Mastery Point

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A few years back, I started to explain the differences between project management experience levels using this metaphor. While it isn’t perfect, it can shed some light on the algorithm of successful project delivery. So far, I haven’t found any types of “projects” that don’t benefit from the understanding that this metaphor can provide:

If we view project delivery within our business as “batting practice,” each new project is a pitch that the batter is expected to hit over the fence. Your project manager is the hitter. Given a sufficiently located pitch in the strike zone within their speed ability, any project manager can hit a home run. However, the more difficult the pitch, the more experienced project manager will have a better success rate. The “batting coach” is the project management system you have in place. Developing and improving newer project managers into ever more capable project managers. 

You don’t, necessarily, have to completely understand baseball as a game to know that the most successful pitchers can throw unhittable pitches and the most successful hitters can hit more difficult pitches than their peers. This is where the metaphor of batting practice starts to fail the reality of our business. Project managers are forced to swing at every single pitch. Everyone looks at the project manager and asks why wasn’t that a homerun? When, in reality, it is a cooperation between the one throwing the pitch and the one standing at home plate. We don’t have the opportunity to stand in the batter’s box and decide that the pitch coming in isn’t worth swinging at.

Perhaps, a fresh-faced, wet-behind-the-ears newbie can, truly, best succeed with a fluffy schedule and rock solid budgeted project. But what if that pitch is off-speed? What if it’s a “curveball?” If the schedule is poorly conceived, the budget completely off base, or the customer’s expectations out of alignment with the project team you have a pitch that is going to be difficult to hit a home run. 

So, given that pitches (projects) can be all over the place, we understand how project managers of increasing capabilities become limited resources. It’s fair to expect that a project manager with 20+ years of experience will be better at overcoming the challenges of a difficult project. 

Are your projects always down the middle of the plate? Are they appropriately conceived? Is everything that the customer expects very clear and objectively measurable? Does the schedule have enough contingency to absorb a couple minor hiccups? Most likely, the answer here is “no.”

So, if your business has a poor record of successful project delivery in recent times the question that bears asking is: What is making this so difficult? Is it wild pitches that once in a while even bounce before they get to the plate? Is it a staff of project managers that just aren’t skilled enough to hit home runs for the industry in which you participate? Perhaps, it’s somewhere in between where top-level project managers are doing it right and the lower-levels seem to struggle to break-through... 

The good news: there are a lot of levers that we can pull on to make improvements. Improved project clarity and budgeting pre-sales. Improved training and performance targets to help raise the level of your in-house staff. Evaluating project management capability within the team and executive knowledge of Project Management as a function. The algorithm of successful project delivery contains a multitude of variables. Let Mastery Point help you understand the full equation...