It would be a pretty strong bet to say that all successful leaders specialize in rightsizing everything around them. If they weren't, the impacts of not being able to rightsize would have a negative domino effect across their domain (company, division, department, team).
Not enough people in the right seats vs. too many people in the wrong seats.
Too much project management rigor vs. not enough.
Taking too many risks vs. not enough.
Too many unproductive meetings vs. not enough productive ones.
You get the point.
And even when a leader appears to have rightsized everything correctly, they can never let their guard down. Great leaders are assessing and making adjustments all the time. They are usually tinkerers, naturally curious, well-read, experienced, good listeners, and everything else it takes to understand what and how to rightsize everything around them.
Regarding the domino effect:
Let's say that we have too many people in the wrong seats.
We see individuals spending much of their time figuring out what they need to do and how to interact
Communication becomes disjointed
Mistakes are made
Motivation deteriorates with little synergy in play
Job satisfaction drops off
Productivity is significantly reduced.
At some point customers are negatively impacted, becoming frustrated
Customer spending dwindles
Financials eventually suffer
And if the wrong people are in the wrong seats long enough, mass layoffs must occur just to keep the lights on.
As we can see, everything is tied together, and when that first domino falls getting ahead of it to stop all of the dominos from falling. Having the right people in the right seats is crucial.
Maximum Results
An argument can be made that everything needs to be as rightsized as possible for MAXIMUM results. And there are absolutely times when rightsizing simply has to wait, but ultimately strong leaders need to continue to rightsize regularly and get it right a very high percentage of the time.
As a Project Manager, rightsizing a project or a PMO's people, tools, and processes is critical to their success. Too much project management rigor is overbearing and expensive to those interfacing with and paying for it. Too little project management may initially appear to be a cost-saving, but most of the time it causes increased costs via rework, missed targets, scope creep, misunderstandings, and general goodwill with the end customer (internal and/or external).
Take time tracking for example. Project managers, and the ones who hired them, have important questions to ask themselves before implementing any type of project-related time tracking.
Do we want/need time tracking for our projects?
Do we need time tracking on all of our projects?
Do we need it for external projects only, or internal projects too?
Why do we need to track project time? For:
Budget Management?
Resource Allocation?
Productivity Analysis?
Client Billing (a big one for T&M)?
Project Scheduling and Forecasting?
Performance Evaluation?
Insight into Work Processes?
Legal and Compliance?
Project Transparency and Accountability?
If we do track time, who will be responsible for extracting and utilizing it for any of the above purposes?
How deeply do we want to require our people to track their time?
Project level?
Phase level?
Primary task level?
Sub-task level?
On a per-person level only?
What level of tracking becomes too micro?
How much time will it take people to track at the phase vs. primary-task vs. sub-task level?
What's the cost-benefit of each level of tracking?
How will the level of tracking impact project morale?
How do we ensure people do not falsify time spent on their tasks?
What will the impact be if we don't track time?
Phew... count the question marks (26) - there are more, but let's cut it there. There's just a lot of questions that need to be asked and decisions made to rightsize time tracking and for good reason.
If your organization does the same project type 100+ times a year, it almost certainly will be valuable to know how much time is being spent at the task, sub-task, or even sub-sub-task level. The reasoning for doing so can be explained and understood by the project teams, and morale is not impacted because it makes sense. It does cost a bit more for every team member to enter their time at the end of each day, but the positive impact on the profitability of the company, the team's future work quality, and even their bonuses make it all worth it.
If on the other hand, your organization never carries out the same type of project twice in the same year, the projects are fixed price at an "experienced SWAG" figure, and the commitment to data analysis is simply not there, then not tracking time may be the best option. You have to have good reasons for tracking time, and it has to be rightsized to maintain organizational balance and customer satisfaction.
That's just one area of hundreds that project managers need to rightsize to be successful. Some other big ones include; project charters, project plans, project schedules, budgets, resource estimating, skill requirements, and the list goes on.
The impetus for writing this piece stemmed from a career where I have observed, created, participated in, and helped retool all sorts of companies, operations, departments, and teams that required rightsizing to improve. Over the past 10 years, I have found myself verbally using the "rightsize" concept regularly, and I thought it was time I articulate them in written form. It's simply critical to your leadership toolbox and maximizing success. Hopefully, your rightsizing motor is revved and you are ready to take it on more continuously.
Carpe Diem - ML
Comments