Project delivery by nature are complex endeavor that involves many team members and fraught with opportunities for things to go wrong. There is school of thought in the project management world that if you mind the store - keep track of the process and call regular progress meetings that the project will get delivered. It takes more than just managing to delivery a project and ensuring an enhanced client experience.  

The is commonly recognised that context of the projects is always changing and project leaders need to evolve leadership styles to suit each new permutation of the project lifecycle. The ability to anticipate, identify and react positively to changing project context are increasingly sought-after qualities in project manager. The ability to deliver project is both an Art and a Science.

It is very easy for project managers to be lost in the process of delivery of project and loose sight of the contextual interactions in project delivery. There are two layers of context interactions in every project: one is structural and the other is situational and yet both these contexts are important.  

  •  One of the layers of context is the structural contextual interactions which involves the elements of governance such as process; standards and practices.
  • The second layer of context is situational contextual interactions which involves reacting and proactively responding to changing situations in a project.

Both these contextual interactions require different approaches as projects by nature are complex and dynamic and effective project delivery comes form managing the structural context while being sensitive to situational context. These are opportunities for project leaders to evolve leadership styles which is outcome focused – result oriented.

We all want our projects to be successful and we are forward-looking and optimistic when we start the project. To successfully deliver project we need to understand how to react to these two context and recognise the difference between the two types of context.

Structural Context are elements designed into the PMO - laying out things like project governance; project process; span of control, decision-making authority, and distribution of resources are important and the extent (completeness) and especially the coherence (consistency) and the integration of this context into projects are extremely relevant for ensuring effective project delivery.

The fact that project delivery experts are called “project managers” leads to a tendency to control and the rigidity of project process rather than empowerment; there is tendency to “manage” the process versus “enabling” the process; authorization versus liberating and inspiring.

Project leaders who recognize flexibility in structural context; striving for improvements rather than protection or inviolability of governance context - allowing flexibility of structural context or even stimulates one to do so - ensures effective structural contextual interaction.

Situational Context are elements of understanding on the client’s their corporate culture; corporate goals and objectives and more importantly organization’s biases. These elements will give one the understanding of the context for the project. Arm yourself with this information together with the business’s needs that initiated the project; what is the history that has led to the need? How was the project recognized, and why is the project planned now?

The ability to take this initial situational context and navigate it through the life cycle of the project will determine the quality and the effectiveness of the project delivery. The manner with which you deliver the situational context and disseminate this knowledge at project onboarding will determine how the rest of the team will react to their own deliverable for the project.

A project team with diverse experience; expertise and understanding of project delivery will connect with you in their own ways (to the determent of the project) if they have not been imparted the knowledge and do not see your commitment to drive the initial situational context through the project life-cycle.

Starting project onboarding with the right context rallies the team around a common goal while shaping a clear vision of project delivery and thus drive the project towards a successful end.

Project life-cycle is fraught with situation or decision making points involves reacting and proactively responding to changing situations in a project. It is an understood fact that in projects a solution that worked on another project does not necessarily work on the present project.

A seasoned project manager will keep their eyes open to situations that are changing and recognize decision points that require action. Situational context will enable you to take the right decisions at every point in the project and rally the team around a solution and drive the project towards a successful end.

Project leaders who recognize project onboarding must start with situational context and project decision make must be relevant to the situational context ensures effective situational contextual interaction.

Context recognition and understanding and acting on it, is critical to effective project delivery. The key then is to develop a habit of context awareness. In being aware, you can anticipate changes to your project environment. In this way, you're always thinking just one step ahead in any given situation or environment, and can be able to adapt accordingly. Cultivating this skill is especially helpful when your project context may shift or change in subtle or major ways, or in an instant in a project.

Philip Thomas - Optimizing Project Delivery Services; Workplace Experience Strategist; Design & Circular Thinking; Evangelist for disrupting the AEC Industry.

I do write on Enhancing Client Experience; Project Management; Design Thinking and Circular Thanking; The Untethered Workplace – The Future of Work & the Workplace of the Future and on Disrupting the AEC industry.

To read more on these subject go to our Blog page on our website: www.optumplus.com