0c39e4439e1
3. http://historyofmassachusetts.org/revolutionary-war-strategies/
4. Tovy, Tal. “George Washington’s Military Genius by Dave R. Palmer.” Michigan War Studies Review, 3 Dec. 2012, miwsr.com/2012-070.aspx
5. https://www.qpr.com/customers

Does a Project Manager Need to be a Subject Matter Expert?

Victor Marathe, Consultant, InnoLead Consulting

“Does a Project Manager need to be a Subject Matter Expert?” The general nature of this very commonly debated question presupposes that the honour of subject matter expert is bestowed to only those predominantly inclined to the technical domain. This presumption tends to relegate the project management function and any other management function for that matter, to an offshoot of technical disciplines, and that the project management function can be performed effectively and well with only basic project management knowledge, or none at all. The question also presupposes that without being a technical subject matter expert one cannot be an effective project manager.

The general definition of a subject matter expert is an individual with a high level of knowledge, skill and expertise in a particular subject, topic and/or function.

Considering this definition of subject matter expert, we must first acknowledge that every function, topic and/or domain, therefore, has subject matter experts in their own right. This, therefore, supposes that a project is executed by various subject matter experts. For instance, a typical project team will comprise of technical, project controls, and project management subject matter experts to list but a few.

My colleague Pardon Baleni previously pointed out in his article “Do Engineers Make Great Project Managers” (12.09.16) that the skill set required of project managers is distinctively different and broader than the skills set required for an engineering function. With that in mind, the question “Does a Project Manager Need to Be a Subject Matter Expert” becomes a dead end question. That is the correlation between the two functions is not as absolute as to allow for a Yes or No response.

However, it does prompt for the contextualization and qualification of the two functions and how they fit in the project structure.

This article will thus deviate slightly from presenting arguments for and against the question at hand, but will rather focus on contextualizing the roles of the two functions and how and when they more appropriately fit in the project structure. We shall leave the reader to then form their own conjecture on the question.

Product Subject Matter Expert vs. Project Management Subject Matter Expert

The two Subject Matter Experts under discussion are not mutually exclusive and it is also not a given that being a product Subject Matter Expert qualifies one as a Project Management Subject Matter Expert and vice versa. Both are however critical to the success of a project.

The two Subject Matter Experts operate at different levels of the project and the emphasis is different depending on the type, complexity and phase of the project.

Let us consider the typical project work breakdown structure (WBS). There are two major levels of the WBS. The principal deliverable level and the work package level, which is made up of the secondary deliverables. Generally, the principal deliverables level is decomposed to a level 2 of the WBS and can be developed with resources with a surface level knowledge of the product, but above average project management knowledge and experience.

Level 3 downwards is more detailed and makes up the work package level or secondary deliverables level. To compile WBS deliverables at these lower levels more product knowledgeable resources are required. These are the product and technical subject matter experts.

From the above departure point one we can assert that a Project Management Subject Matter Expert is one who is an authority in project management process and hence is more suited to manage the higher levels of the project WBS. That is, manage the project development cycle.

The Product Subject Matter Expert is one who is knowledgeable in the development and function of the product for which the project is being executed. The Product SME is, therefore, more suited to manage the product development cycle.

The next lower level subject matter expert is the technical or discipline subject matter expert. These are individuals who are knowledgeable and skilled in single stream elements that make up the product i.e. electronics, mechanical, software development etc.  These individuals operate and manage the lowest level of the WBS.

In simple terms, the project manager manages the project execution process and product or work package manager manages the product development process. For which it is a subset of the project development cycle.

This is not to assert that one set of skills and or knowledge is more important than the other, but rather to qualify that in the continuum of required skills in the project execution process, the required skills differ for the different levels of management.

It is also worth noting that depending on the size and complexity of the project there could be several layers of project managers and different levels of the project structure. This means that product and technical level operatives on a project could be required to execute project management functions within their sphere of influence on the project scope. Has the assertion that the skill sets are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary and essential for both functions.

Project Management Skills vs. Product Development skills

Project management is no different from any other form of management. Besides understanding the project management cycle, the project manager has to have a keen understanding of managing people, resources and integrating all project management processes to ensure that the overall project is delivered within the set parameters. In short a global management view of the project. This is not a skill that occurs by default as a result of being an experienced product or technical subject matter expert. It is a skill that has to be consciously and deliberately developed and cultivated to become a project management subject matter expert.

The product and/or technical subject matter expert is more technical inclined with lesser emphasis on the global project. The focus of the product subject matter expert is on the technical completeness, functionality and quality of the product.

The dominant perception that needs to be challenged is that subject matter experts naturally evolve into project managers without deliberate project management development. This common misconception more often than not results in catastrophic project failures but is often not acknowledged as the anchor cause of project failure.

On the other end of the continuum we must acknowledge that there is benefit in the project manager having some level of knowledge and skill relevant to the product being developed by the project, but it is less of a potential for project fatal flaws in the absence of such knowledge than the potential for failure presented when the project manager is a product subject matter expert without project management expertise.

One can, therefore, assert that being a technical subject matter expert does is not a prerequisite to being an effective project manager but rather that it is more ideal that one is a project management subject matter expert to be an effective project manager

The depth and breadth of the knowledge and skill should be in line with the complexity and risk associated with the project.

A project manager needs Product and Technical Subject Matter Experts to produce a quality product and to ensure a well scoped out project and execution plan.

Product and Technical Subject Matter Experts must follow a deliberate development process to evolve into competent project managers.

The evolution into a project management specialist is not a natural evolutionary process, it has to be as deliberate a process as the process of evolving into a technical subject matter expert.

Victor Marathe is a  Consultant at InnoLead Consulting offering Management Consultancy and Corporate Training Solutions. He can be contacted on +267 3909102 and innolead@innolead.co.bw