The Project Constraints Of The Future And How to Manage Them
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Dear Subscribers,
Today we are once again going to peek into the future. This time, exploring projects themselves and the various aspects we need to think about when managing them.
I’ve outlined 10 project constraints we need to think about in order for us to be successful project leaders of tomorrow. 3 of them should be familiar to you but the other 7 may not be.
If there is interest on this topic, I’ll make an effort in diving deep on each constraint in future articles. Let me know if this is something you’d like to see by commenting below.
Now, on to the article.
If you were to approach 20 project professionals, transformation leaders, and PMO executives and inquire about their thoughts on the future direction of project management, you would most likely receive 20 distinct responses.
The diversity in viewpoints is entirely expected. Making predictions about the future is an immense undertaking, particularly when confronted with an endless wave of disruptions driven by emerging technologies infiltrating the workforce.
One of the key reasons I created this newsletter was to speak about this topic in-depth. And while predictions are never 100% bulletproof, I feel there is enough data at our fingertips to help guide us on the right path.
I’ve spoken at length about where I feel the project management profession is headed already and even hosted a PMI premium webinar on this topic. I now want to focus on projects themselves. Specifically, how do we manage projects that are becoming more complex, strategic, and chock full of ambiguity?
In my view, we need to change how we think about projects.
The old way of thinking – where a successful project just meant managing the traditional constraints of time, cost, and scope – doesn't cut it anymore.
Projects are different now. They come with a bunch of challenges that many project leaders aren't ready to deal with. Through my own research and experience with managing transformation level projects, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are 10 constraints that project leaders of tomorrow must contend with and navigate through. This article aims at providing a summary on each of them split into two categories.
The Original 3
The New 7
📜 The Original 3: Traditional Project Constraints
A lot has already been written about the traditional project constraints, and many of the elements still apply. While I agree that fixing something that isn't broken comes with some risks, I feel it’s more important to continuously look to optimize something already valid and take it even further. With that in mind, the triple project constraints will be going through a slight makeover to make them more relevant to a world of massive transformation.
Cost
Managing budgets is one of the first skills taught to aspiring project managers, and for a good reason. Capital is a scarce resource and regardless of the size of the company, there is only so much of it to go around. Controlling where money gets spent and how quickly, compared to progress made, is one of the traditional areas of success measurement.
As projects grow bigger and more complex, cost management will continue to play an important role for the projects of the future. Project managers need to balance traditional metrics such as the variance between actual costs versus forecasts, and learn the skills to control some new ones, such as rising/declining exchange rates, the cost of missed opportunities, and sunk costs.
Time
One of the characteristics that defines a project is the fact that they have a start and finish date. This will continue to be the case for projects of the future. However, with projects growing in size and becoming more firmly tied to company strategy, the need to review timing in multiple phases within many programs is the future of time management.
Project managers must be comfortable working with both loosely defined and strict time constraints in parallel to meet the needs of the short and long-term goals of the initiative. This will require project managers of the future to balance multiple critical paths and dependencies to meet the needs of the business.
Scope
I find scope one of the more confusing constraints for project leaders. I feel this is due to confusing requirements for scope. For a refresher, requirements are what the project is expected to deliver. The scope is how you plan to deliver those requirements.
For a very easy to understand example, let’s consider the process of crafting a sandwich for a customer. The customer's requirements include 2 slices of bread, thinly sliced tomatoes, pickles and onions, some lettuce, and turkey. As for the scope? You can consider sourcing the materials, prepping the ingredients (e.g., slicing the tomatoes), and ultimately assembling the sandwich.
Similar to the considerations of time and cost, effective scope management isn't going anywhere. Executing on projects of the future will come with a range of possibilities due to emerging technology and the vast scale of change. This will make keeping scope under control quite challenging, but also highly rewarding. Project leaders and their teams will have various levers to pull, leading to new ways of doing things that are superior, more accurate, and faster.
To make this constraint a strategic advantage, project managers must fully grasp the success criteria for not only their programs but also the organization as a whole. With this level of information, they will have a clear understanding of where they can make adjustments to meet the project's requirements while staying within the scope's boundaries.
Tradeoffs & Opportunity
Before moving on to the new project constraints, I want to touch on how each of the traditional constraints work together and where I feel there is untapped potential for project leaders and the organizations they work for.
Most project leaders start off by reviewing the success criteria of their projects, which allows them to quickly identify the constraints. Based on this, project leaders can make initial assumptions. For example, if the budget is extremely tight, it's likely that the scope will be affected in some way. If there's a firm project deadline, the budget might need to increase or the scope could be impacted. These are just a few examples of the challenges project managers need to address, doing their best to work within the boundaries of all three constraints.
This is where I see an opportunity – with project leaders better connecting strategy with execution. For instance, if the project they're working on is expected to completely transform the company for the better, would going over budget, missing a deadline, or modifying scope be that concerning? Maybe yes, maybe not. The key is to have your eye on the bigger prize that sits beyond your project or program. As future project leaders, bringing up such questions to senior leadership when they arise could instantly increase the value of the entire project management profession let alone you as a leader.
With that said, it’s time to dive deep on the new constraints impacting the projects of tomorrow.
✨ Future-Proof Your Projects: 7 New Constraints
Has there ever been such an exciting time to manage a project? Never before has such scale, influence, and disruption been at our fingertips. With this level of change comes a whole host of new things to control—seven, to be exact. And while what I’m about to explore with you is my very own opinion, I do feel it’s critical, at the very least, to gain a good understanding of each of them and how they fit into your world as a project leader.
Each constraint is dynamic and carries no default weight. You must review each of them yourself and decide how much of a factor they will play in your future projects.
