March 27, 2024 • 32 mins
Ever feel like the unsung hero in the office, tirelessly managing projects but somehow always overlooked? Step into the spotlight with us as we uncover the hidden battles of project management. With insights into why this essential discipline is often sidelined, we're tearing down the stereotypes and showcasing how vital it is to the success of any organization. From the rise of trendier methodologies to the often-unseen strategic importance of the Project Management Office, we're championing the cause for recognition and respect.
As we journey through the corridors of corporate strategy, we'll expose the harsh realities and inconsistent appreciation for project managers. The undervaluation of project management compared to departments like HR and IT is a stark contrast we can no longer ignore. We're laying bare the truth behind the project success rates and the imperative for executive buy-in. With poignant examples and a clarion call for change, this episode is an eye-opener for anyone who's ever doubted the power of well-executed project management.
On the flip side, it's not just about getting the credit—it's about earning it through ethical leadership and effective communication. We delve into the heart of what it means to be a project manager with integrity, exploring how the courage to speak up and the wisdom to say 'no' can transform project outcomes. This isn't just a discussion—it's a rallying cry for project managers everywhere to stand tall, hold fast to their principles, and navigate their ships through the churning project seas with honor and skill.
Explore more project management insights at www.urukpm.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the 4PM podcast.
My name is Munir Ajam and I'mthe founder and CEO of Arook
Project Management.
My core passion is projectmanagement and community
development.
I came to you with decades ofglobal experience.
I have worked on projects invarious industries, countries
(00:29):
and roles.
In this podcast, I aim to helpyou and your organization
transform how to lead yourchange initiatives with the 4PMs
.
What are the 4PMs?
4 PMs stand for project program, product delivery and portfolio
(00:50):
management.
It is all about integrations todeliver value.
We want to hear from you, soplease share your feedback and
suggestions.
Enjoy your listening.
Good day, munir Ajam wasanother episode of the 4pm
(01:21):
podcast.
Today's topic is a bit ofsharing some frustration.
Maybe I hope it will not soundlike, you know, venting or
anything.
I want to address some issuesand some concern I have been
writing about, you know, eitheron my blog or on LinkedIn, and
so I'm going to basically callthis podcast as how did we fail
(01:44):
as a project managementcommunity?
Now, why do I say that?
Because when we go online everyday, I'm one of those people
who probably as soon as I openmy computer, I have LinkedIn
open, and probably one of thelast things I close it when I go
to sleep at night, andobviously there are many, many
(02:06):
posts online from individualorganizations, professional
associations, that talk aboutproject management, and the same
we see is that there's a lot ofdebates, often endless debates,
and I am guilty of that.
I am one of those people whoparticipated in some of these
debates.
That is adding no value.
(02:27):
What we still see, what we seeis going on, is that we still
see a high degree of failures.
So let me try to put thingsinto perspective into this open
podcast.
I know, historically, going backto tens and hundreds, maybe
years or so, we have built spacestation, we have built giant
(02:51):
dams, highways, bridges,buildings, unique structure,
leading software and probablynumerous other things that have
used project management.
And how did we achieve thoseresults?
How did you achieve those spacestation or the giant dams or
(03:14):
the super tall buildings?
We achieved them throughproject management.
Good, bad or ugly, we have usedproject management.
However, we were able todeliver those projects
successfully.
So we all would agree thatthose projects, you know, from
the perspective of business orstrategic objective, they're
successful.
(03:34):
You know Sydney Opera Houseproject management wise, it was
a disaster.
However, it left a landmarkthat everybody around the world
know immediately when they seeit this is Sydney, australia.
Or when we look at Burj Khalifa, we know this is Dubai, united
Arab Emirates.
So we have accomplished thosethings through project.
Maybe we did not do as good ajob as I mentioned.
(03:57):
Maybe we've done a great job interms of project management.
That's why, if you listen toour podcast, we have a session
on the four-dimensional projectsuccess, where we separate
project management success fromproduct success.
However, the common feature Iwant to repeat and repeat and
repeat is that all of thesegreat things, we have achieved
(04:18):
them through working throughproject and through project
management.
Yet the sad reality is projectmanagement is becoming a bad
word.
As a startup focusing ontechnology in project management
, I cannot tell you how oftenmentors and advisors told me
don't talk about projectmanagement.
Executive, don't care aboutproject management.
(04:38):
Investors don't care aboutproject management.
You should think about even onetime an advisor who was in
project management told me, talkabout time management is
probably a better topic, and Istarted to think and reflect
back that.
Why is that?
Well, obviously there are manythings happening and I'll try to
explain as many of them,forgive me, so in this episode
(05:01):
the thought might be a littlebit divergent and in different
places, but all evolved aroundthis idea is that how did we
fail project management as acommunity?
So what I'm saying is, despiteall of these successes that
happened through project programand project management and
(05:23):
program management, projectmanagement is becoming a bad
word.
We hear a statement and this hascome from a recent article that
I wrote on LinkedIn.
We hear a statement like whoneeds project?
We work differently.
You know, maybe I need to putthis murky face, but you don't
see my face.
Who needs project management?
We have Six Sigma.
Years ago, we used to hear that, oh, project management is
(05:44):
project management.
We have Six Sigma.
Years ago, we used to hear that, oh, project management is
dying because now we have SixSigma.
Well, apparently Six Sigmaalmost died and project
management is still here.
Another thing we hear who needsproject?
We work through product.
This is some of the recentdiscussion I've had online.
Who needs project management?
We have Scrum online.
Who need project management?
We have Scrum.
We have SAFE and fill in theblank for a method of choice, or
(06:08):
the sub-major, as they say.
Who needs project?
We have initiative, endeavorsand adventures.
Who need the PMO?
Yet we do not hear who needs HR, who needs IT or who needs
finance.
We hear about traditional beingbad.
Therefore, we need agile.
(06:29):
Agile is not working.
Ah, we need hybrid, although westill have no clue what hybrid
is, and recently we've seen onepublication from one leading
association talk oh, it reallydoesn't matter what approach you
use.
Hybrid is the way to go.
And here you go, we're going togive you some sample of hybrid.
(06:50):
Well, the whole idea of hybridright, is that you know you
select what is best for yourproject.
