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THE MOST CRITICAL SKILL OF 2022: BEING ARTFULLY ADAPTABLE
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THE MOST CRITICAL SKILL OF 2022: BEING ARTFULLY ADAPTABLE
HOW CAN PROJECT TEAMS SUCCEED IN THE CHALLENGING, VOLATILE ENVIRONMENT OF 2022? ACCORDING TO ELEMENTAL PROJECTS CEO KESTREL STONE, IT’S ALL DOWN TO ADAPTABILITY.
The never-ending pandemic, supply disruptions, inflation, fluid teams, more transformational and complex projects than ever…
There’s no doubt the current environment is tough. With strictly waterfall approaches too inflexible, and strictly agile approaches not robust enough, Kestrel Stone explains how project managers must gracefully weave together tools and techniques from both worlds to achieve project success.
Adaptability seems to be the talk of the town – what does adaptability in project management mean to you?
Kestrel: Put simply, adaptability is the ability to adjust to change, but it’s more than that for project managers and their organisations. It’s pre-empting change, responding appropriately and being able to pivot and thrive no matter what.
What’s driven the increasing focus on adaptability in project management?
Kestrel: The main drivers have been rising project complexity and unprecedented macro forces.
Throw in a pandemic that turned the world upside down, the rise of IT, global supply chain disruptions, climate change and political unrest, and we’ve had the perfect storm.
Is best practice thinking evolving for this new world?
Kestrel: The adaptability needed by project managers is certainly reflected in leading global standards, including the ICB4 (the international standard on competence for project, program and portfolio managers), which points to complex problem solving (resourcefulness), dealing with major issues (conflict and crisis), and grit (results orientation). The recently released seventh edition of the PMBoK® Guide (from PMI) is a dramatic departure from previous editions, reframing ‘risk’ as ‘uncertainty’, suggesting the use of models for responding to complexity, and calling out guiding principles around systems thinking, collaboration, and adaptability.
This global trend is visible here in Australia, too, with the AIPM standard for senior project managers (Certified Practising Senior Project Manager or CPSPM) focusing on critical leadership skills, such as engagement and influence, over technical project management skills.
What about stakeholder expectations? Are they driving the need for adaptability?
Kestrel: Definitely. Clients and sponsors used to expect their projects to be delivered on time, on budget, and to a specification that could be clearly documented in a contract scope of work. Now, clients expect the delivery team to flexibly partner with them and respond without exorbitant variations to regular scope changes as the landscape around them shifts and their stakeholders’ needs evolve in response to those macro forces. They expect delivery partners to anticipate and respond to the complexity they’ll face, transparently sharing in the pain and gain of risks, issues, and opportunities along the way. Time, cost and quality have become hygiene factors. With additional competing constraints such as transparency, wellbeing, and sustainability, the iron triangle is looking more like an octagon.
So how can project managers choose the optimal delivery approach?
Kestrel: This is a difficult question to answer. The next generation of successful project managers will need the savviness to select the right development approach to suit their project. They’ll need to artfully combine the best tools and techniques from all approaches to dodge the crunch zones, like when fixed-price contracts (requiring scope definition upfront) meet agile product development methodologies (requiring iterative scope definition throughout). The model (refer to https://issuu.com/aipmmagazine/docs/aipm_a4_digital_magazine_autumn_2022_v3) might help project managers identify the appropriate delivery type based on their project and sector.
Are hybrid delivery approaches the way of the future?
Kestrel: It depends on the project or work package. Complex projects and programs will increasingly adopt a hybrid delivery approach where predictive and adaptive methodologies are both used to their best advantage. For example, a major hospital upgrade might use a predictive delivery approach involving work breakdown structures, Gantt charts, and other traditional tools and techniques for the construction of buildings, roads, fit-outs, and other physical infrastructure. But for software development, change management, process architecture, and community consultation, they’ll draw on adaptive (Agile) delivery approaches, which enable stakeholder feedback and adaptation of the plan with each iteration.
What’s the best way to build adaptability or encourage it in your team?
Kestrel: Developing adaptable project managers takes a safe environment that exposes them to the challenges and opportunities they’ll face in their role. Project management simulations are a powerful way to develop these skills. They challenge thinking while testing resilience and leadership skills under pressure. People learn through failure. The trick is to make that process fun, safe and non-career-limiting. In our training programs, we take a layered approach to developing adaptable project managers. We start with a simulation, then introduce new skills through group work on a case study project, then transfer those skills to real, work-based projects using work-based tools and templates. Personal and peer coaching are also powerful levers for the development of emotional intelligence and leadership capability.
Author: Kestrel Stone FAIPM is the CEO of Elemental Projects, who partner with students and businesses to develop methodology-agnostic, artfully adaptable project managers. She’s also a Board Member of the Global Alliance for the Project Professions (GAPPS), a Project Management Lecturer (University of Sydney) and a former AIPM NSW Chapter Councillor.