Benefits
The projects of tomorrow will be bigger with a greater level of strategic importance tied to them. These initiatives will be born due to long-term opportunities that were identified or to help secure a few more years of survival in the most competitive of landscapes. In both cases, more often than not, this is due to wide-scale disruption. These expected benefits, as you can imagine, will lead to all sorts of constraints to control. If you need to launch a new product at all costs to save the company from steep revenue declines, what sacrifices need to be made? If your company is migrating its entire platform to a new version, what level of financial risk is the company comfortable taking on to make it happen?
Project leaders, or those thrust into the role, need to have a crystal-clear idea of what the end result (i.e. the benefits) will look like. After doing so, they need to ensure every aspect of their execution is leading to that realization. More importantly, there needs to be a clear and mutually agreed upon definition of the acceptable level of commitment to the project benefits versus everything else of importance. Make no mistake, tradeoffs will need to be made. The benefit constraint is not an easy one to manage as it often conflicts with the traditional constraints. More often than not, this becomes one of the more important constraints given it’s tied to the very essence of the transformation initiative.
Brand
Whenever a new initiative is launched, especially one of ample size, there will ultimately be a first impression tied to it. Sometimes, these initiatives need to meet an extremely high standard right out of the gate to meet the lofty expectations the end user and the general public have developed based on brand perception. While a brand is an intangible asset, it can be immensely valuable and should be strongly considered when executing a strategy. Think of Apple or Coca-Cola as examples of what a strong brand can be.
This can become challenging for the project leader who is managing a host of other constraints, such as tight timelines and inadequate budgets. In situations where brand becomes a constraint, launching a product with only the minimum viable features may not be feasible. Project leaders need to gain a solid understanding early on of what constitutes must-haves in terms of requirements, quality, and more to effectively manage brand expectations.
Culture
Many of us consider culture one of the most vital aspects in fostering a healthy company, and indeed, it is. However, we often falter in effectively managing it when it comes to projects, and this is a significant mistake.
The rationale for dedicating effort to managing culture as a constraint is twofold. Firstly, any new initiative, especially one of large scale, can impact culture, either positively or negatively. If the company has cultivated a healthy culture, it's crucial to ensure that the end result of the project doesn't undermine it in any way. Secondly, the existing culture itself can either bolster or hinder the project's progress. For instance, a culture that places a high premium on work-life balance may not react favorably to a stressful transformation initiative that demands extensive overtime. The future's most adept project leaders will closely oversee both scenarios to maintain the culture while minimizing disruptions to the project itself.
People
A company's culture is nothing more than an amalgamation of its people, each with their own emotions, feelings, and values. It's no surprise that people, not processes or technology, pose the biggest obstacle for large-scale transformation. Resistance, fueled by fear, anxiety, and anger, is a common occurrence, and it's up to the project leader to manage this effectively.
As you can imagine, pushback can and will lead to unnecessary scope creep, missed timelines, and, worst of all, result in a finished product that's nothing like what was intended. So, what is a project leader to do? For starters, open and proactive communication will alleviate some of the uncertainty felt, and in the best cases, provide a sense of ownership for the people undergoing the change. Educate your stakeholders for why things are changing, how it will happen and what the expected benefits will be. Throughout the project, ask the teams for their feedback and truly listen to the suggestions they offer. The best way to manage change is to provide some sense of control to those who are impacted.
Quality
Although quality is a primary focus for project leaders, I believe it's best evaluated as a constraint. Similar to the brand constraint, quality can hold significant importance for certain organizations and should be integrated into the project's overall requirements.
Let's consider the example of launching a new diagnostic tool for a heart monitor. It's evident that this device must maintain an extremely low variance in output, meet a specific threshold for uptime, and consistently deliver a high level of accuracy. Failing to meet these quality standards is simply not an option for a project of this nature. Therefore, project leaders must strike a balance between the demands of other constraints, such as scope, people, and timing, while ensuring that quality standards are maintained at a specific level.
Requirements
Remember, risks are what the project aims to deliver, and scope is how you plan to deliver them. From my perspective, requirements need to be managed as a constraint just as much as scope. A requirement could be a key product feature necessary to outperform a competitor, or it might involve having a specific level of language support to launch in a new market. If both of these requirements are primary reasons for the project's existence, you can bet a substantial amount of money that they will take priority over budget, timing, and scope. Experienced project leaders understand this and highlight any potential risks to meeting mission critical requirements to those that need to know. With this proactive level of communication, they also provide multiple options to lessen the impact to constraints lower in priority based on the trickle down effect.
Risks
Finally, we are left with another familiar area of project management I'm officially marking as a constraint. As projects become larger and more complex than ever before, the level of risk will also increase. Risks associated with organization-wide transformations can pose a significant threat to the business.
Leaders responsible for managing these types of projects need to address risks iteratively, consistently searching for new risks while monitoring those that have already been mitigated. If the need arises, a project leader should establish various stage gates, not only to review project progress but also to assess the level of identified risks. These meetings can serve as go/no-go decisions with all key stakeholders making the decision to proceed with the project or not based on how risky it’s becoming compared to the expected benefits.
One of the most significant value-added aspects of a project leader is their ability to effectively manage risks. This importance will only grow from this point forward.
Just like traditional project constraints, each new one needs to be balanced among each other to have a better chance at project success. It is up to the project leader not only to identify all 10 but also to work with key decision-makers to prioritize them if many are present. Remember, the ultimate goal is to create real value based on strategic ideas, and this is a step in the right direction to make it happen.
Conclusion
If you've read this article and concluded that projects are becoming more complex and harder to manage, you'd be correct. I believe this is a positive development as it solidifies the long-term value of project leaders. Expect me to go deeper into each of these new constraints in future articles. Subscribe now to ensure you don't miss out.