If we talk about hybrid beingtailored, you know you select
what's being best for yourproject.
So once you start giving meprescription, like the PMO in
the old days and someassociation came up with oh, the
PMO is either supportivedirective or controlling what
(07:12):
the heck right?
Pmo should be?
A spectrum.
It could be anything.
There could be a lot of varietyof what PMO is.
When you try to force thingsinto three dimensions, then
everybody starts to think inthose dimensions.
Same thing now with traditionalis bad.
We need agile.
Agile is not working.
We need hybrid, hybrid.
You know it's okay.
(07:32):
Maybe we need digital.
And now, of course, everybody'stalking about AI.
Is the future, yeah.
So my question is jokingly.
Should we all retire and gohome and let AI take over?
I think part of the fundamentalissue relate to this.
These kind of comment is thatagain, we fail as a community.
(07:53):
What do I mean by that?
Well, if we think about onething I just said, but maybe I
didn't emphasize why do do wehave PMOs, not PMDs, and the
idea of project managementdepartment?
Why an organization that'slarge enough to have department?
Before anybody jumped on me said, oh, you know, we don't do
(08:14):
things like HR, we don't need HRdepartments.
Well, if you are in a smallcompany, like right now in my
company, I am the HR, I am theIT.
Well, not that bad, but almostright when you work in a startup
.
However, when we are, you workin a company that is large
enough to have department, eventhough the department could be
one or two people only at thattime, or much bigger department,
(08:35):
right, we have HR departments.
And guess what HR work onprojects.
They have project, right, theymight outsource it to IT or
outsource it totally outside ofthe company, but they do have
project.
We have finance department, andguess what?
We have finance project.
We have IT department.
(08:56):
And guess what IT work onprojects, right, even marketing
work on projects, engineeringwork on project.
So why all of these functionshave department and organization
.
But project management is okayto be in office.
I can understand the CEO office.
You know few people thatsupport the CEO or the chairman
(09:17):
office, few people that supportthe chairman, right.
But the whole idea of an office, that means it is an office,
right, it is something of anoffice.
That means it is an office.
Right, it is somethingobviously not contained in one
room, but the idea is it'ssomething small, it's there to
usually use to support something.
So why project management is anoffice?
(09:37):
It, hr, finance, all of thesesupport and do project, but
project is not projectmanagement and do project, but
project is not projectmanagement.
The function is not recognizedenough to be equal function to
HR and IT to be a department.
Now the funny thing is and againall of this relates to why we
(09:59):
failed as a community is that wecreated a separate community
Instead of uniting and workingtogether in project management.
Now you find a lot of PMOs andPMO consultant and PMO
association or group, right,promoting PMO is almost
something like it's independentof project management, right,
(10:19):
it's not.
It's the same PMO is supposedto build the process and manage
the process.
For managing project, whetherit have project manager inside
it or not, it doesn't reallymatter, right?
So why would HR, it, finance,all of these have function but
project management is not?
Now, why it doesn't?
(10:40):
For many reasons.
One of them is because wefailed as a community.
I repeat that statement Now,why we failed as a community?
Because often enough, when webuild these PMOs in many
organizations because we don'tunderstand project management,
(11:00):
but yet we want to try to buildPMOs in many organizations
because we don't understandproject management, but yet we
want to try to build PMOs, as aresult of that, we build PMOs
that are dysfunctional.
What do I mean by that?
Many PMOs I've seen over thedecade.
In one organization I've seenthey implemented a PMO and
dismantled three PMOs within 10years.
(11:22):
So we build a PMO, we use itfor a while, for some reason
it's not working or manager isnot happy kill it.
And then maybe anotherexecutive come on board said, ah
, we need a PMO, let's build itagain and again and again and
again.
Why are we failing?
Now, I know a lot of PMOs aredoing very good job and great
(11:43):
job, so I'm not generalizing.
However, I'm talking about abit of a history, right?
So when we have these PMOsbecome a police force, become
where the PMO is limited to acouple of people focusing on
reporting and chasing projectmanagers for report, instead of
integrating project managementoffice with project management
within the organization, and asa result of that, we've seen a
(12:07):
lot of damage, not only PMO.
So let me try to summarize someof the key points I've raised.
We had problem with projectmanagement.
We thought the answer was PMO.
Pmo did not solve the problem.
So, as a result of I'm anexecutive and currently I'm an
executive, but obviously I'm anexecutive project management
person.
(12:27):
But let's say, if I am anexecutive in a different
organization that does not havea lot of experience and
knowledge in project management,right, and I see my project are
often becoming failure or,almost by default, every project
, or most project, will end upover budget or behind schedule
or significantly delayed, if itdoesn't fail totally, and we end
(12:49):
up having to cancel it.
As an executive, I'm seeingfailure.
I'm seeing more failure thansuccess.
Now, this is not an opinion.
A lot of the statistics on thisshow that you know, in mega
projects, these are over abillion dollars.
So these are the mega projects.
According to a major study bythe Independent Project Analysis
(13:11):
, only 35% of those projects aresuccessful and in some domains
it's even 20%, talking abouthalf a percent.
Half a percent of all projects,especially in the
infrastructure and all of thoseareas that are actually
successful in terms of cost,schedule and objective.
(13:34):
You know information or surveysfrom PMI talked about more than
70% of construction projectsare suffering from cost or
schedule problems.
I know many people might notlike the chaos and sandwich
group, but they've been doingthings for 30 years and they're
telling us that at least onlyone-third of IT projects or less
(13:56):
are considered successful.
The rest are challenged orfailed.
So we have this significantproblem.
Yet professional associationshave existed for 50, 60 years or
so.
Pmo organizations have existedfor many years.
Certifications have existed for40 years plus, yet we are not
able to improve project success.
(14:17):
So executives see that.
So they don't trust us.
They don't trust that projectmanagement is the answer and
this is why project managementis becoming a bad word.
I know I might be being a bitemotional about it and I'm
basically sharing some.
Maybe my opinion and many otherpeople might not agree with me,
but think about that.
You know.
Sleep on this.
(14:37):
Listen to this podcast again,maybe in a day or two and see if
you agree on at least some ofthese points.
Executive, they are not seeingthe value that we can produce.
I honestly believe projectmanagement is a must for every
organization.
Project management isindispensable for business
(14:58):
success.
Yet we often have to fight toconvince people to talk to
project management.
So some of the discussion thatgoes around that, okay, we have
failure, so, as a result,organization executive don't
trust us.
As a result, pmo is acceptable.
It's good enough if they have aPMO, because many organizations
might not even have a PMO right.
(15:20):
But why Think about this?
Why not a PM division ordepartment equal to HR, finance,
it or other department?
All of them work on project,yet project is considered to be
a second or third or even fourthclass citizen in the
organizational ranking.
We've got to be able to changethat.
(15:41):
So how do we change that?
Well, obviously some some mightsay professional association
might have a role on this.
Well, great, I can agree withthat.
However, history has showed usprofessional association has
become businesses with too manyconflict of interest.
They are run by consultants andvendors and basically focusing
(16:03):
on selling instead of focusingon what's best for the
profession and for the emergingprofessional product management.
We don't see enough from theassociation.
Now, obviously, we talk a lotabout PMI, but it's not only PMI
, and this is something thatwhat triggers is actually.
You know, this episode is adiscussion we're having online.
Yes, in my view, outside ofIT-related field, pmi probably
(16:28):
have done more damage than good,and I know I probably make a
lot of enemies for saying what Ijust said, but I'm okay saying
that because it's reality.
Today, we have people inconstruction they don't
understand what Agile is or whatScrum is and think, oh, agile
and Scrum work in construction.
That basically, whenever youhear something like this, that
(16:51):
person does not understand Agileor Scrum or project management.
Now, all of a sudden, we'vebeen using things for and I had
maybe a separate episode talkingabout some of the myths of
Agile, so let me not go thereright now the role of
(17:12):
professional association.
They could have done a greatjob, but they haven't,
unfortunately.
Recently, I wrote an article andI talked about our roof is
leaking.
Now, what did I mean by that?
And I meant by it is that youknow you live in a house, right,
(17:34):
and that house you have.
Your roof is leaking, but youknow it's leaking beyond.
You know a few drops, you knowleaking is heavy and it's
starting to damage our furnitureand, obviously, electronics and
everything else we have in thehouse, if not doing further
damage to the roof.
And I meant by that that inproject management, as I
(17:57):
discussed already, we have a lotof failure.
So we have a problem, asignificant problem, leading to
the point where a lot oforganizations are losing
millions and billions of dollarson projects.
And as a result of that, whatare we doing as a professional
community, association andindividuals and thought leaders,
and all of that?
Right?
So the damage is to theprofession, the damage because
(18:22):
of the leak of the roof.
Yet what are we concerned with?
What are professionalassociations we concerned with?
What are professionalassociations concerned with?
Well, our neighbor, maybe afence does need some touch-up
paint.
And maybe another neighbor,their grass is not as green.
So it's not always, the grassis not always green on the other
side, right?
(18:43):
So we are concerned with thosethings.
We're not saying those thingsare not important, right?
So if I relate that to projectmanagement, what I mean here,
professional associations areconcerned with citizen developer
.
You know they're concerned withHR, with you know, with job
posting, with leadership.
A lot of these topics arevaluable topics, so I'm not
(19:06):
trying to badmouth any of these.
These are very good topics andwe need to know about them.
We need to know about, you know, leadership.
We need to know about all ofthese things.
However, the priority is, youknow, while I'm worried about
leadership, projects are failing.
So here it's that maybe theissue is not the importance of
the topic, it's more about theimportance, the urgency and the
(19:28):
relevance.
If I'm a project managementassociation, my primary concern
should be how do I helporganization deliver projects
successfully right through greatcontent and great support,
instead of trying to sellcertifications.
That doesn't work.
I'll throw this idea there.
(19:48):
This year, I think it's 40-yearanniversary of the PMP.
Have any of you seen anystudies, independent studies,
not surveys, or question or oh,you get the PMP, you get trace.
You know all of the stuff ismanipulated.
Okay, have anybody have seen anindependent study that shows
(20:11):
the PMP or PRINCE2 or any othercertification are successful?
I mentioned the PMP because it's40 years anniversary, I think,
this year.
Okay, why is not?
I mean, I'm selling right now aproduct, a real platform, most
clients would not.
The first thing they wouldquestion me.
Obviously, I'm just going tomarket right now, so I don't
(20:32):
have a history in the market.
As a result of that, selling isvery difficult, right?
Because I don't have a provenrecord.
So how come, when it comes tobuying software, we need to see
a proof, evidence of performance, but when we chase and invest
money on certification asexecutive right, we don't demand
(20:54):
the proof except surveys andsome paid editorial.
And again, this is not the PMIissue.
This is not a PMP, this isPRINCE2, pmp, pmi, ipma, all of
those other certifications andor association out there.
So, as an association, as acommunity association,
individual, again, we arepending a lot of focus on
(21:19):
arguing whether agile is aproject management method or not
, or what is the best method, orhybrid or digital.
And again, I repeat, I amguilty of that.
I participate in many of thesediscussions.
Now one more thing I want tosay here, and I know maybe I did
not create enough enemies, so Ishould create more enemies.
We often find it very easy toblame PMI, and I'm one of those
(21:41):
people who are not very goodfriends, at least with some
what's going on, although I havespent decades with PMI and I'm
part of the PMI LeadershipInstitute years ago and I was
very happily involved.
However, it's not only PMI, as Imentioned, I've been mentioning
the other association as welland here I want to touch on the
PMO community.
(22:01):
You know, when I talk aboutsome of the things I hear and
probably many who will opposewhat I've been saying in this
episode the most many PMOconsultants why, over the years,
what I've seen whenever Italked about elevating.
You know because when I talkabout PMD, I'm not talking about
(22:23):
killing the PMO.
I'm actually talking aboutelevating the PMO from being a
project management office to afully functional organizational
department or division.
Now some people will tell me oh, pmo is already a PMD.
If that's true, if that'sliterally true, in terms of
organizational governance, boardof director decision and
(22:46):
everything else, a PMO isactually equal to an HR
department, right?
If that's true, then why do youkeep calling it office?
I'm one of those people.
Sometimes I believe inpsychology of words.
The word office by itself to meis demeaning.
So when I'm trying to say, whenI promote the idea of project
(23:07):
management, divisions anddepartment is, I'm trying to
elevate the PMO, elevate thelevel of recognition of the
function of project managementin an organization to be equal
at least for everybody else, ifnot even higher.
So, from that perspective, whenI talk about these things, who
fight me the most and what issome in the PMO community?
(23:30):
And let me try to touch on whythe PMO community is almost as
guilty as many of theprofessional associations out
there.
One I've seen a lot of promotionof PMOs.
It's almost like an independentdomain from project management.
Why Isn't a PMO part of projectmanagement?
(23:55):
Why it should be somethingindependent, and we have to make
sure that the PMO isindependent of the project
manager and those projectmanagement function is something
else we don't have to worryabout.
Another thing many of them havetransported PMO communities
into games and certification.
Let's play the game who canbeat and who will win, and
(24:15):
obviously some of these rightnow are becoming mainstream.
And I'm not saying there is avalue, but the point I'm trying
to raise here.
All I see from this associationonline is often the confirmation
about their games and theircertification.
I don't see any thoughtleadership content being shared
online, educational content thatare shared free of charge,
(24:39):
right what we see often.
Or maybe we have to be a memberor we have to follow them right
, but you publish so much.
Why is all?
Your marketing is purelycommercial nature instead of
educational nature.
I'm a tiny startup and yet I,often enough, publish a lot of
content online that areeducational and that has nothing
(25:00):
to do with promoting mybusiness.
Actually, an episode like thisprobably hurt me more than it
helped me.
My main purpose is elevatingproject management, and why?
It's not because I am biasedtoward project management,
because I know if we elevateproject management, we can help
(25:24):
organization increase theirprofit or service.
If they are not for profit orto the community, are
non-for-profit or to thecommunity.
So what else the PMO communityhave done?
Unfortunately, I've seen it alot.
(25:46):
Many PMO consultants have agreedto build and manage PMO for
clients that are more like apolice force rather than an
added value function.
So what they do they?
You know the client will askthem to do things.
They will do whatever theclient says.
Well, you know, becauseobviously we all learned that
the client is always right,correct?
No, I used to train my teamwhen I was in Dubai is that the
client is not always right.
(26:06):
An educated client is alwaysright.
So my job.
First, the client is asking mefor something that doesn't make
sense, to correct that clientand I can tell you I've lost
contract as a result of that,but I don't care.
My job is to make sure that Ihelp the client understand if
they're asking me for somethingthat doesn't make sense or is
(26:27):
not to their best interest,because they might not know that
I am supposed to be the expertthey're asking for.
So I have no problem of sharingmy knowledge and educating them
and then let them decide.
If they still decide onsomething, that is not great,
that's up to them, but at leastI've done my job.
I have been clear, ethically onthe right side.
(26:47):
So, as a result, we establishedPMOs, some of them established
PMOs, and we know they're goingto die because they're not going
to improve performance.
Another thing I want to justsummarize what I said already is
that we have accepted as a PMOcommunity, that the term PMO or
the idea of PMO or the conceptis acceptable.
(27:07):
In other words, we areaccepting and we are promoting
the acceptance that a projectmanagement function is somewhere
to be substandard or below theother function of the
organization.
It's okay for the otherorganization to have department,
but for us it's okay to haveoffice.
(27:28):
I know I'm repeating this, butwhat I'm trying to say here in
this case is that we as a PMOcommunity have accepted that.
So, instead of fighting toelevate the PMO to become equal
to other function, what do we do?
We cry about?
Why don't we have a seat at thetable?
Well, I can tell you, if we'regoing to continue to operate the
way we are, we will never havea seat at the table, if not
(27:50):
completely killed as a domain.
We're already here.
One of the reasons thattriggered these posts and this
discussion is that recentdiscussion.
These organizations don't useproject management anymore.
We do product.
Now, when you start to ask them, what the hell does that mean?
You find out they're doingproject, but they don't want to
call it project.
We're going to call it product.
(28:11):
It's getting to the point whereproject management is not only
a bad word.
If they can remove it from thedictionary, they can probably
remove it from the dictionary.
I need a breather and I thinkit's time to end this.
I've shared a lot of thisfrustration and my reason for
this is not again to vent.
Obviously, part of it isventing, but it's to share, to
(28:34):
be a little bit provocative inthe way.
We need to think about ourdomain, to start to demand more
action.
If professional associationsare not giving us the result,
walk away, walk away, right.
Why do we need to keep payingthem money if they're not giving
us true value?
Now, I know for many peoplethey're still getting great
value A lot of membership, free,guide, all of this open.
(28:56):
So I'm not saying for everybody, but for those who do not
believe a professionalassociation, whoever it is right
, provide them value, walk away.
Or, if you choose to stay, stayright.
(29:21):
But then think about what can wedo as individuals, as small
organizations, small startupslike Rupi M.
What can we do to the community?
What can we do to helpalleviate some of the concerns
and issues and problems in orderto improve success, lower
operation costs, maximizingbenefit to our clients and
maximizing benefit to thecommunities?
What can we do about it?
I honestly urge you to thinkand whenever you see stuff
(29:44):
online, take a critical look atthem.
What are they?
What are they trying to tell us?
What is their proven record?
Okay, is that something makessense?
When we hear agile projectmanagement method, do we
understand what agile is?
When we hear waterfall rightwhen we hear about a digital or
(30:06):
XMOs or whatever the case mightbe.
We can't just follow or we canlead.
Now somebody will tell you well, munir, you know, I don't have
a big following, I don't have aleader, even if you have three
people following you on LinkedIn, you have a follower, you can
communicate, you can elevateperformance.
(30:30):
However, the key is the key isthe only thing that we can do to
help organization executivetrust us again is by performing,
by doing the best job we can,and that include that include
saying no if an executive isasking us to do something
(30:53):
ridiculous or a project thatdoesn't make sense.
We should be able to accept theidea that we are the expert in
the project management domainand we should back up our
experience and we shouldbasically explain and share that
maybe, for example, a baddeadline or too much of a tight
(31:15):
budget is actually it's going tobackfire sooner or later.
So we have to take the ethicalthe higher out and being honest,
being open and communicate.
Now again, at the end of theday, management insists.
Obviously, you have the choiceof walking away or accepting,
but at least you would haveethically done the best you can
(31:38):
in communicating concern, incommunicating issues, and maybe
maybe right if something youknow goes bad and you can maybe
not have to tell them.
I told you so but at least somemight recognize and the next
time they would listen.
So the moral here, or the maybethe summary of this we don't
(32:05):
need to wait on association, wedon't need to wait on everybody
else.
We have a job, we have anobligation to do something to
protect our domain and ourprofession.
And with this I say thank you.
I wish you success today,tomorrow and always.
Welcome to the 4PM podcast.
My name is Munir Ajam and I'mthe founder and CEO of Arook
Project Management.
My core passion is projectmanagement and community
development.
I came to you with decades ofglobal experience.
I have worked on projects invarious industries, countries
(00:29):
and roles.
In this podcast, I aim to helpyou and your organization
transform how to lead yourchange initiatives with the 4PMs
.
What are the 4PMs?
4 PMs stand for project program, product delivery and portfolio
(00:50):
management.
It is all about integrations todeliver value.
We want to hear from you, soplease share your feedback and
suggestions.
Enjoy your listening.
Good day, munir Ajam wasanother episode of the 4pm
(01:21):
podcast.
Today's topic is a bit ofsharing some frustration.
Maybe I hope it will not soundlike, you know, venting or
anything.
I want to address some issuesand some concern I have been
writing about, you know, eitheron my blog or on LinkedIn, and
so I'm going to basically callthis podcast as how did we fail
(01:44):
as a project managementcommunity?
Now, why do I say that?
Because when we go online everyday, I'm one of those people
who probably as soon as I openmy computer, I have LinkedIn
open, and probably one of thelast things I close it when I go
to sleep at night, andobviously there are many, many
(02:06):
posts online from individualorganizations, professional
associations, that talk aboutproject management, and the same
we see is that there's a lot ofdebates, often endless debates,
and I am guilty of that.
I am one of those people whoparticipated in some of these
debates.
That is adding no value.
(02:27):
What we still see, what we seeis going on, is that we still
see a high degree of failures.
So let me try to put thingsinto perspective into this open
podcast.
I know, historically, going backto tens and hundreds, maybe
years or so, we have built spacestation, we have built giant
(02:51):
dams, highways, bridges,buildings, unique structure,
leading software and probablynumerous other things that have
used project management.
And how did we achieve thoseresults?
How did you achieve those spacestation or the giant dams or
(03:14):
the super tall buildings?
We achieved them throughproject management.
Good, bad or ugly, we have usedproject management.
However, we were able todeliver those projects
successfully.
So we all would agree thatthose projects, you know, from
the perspective of business orstrategic objective, they're
successful.
(03:34):
You know Sydney Opera Houseproject management wise, it was
a disaster.
However, it left a landmarkthat everybody around the world
know immediately when they seeit this is Sydney, australia.
Or when we look at Burj Khalifa, we know this is Dubai, united
Arab Emirates.
So we have accomplished thosethings through project.
Maybe we did not do as good ajob as I mentioned.
(03:57):
Maybe we've done a great job interms of project management.
That's why, if you listen toour podcast, we have a session
on the four-dimensional projectsuccess, where we separate
project management success fromproduct success.
However, the common feature Iwant to repeat and repeat and
repeat is that all of thesegreat things, we have achieved
(04:18):
them through working throughproject and through project
management.
Yet the sad reality is projectmanagement is becoming a bad
word.
As a startup focusing ontechnology in project management
, I cannot tell you how oftenmentors and advisors told me
don't talk about projectmanagement.
Executive, don't care aboutproject management.
(04:38):
Investors don't care aboutproject management.
You should think about even onetime an advisor who was in
project management told me, talkabout time management is
probably a better topic, and Istarted to think and reflect
back that.
Why is that?
Well, obviously there are manythings happening and I'll try to
explain as many of them,forgive me, so in this episode
(05:01):
the thought might be a littlebit divergent and in different
places, but all evolved aroundthis idea is that how did we
fail project management as acommunity?
So what I'm saying is, despiteall of these successes that
happened through project programand project management and
(05:23):
program management, projectmanagement is becoming a bad
word.
We hear a statement and this hascome from a recent article that
I wrote on LinkedIn.
We hear a statement like whoneeds project?
We work differently.
You know, maybe I need to putthis murky face, but you don't
see my face.
Who needs project management?
We have Six Sigma.
Years ago, we used to hear that, oh, project management is
(05:44):
project management.
We have Six Sigma.
Years ago, we used to hear that, oh, project management is
dying because now we have SixSigma.
Well, apparently Six Sigmaalmost died and project
management is still here.
Another thing we hear who needsproject?
We work through product.
This is some of the recentdiscussion I've had online.
Who needs project management?
We have Scrum online.
Who need project management?
We have Scrum.
We have SAFE and fill in theblank for a method of choice, or
(06:08):
the sub-major, as they say.
Who needs project?
We have initiative, endeavorsand adventures.
Who need the PMO?
Yet we do not hear who needs HR, who needs IT or who needs
finance.
We hear about traditional beingbad.
Therefore, we need agile.
(06:29):
Agile is not working.
Ah, we need hybrid, although westill have no clue what hybrid
is, and recently we've seen onepublication from one leading
association talk oh, it reallydoesn't matter what approach you
use.
Hybrid is the way to go.
And here you go, we're going togive you some sample of hybrid.
(06:50):
Well, the whole idea of hybridright, is that you know you
select what is best for yourproject.
If we talk about hybrid beingtailored, you know you select
what's being best for yourproject.
So once you start giving meprescription, like the PMO in
the old days and someassociation came up with oh, the
PMO is either supportivedirective or controlling what
(07:12):
the heck right?
Pmo should be?
A spectrum.
It could be anything.
There could be a lot of varietyof what PMO is.
When you try to force thingsinto three dimensions, then
everybody starts to think inthose dimensions.
Same thing now with traditionalis bad.
We need agile.
Agile is not working.
We need hybrid, hybrid.
You know it's okay.
(07:32):
Maybe we need digital.
And now, of course, everybody'stalking about AI.
Is the future, yeah.
So my question is jokingly.
Should we all retire and gohome and let AI take over?
I think part of the fundamentalissue relate to this.
These kind of comment is thatagain, we fail as a community.
(07:53):
What do I mean by that?
Well, if we think about onething I just said, but maybe I
didn't emphasize why do do wehave PMOs, not PMDs, and the
idea of project managementdepartment?
Why an organization that'slarge enough to have department?
Before anybody jumped on me said, oh, you know, we don't do
(08:14):
things like HR, we don't need HRdepartments.
Well, if you are in a smallcompany, like right now in my
company, I am the HR, I am theIT.
Well, not that bad, but almostright when you work in a startup
.
However, when we are, you workin a company that is large
enough to have department, eventhough the department could be
one or two people only at thattime, or much bigger department,
(08:35):
right, we have HR departments.
And guess what HR work onprojects.
They have project, right, theymight outsource it to IT or
outsource it totally outside ofthe company, but they do have
project.
We have finance department, andguess what?
We have finance project.
We have IT department.
(08:56):
And guess what IT work onprojects, right, even marketing
work on projects, engineeringwork on project.
So why all of these functionshave department and organization
.
But project management is okayto be in office.
I can understand the CEO office.
You know few people thatsupport the CEO or the chairman
(09:17):
office, few people that supportthe chairman, right.
But the whole idea of an office, that means it is an office,
right, it is something of anoffice.
That means it is an office.
Right, it is somethingobviously not contained in one
room, but the idea is it'ssomething small, it's there to
usually use to support something.
So why project management is anoffice?
(09:37):
It, hr, finance, all of thesesupport and do project, but
project is not projectmanagement and do project, but
project is not projectmanagement.
The function is not recognizedenough to be equal function to
HR and IT to be a department.
Now the funny thing is and againall of this relates to why we
(09:59):
failed as a community is that wecreated a separate community
Instead of uniting and workingtogether in project management.
Now you find a lot of PMOs andPMO consultant and PMO
association or group, right,promoting PMO is almost
something like it's independentof project management, right,
(10:19):
it's not.
It's the same PMO is supposedto build the process and manage
the process.
For managing project, whetherit have project manager inside
it or not, it doesn't reallymatter, right?
So why would HR, it, finance,all of these have function but
project management is not?
Now, why it doesn't?
(10:40):
For many reasons.
One of them is because wefailed as a community.
I repeat that statement Now,why we failed as a community?
Because often enough, when webuild these PMOs in many
organizations because we don'tunderstand project management,
(11:00):
but yet we want to try to buildPMOs in many organizations
because we don't understandproject management, but yet we
want to try to build PMOs, as aresult of that, we build PMOs
that are dysfunctional.
What do I mean by that?
Many PMOs I've seen over thedecade.
In one organization I've seenthey implemented a PMO and
dismantled three PMOs within 10years.
(11:22):
So we build a PMO, we use itfor a while, for some reason
it's not working or manager isnot happy kill it.
And then maybe anotherexecutive come on board said, ah
, we need a PMO, let's build itagain and again and again and
again.
Why are we failing?
Now, I know a lot of PMOs aredoing very good job and great
(11:43):
job, so I'm not generalizing.
However, I'm talking about abit of a history, right?
So when we have these PMOsbecome a police force, become
where the PMO is limited to acouple of people focusing on
reporting and chasing projectmanagers for report, instead of
integrating project managementoffice with project management
within the organization, and asa result of that, we've seen a
(12:07):
lot of damage, not only PMO.
So let me try to summarize someof the key points I've raised.
We had problem with projectmanagement.
We thought the answer was PMO.
Pmo did not solve the problem.
So, as a result of I'm anexecutive and currently I'm an
executive, but obviously I'm anexecutive project management
person.
(12:27):
But let's say, if I am anexecutive in a different
organization that does not havea lot of experience and
knowledge in project management,right, and I see my project are
often becoming failure or,almost by default, every project
, or most project, will end upover budget or behind schedule
or significantly delayed, if itdoesn't fail totally, and we end
(12:49):
up having to cancel it.
As an executive, I'm seeingfailure.
I'm seeing more failure thansuccess.
Now, this is not an opinion.
A lot of the statistics on thisshow that you know, in mega
projects, these are over abillion dollars.
So these are the mega projects.
According to a major study bythe Independent Project Analysis
(13:11):
, only 35% of those projects aresuccessful and in some domains
it's even 20%, talking abouthalf a percent.
Half a percent of all projects,especially in the
infrastructure and all of thoseareas that are actually
successful in terms of cost,schedule and objective.
(13:34):
You know information or surveysfrom PMI talked about more than
70% of construction projectsare suffering from cost or
schedule problems.
I know many people might notlike the chaos and sandwich
group, but they've been doingthings for 30 years and they're
telling us that at least onlyone-third of IT projects or less
(13:56):
are considered successful.
The rest are challenged orfailed.
So we have this significantproblem.
Yet professional associationshave existed for 50, 60 years or
so.
Pmo organizations have existedfor many years.
Certifications have existed for40 years plus, yet we are not
able to improve project success.
(14:17):
So executives see that.
So they don't trust us.
They don't trust that projectmanagement is the answer and
this is why project managementis becoming a bad word.
I know I might be being a bitemotional about it and I'm
basically sharing some.
Maybe my opinion and many otherpeople might not agree with me,
but think about that.
You know.
Sleep on this.
(14:37):
Listen to this podcast again,maybe in a day or two and see if
you agree on at least some ofthese points.
Executive, they are not seeingthe value that we can produce.
I honestly believe projectmanagement is a must for every
organization.
Project management isindispensable for business
(14:58):
success.
Yet we often have to fight toconvince people to talk to
project management.
So some of the discussion thatgoes around that, okay, we have
failure, so, as a result,organization executive don't
trust us.
As a result, pmo is acceptable.
It's good enough if they have aPMO, because many organizations
might not even have a PMO right.
(15:20):
But why Think about this?
Why not a PM division ordepartment equal to HR, finance,
it or other department?
All of them work on project,yet project is considered to be
a second or third or even fourthclass citizen in the
organizational ranking.
We've got to be able to changethat.
(15:41):
So how do we change that?
Well, obviously some some mightsay professional association
might have a role on this.
Well, great, I can agree withthat.
However, history has showed usprofessional association has
become businesses with too manyconflict of interest.
They are run by consultants andvendors and basically focusing
(16:03):
on selling instead of focusingon what's best for the
profession and for the emergingprofessional product management.
We don't see enough from theassociation.
Now, obviously, we talk a lotabout PMI, but it's not only PMI
, and this is something thatwhat triggers is actually.
You know, this episode is adiscussion we're having online.
Yes, in my view, outside ofIT-related field, pmi probably
(16:28):
have done more damage than good,and I know I probably make a
lot of enemies for saying what Ijust said, but I'm okay saying
that because it's reality.
Today, we have people inconstruction they don't
understand what Agile is or whatScrum is and think, oh, agile
and Scrum work in construction.
That basically, whenever youhear something like this, that
(16:51):
person does not understand Agileor Scrum or project management.
Now, all of a sudden, we'vebeen using things for and I had
maybe a separate episode talkingabout some of the myths of
Agile, so let me not go thereright now the role of
(17:12):
professional association.
They could have done a greatjob, but they haven't,
unfortunately.
Recently, I wrote an article andI talked about our roof is
leaking.
Now, what did I mean by that?
And I meant by it is that youknow you live in a house, right,
(17:34):
and that house you have.
Your roof is leaking, but youknow it's leaking beyond.
You know a few drops, you knowleaking is heavy and it's
starting to damage our furnitureand, obviously, electronics and
everything else we have in thehouse, if not doing further
damage to the roof.
And I meant by that that inproject management, as I
(17:57):
discussed already, we have a lotof failure.
So we have a problem, asignificant problem, leading to
the point where a lot oforganizations are losing
millions and billions of dollarson projects.
And as a result of that, whatare we doing as a professional
community, association andindividuals and thought leaders,
and all of that?
Right?
So the damage is to theprofession, the damage because
(18:22):
of the leak of the roof.
Yet what are we concerned with?
What are professionalassociations we concerned with?
What are professionalassociations concerned with?
Well, our neighbor, maybe afence does need some touch-up
paint.
And maybe another neighbor,their grass is not as green.
So it's not always, the grassis not always green on the other
side, right?
(18:43):
So we are concerned with thosethings.
We're not saying those thingsare not important, right?
So if I relate that to projectmanagement, what I mean here,
professional associations areconcerned with citizen developer
.
You know they're concerned withHR, with you know, with job
posting, with leadership.
A lot of these topics arevaluable topics, so I'm not
(19:06):
trying to badmouth any of these.
These are very good topics andwe need to know about them.
We need to know about, you know, leadership.
We need to know about all ofthese things.
However, the priority is, youknow, while I'm worried about
leadership, projects are failing.
So here it's that maybe theissue is not the importance of
the topic, it's more about theimportance, the urgency and the
(19:28):
relevance.
If I'm a project managementassociation, my primary concern
should be how do I helporganization deliver projects
successfully right through greatcontent and great support,
instead of trying to sellcertifications.
That doesn't work.
I'll throw this idea there.
(19:48):
This year, I think it's 40-yearanniversary of the PMP.
Have any of you seen anystudies, independent studies,
not surveys, or question or oh,you get the PMP, you get trace.
You know all of the stuff ismanipulated.
Okay, have anybody have seen anindependent study that shows
(20:11):
the PMP or PRINCE2 or any othercertification are successful?
I mentioned the PMP because it's40 years anniversary, I think,
this year.
Okay, why is not?
I mean, I'm selling right now aproduct, a real platform, most
clients would not.
The first thing they wouldquestion me.
Obviously, I'm just going tomarket right now, so I don't
(20:32):
have a history in the market.
As a result of that, selling isvery difficult, right?
Because I don't have a provenrecord.
So how come, when it comes tobuying software, we need to see
a proof, evidence of performance, but when we chase and invest
money on certification asexecutive right, we don't demand
(20:54):
the proof except surveys andsome paid editorial.
And again, this is not the PMIissue.
This is not a PMP, this isPRINCE2, pmp, pmi, ipma, all of
those other certifications andor association out there.
So, as an association, as acommunity association,
individual, again, we arepending a lot of focus on
(21:19):
arguing whether agile is aproject management method or not
, or what is the best method, orhybrid or digital.
And again, I repeat, I amguilty of that.
I participate in many of thesediscussions.
Now one more thing I want tosay here, and I know maybe I did
not create enough enemies, so Ishould create more enemies.
We often find it very easy toblame PMI, and I'm one of those
(21:41):
people who are not very goodfriends, at least with some
what's going on, although I havespent decades with PMI and I'm
part of the PMI LeadershipInstitute years ago and I was
very happily involved.
However, it's not only PMI, as Imentioned, I've been mentioning
the other association as welland here I want to touch on the
PMO community.
(22:01):
You know, when I talk aboutsome of the things I hear and
probably many who will opposewhat I've been saying in this
episode the most many PMOconsultants why, over the years,
what I've seen whenever Italked about elevating.
You know because when I talkabout PMD, I'm not talking about
(22:23):
killing the PMO.
I'm actually talking aboutelevating the PMO from being a
project management office to afully functional organizational
department or division.
Now some people will tell me oh, pmo is already a PMD.
If that's true, if that'sliterally true, in terms of
organizational governance, boardof director decision and
(22:46):
everything else, a PMO isactually equal to an HR
department, right?
If that's true, then why do youkeep calling it office?
I'm one of those people.
Sometimes I believe inpsychology of words.
The word office by itself to meis demeaning.
So when I'm trying to say, whenI promote the idea of project
(23:07):
management, divisions anddepartment is, I'm trying to
elevate the PMO, elevate thelevel of recognition of the
function of project managementin an organization to be equal
at least for everybody else, ifnot even higher.
So, from that perspective, whenI talk about these things, who
fight me the most and what issome in the PMO community?
(23:30):
And let me try to touch on whythe PMO community is almost as
guilty as many of theprofessional associations out
there.
One I've seen a lot of promotionof PMOs.
It's almost like an independentdomain from project management.
Why Isn't a PMO part of projectmanagement?
(23:55):
Why it should be somethingindependent, and we have to make
sure that the PMO isindependent of the project
manager and those projectmanagement function is something
else we don't have to worryabout.
Another thing many of them havetransported PMO communities
into games and certification.
Let's play the game who canbeat and who will win, and
(24:15):
obviously some of these rightnow are becoming mainstream.
And I'm not saying there is avalue, but the point I'm trying
to raise here.
All I see from this associationonline is often the confirmation
about their games and theircertification.
I don't see any thoughtleadership content being shared
online, educational content thatare shared free of charge,
(24:39):
right what we see often.
Or maybe we have to be a memberor we have to follow them right
, but you publish so much.
Why is all?
Your marketing is purelycommercial nature instead of
educational nature.
I'm a tiny startup and yet I,often enough, publish a lot of
content online that areeducational and that has nothing
(25:00):
to do with promoting mybusiness.
Actually, an episode like thisprobably hurt me more than it
helped me.
My main purpose is elevatingproject management, and why?
It's not because I am biasedtoward project management,
because I know if we elevateproject management, we can help
(25:24):
organization increase theirprofit or service.
If they are not for profit orto the community, are
non-for-profit or to thecommunity.
So what else the PMO communityhave done?
Unfortunately, I've seen it alot.
(25:46):
Many PMO consultants have agreedto build and manage PMO for
clients that are more like apolice force rather than an
added value function.
So what they do they?
You know the client will askthem to do things.
They will do whatever theclient says.
Well, you know, becauseobviously we all learned that
the client is always right,correct?
No, I used to train my teamwhen I was in Dubai is that the
client is not always right.
(26:06):
An educated client is alwaysright.
So my job.
First, the client is asking mefor something that doesn't make
sense, to correct that clientand I can tell you I've lost
contract as a result of that,but I don't care.
My job is to make sure that Ihelp the client understand if
they're asking me for somethingthat doesn't make sense or is
(26:27):
not to their best interest,because they might not know that
I am supposed to be the expertthey're asking for.
So I have no problem of sharingmy knowledge and educating them
and then let them decide.
If they still decide onsomething, that is not great,
that's up to them, but at leastI've done my job.
I have been clear, ethically onthe right side.
(26:47):
So, as a result, we establishedPMOs, some of them established
PMOs, and we know they're goingto die because they're not going
to improve performance.
Another thing I want to justsummarize what I said already is
that we have accepted as a PMOcommunity, that the term PMO or
the idea of PMO or the conceptis acceptable.
(27:07):
In other words, we areaccepting and we are promoting
the acceptance that a projectmanagement function is somewhere
to be substandard or below theother function of the
organization.
It's okay for the otherorganization to have department,
but for us it's okay to haveoffice.
(27:28):
I know I'm repeating this, butwhat I'm trying to say here in
this case is that we as a PMOcommunity have accepted that.
So, instead of fighting toelevate the PMO to become equal
to other function, what do we do?
We cry about?
Why don't we have a seat at thetable?
Well, I can tell you, if we'regoing to continue to operate the
way we are, we will never havea seat at the table, if not
(27:50):
completely killed as a domain.
We're already here.
One of the reasons thattriggered these posts and this
discussion is that recentdiscussion.
These organizations don't useproject management anymore.
We do product.
Now, when you start to ask them, what the hell does that mean?
You find out they're doingproject, but they don't want to
call it project.
We're going to call it product.
(28:11):
It's getting to the point whereproject management is not only
a bad word.
If they can remove it from thedictionary, they can probably
remove it from the dictionary.
I need a breather and I thinkit's time to end this.
I've shared a lot of thisfrustration and my reason for
this is not again to vent.
Obviously, part of it isventing, but it's to share, to
(28:34):
be a little bit provocative inthe way.
We need to think about ourdomain, to start to demand more
action.
If professional associationsare not giving us the result,
walk away, walk away, right.
Why do we need to keep payingthem money if they're not giving
us true value?
Now, I know for many peoplethey're still getting great
value A lot of membership, free,guide, all of this open.
(28:56):
So I'm not saying for everybody, but for those who do not
believe a professionalassociation, whoever it is right
, provide them value, walk away.
Or, if you choose to stay, stayright.
(29:21):
But then think about what can wedo as individuals, as small
organizations, small startupslike Rupi M.
What can we do to the community?
What can we do to helpalleviate some of the concerns
and issues and problems in orderto improve success, lower
operation costs, maximizingbenefit to our clients and
maximizing benefit to thecommunities?
What can we do about it?
I honestly urge you to thinkand whenever you see stuff
(29:44):
online, take a critical look atthem.
What are they?
What are they trying to tell us?
What is their proven record?
Okay, is that something makessense?
When we hear agile projectmanagement method, do we
understand what agile is?
When we hear waterfall rightwhen we hear about a digital or
(30:06):
XMOs or whatever the case mightbe.
We can't just follow or we canlead.
Now somebody will tell you well, munir, you know, I don't have
a big following, I don't have aleader, even if you have three
people following you on LinkedIn, you have a follower, you can
communicate, you can elevateperformance.
(30:30):
However, the key is the key isthe only thing that we can do to
help organization executivetrust us again is by performing,
by doing the best job we can,and that include that include
saying no if an executive isasking us to do something
(30:53):
ridiculous or a project thatdoesn't make sense.
We should be able to accept theidea that we are the expert in
the project management domainand we should back up our
experience and we shouldbasically explain and share that
maybe, for example, a baddeadline or too much of a tight
(31:15):
budget is actually it's going tobackfire sooner or later.
So we have to take the ethicalthe higher out and being honest,
being open and communicate.
Now again, at the end of theday, management insists.
Obviously, you have the choiceof walking away or accepting,
but at least you would haveethically done the best you can
(31:38):
in communicating concern, incommunicating issues, and maybe
maybe right if something youknow goes bad and you can maybe
not have to tell them.
I told you so but at least somemight recognize and the next
time they would listen.
So the moral here, or the maybethe summary of this we don't
(32:05):
need to wait on association, wedon't need to wait on everybody
else.
We have a job, we have anobligation to do something to
protect our domain and ourprofession.
And with this I say thank you.
I wish you success today,tomorrow and always.
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